When Mark Wagner joined Ingersoll Rand, a multinational industrial products company, as a Penn State IE graduate in 1996, he never imagined that he would one day be at the helm of one of its major subsidiaries. That happened 25 years later, when Ingersoll spun off its Club Car division in 2021 and Club Car tapped Wagner ’96 Eng to steer the 60-year-old golf cart manufacturer into the future of transportation.

“Electric mobility has been in golf way before all the current buzz around Tesla and electric vehicles,” says Wagner. “From these golf car roots, we have expanded over the years into commercial utility vehicles used for work and neighborhood consumer vehicles used for leisure.”

Club Car’s latest innovation is a line of street-legal electric utility vehicles called the Club Car Urban that is proving to be a game changer for sustainability-focused universities such as Penn State, which has used Club Car carts on campus for more than a decade for facilities maintenance and athletics. Club Car Urban’s compact size and zero emissions make these vehicles ideal for navigating a busy college campus while moving heavy loads—and for reducing the carbon footprint of the university’s fleet. Penn State’s first Club Car Urban was delivered in March, and the university is currently testing it against other electric vehicles in its fleet.

“What I like about working with Penn State is they’ll help us innovate,” Wagner says. “The vehicle will really be put through its paces; we’ll look at that feedback and innovate together. This vehicle is produced in our expanded manufacturing headquarters in Augusta, Ga., so we can incorporate changes and suggestions quickly to better serve the university.”

The University of Georgia, University of Tennessee, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Chicago, and Northeastern University have all purchased Club Car Urbans for their campuses and to support each institution’s sustainability goals. —Daniel Oberhaus