Industry Leaders on 24/7, EVs, Labor, Policy and AI

Innovation and Practical Challenges The conversation also underscored the importance of balancing innovation with practicality. Parker described the value of multidisciplinary approaches, using fields from industrial design to business intelligence. Wallis Companies CEO Tracey Hughes observed that professors with a commercial mindset were often more successful in guiding students toward usable outcomes than tech professors. Laura Aufleger , president of OnCue, added that even when student recommendations were imperfect to their needs, their fresh perspectives challenged assumptions and opened new avenues for exploration, citing previous work with Oklahoma State University students. In terms of topics, Annie Gauthier , CFO/Co-CEO of Y-Not Stop – St. Romain Oil, proposed AI-driven scheduling tools to rethink the traditional eight-hour shift, an idea that connected with earlier conversations about work- force flexibility. Joe Hamza , chief operating officer at Nouria Energy, reflected on past student partnerships in marketing while working at a previous company and expressed enthusiasm for projects centered on data management and analytics. Others, like Jonathan Polonsky , CEO of Plaid Pantry, and Aditya Soman , VP Fuels for OXXO USA, and guest of CLVG member Hal Adams , OXXO USA’s managing director, shared examples of how academic projects could deliver community insights or be leveraged as learning opportunities for both students and companies. Polonsky reflected on a partnership with Portland State University where customer traffic studies yielded new insight on modes of transportation and alignment with QSRs, leading to reassessing their delivery and presentation. Soman recalls his time in graduate school doing similar real-world collaborative projects. While reiterating the proposal is still in its preliminary stage with thoughts being captured from other VGN groups, Roy Strasburger summarized that meaningful research should be a long-term, tightly focused effort ideally spanning multiple semesters or years. Additionally, VGN is considering collaboration with NACS or Conexxus to encourage well-rounded solutions that can benefit the industry as a whole.

CLVG members proposed several possible topics for capstone projects, including: • Using AI to boost profits and cut costs • Building AI tools for marketing, fuel pricing, and labor planning • Measuring marketing effectiveness with business intelligence • Analyzing turnover rates and transactions per labor hour

• •

Detecting fraud patterns using AI

Creating a single platform to manage and analyze company data

•

Exploring new media channels (YouTube, digital marketing)

•

Using AI to combine sales forecasting with employee scheduling Developing an app for flexible shift scheduling (3–5-hour shifts) Building tools to clean and organize raw data Studying customer trip modes to differentiate from QSR traffic Running multi-year, industry-wide business intelligence projects

•