EverDriven welcomes Shannon La Rue as Vice President of Client Success
First Student’ s First Charge Solution receives 2025 Edison Award
DISPATCH
EverDriven welcomes Shannon La Rue as Vice President of Client Success
EverDriven, a leader in Alternative Student Transportation, announced the addition of Shannon La Rue as Vice President of Client Success. La Rue will lead a proactive customer success strategy centered on enhancing customer experience and deepening relationships with school districts nationwide, equipping the Customer Success team with the tools and resources to support longterm success.“ We are thrilled to welcome Shannon to EverDriven,” said Danielle Press, CGO of EverDriven.“ Her proven track record in building and scaling customer success teams, combined with her passion for our mission, will be key in strengthening our customer relationships and ensuring that we
Shannon La Rue continue to deliver exceptional value to the school districts we serve.” EverDriven’ s Customer Success team plays a crucial role in supporting school districts by ensuring proactive, high-touch engagement throughout the customer journey. Under La Rue’ s leadership, the team will continue to strengthen relationships with clients, identify opportunities to expand value, and deliver tailored solutions to meet each district’ s needs.“ EverDriven’ s mission to provide safe and reliable transportation for students deeply resonates with me,” said La Rue.“ I’ ve been married to a teacher for over 15 years, and I’ ve seen firsthand the impact that access to transportation has on students’ access to education. I’ m excited to help our customers maximize the value of our partnerships and ensure students have the support they need to get to school safely and on time.” Prior to her new role, La Rue spent more than eight years in the SaaS and EdTech industries, where she specialized in building and scaling customer success teams. Most recently, she served as Vice President of Customer Success at Nearpod, leading a team of more than 80 professionals to drive customer retention, mitigate risk, and enhance value expansion. Prior to Nearpod, La Rue played a key role in scaling the customer success department at PowerSchool, integrating multiple acquisitions, and improving retention rates. Her expertise in customer engagement strategies, proactive risk management, and cross-functional collaboration has consistently delivered long-term success for clients.
First Student’ s First Charge Solution receives 2025 Edison Award
First Student has been awarded a 2025 Edison Award in the Scalable Clean Transportation Energy category for their First Charge solution. First Charge is a modular, above-ground charging infrastructure engineered to overcome operational challenges for electric school buses and medium- to heavy-duty vehicles. Its patent pending flexible, expansion ready design streamlines deployment, reducing installation time and construction costs by up to 30 percent while enabling seamless scalability for fleet-wide electrification. This recognition exemplifies First Student’ s commitment to delivering
innovative solutions that empower customers to transition to cleaner, more efficient transportation. First Student developed First Charge to address operational challenges in electrification due to leasing many of their locations and time-intensive, cost-prohibitive trenching, digging, and boring. With operations in over 500 locations, there was a need for a modular service that allows districts the flexibility to start small and scale as confidence grows. This patent-pending solution is now available to all school districts and other medium- to heavy duty fleet operators on a subscription basis.“ We are honored to be recognized by Edison Awards for our industry-leading First Charge solution,” said First Student Head of Electrification Kevin Matthews.“ Electrifying school buses is essential for protecting children’ s health, enhancing safety, and securing a sustainable future. We’ re committed to continuous improvement and innovative solutions that make the transition to electric the best possible experience for our customers. With our deep industry expertise and advanced technology, we simplify EV charging, making sure students have a cleaner, safer, and more reliable ride to school, so they arrive ready to learn.” As the first V2X( vehicle-to-everything) charging solution, First Charge is enabling fleet electrification across the industry. With 450 electric school buses already deployed and 2,022 EVs awarded to date, First Student is driving electrification at scale. First Charge eliminates key barriers to EV adoption by reducing construction costs by up to 30 percent and significantly accelerating deployment timelines, allowing school districts and fleet operators to transition to electric vehicles more efficiently. The Edison Awards™ is one of the most prestigious awards celebrating innovation and excellence in products, services, and leadership that drive meaningful change. Celebrating groundbreaking advancements, finalists represent leaders whose work is shaping a better, more sustainable future.
NAPT. ORG | 11