Gary Whitman, BSME

Mr. Whitman is Director of Crashworthiness and has spent his entire career in the fields of occupant crash protection, restraint systems, emergency escape, crash safety/survival, and life support engineering. Since 1978 he has been investigating automotive and aircraft mishaps and providing expert testimony in his specialty fields. He is co-inventor of a passenger vehicle safety seat system patent and a vehicle occupant crash protection system patent.

Mr. Whitman’s work is focused mainly on research, testing, design, and development of occupant crash safety systems, including child safety seats. He has collaborated with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the American Academy of Pediatric Child Injury Prevention, the National SAFE KIDS Campaign, and the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania on child restraint research and investigation projects.

Mr. Whitman was the technical lead on a program to develop an advanced occupant crash protection system for Army ground vehicles and a program with NIOSH to study occupant crash protection of ambulance occupants. He was also the Subject Matter Expert on another Army program to improve the occupant crash protection in the HMMWV ground vehicle and was technical lead on an Army program to improve blast and crash protection in Army ground vehicles. Mr. Whitman received the 1997 Pennsylvania Governor’s Highway Safety Award for Occupant Protection.