Ron Medford joined Google in January 2013 as its Safety Director for the Self-Driving Car Program. In this position Ron leads the program’s safety team that is working with other program development teams to ensure the safety of the self-driving car.
Prior to taking on this role at Google, Mr. Medford served as the Deputy Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), U.S. Department of Transportation from January 2010 until December 2012. Ron begin his career at NHTSA in May 2003 as the Senior Associate Administrator for Vehicle Safety. In this position, he was responsible for overseeing all aspects of the U.S. auto safety programs. This included vehicle safety research, regulations, enforcement as well as the National Center for Statistics and Analysis.
Before joining NHTSA, Mr. Medford was the Assistant Executive Director for Hazard Identification & Reduction at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). He was responsible for the regulatory and technical work of the Agency, such as overseeing the Directorates for Engineering Sciences, Health Sciences, Epidemiology, Economic Analysis as well as the Agency’s Chemistry and Engineering Laboratories. Mr. Medford spent more than 25 years in a variety of technical management positions at the CPSC.
Just prior to joining NHTSA, Mr. Medford spent 10 months on a government-sponsored sabbatical to work with Dean Kamen, an inventor from Manchester, New Hampshire. Mr. Kamen is president of Deka Research and Development Corporation and is known for his inventions of the IBOTTM wheel chair and the SegwayTM Human Transporter (HT).
Mr. Medford holds a B.S. and M.S. from the University of Maryland. He currently lives in Santa Clara, California