Where does the shovel go? It sounds like a joke, but it was a genuine engineering problem. Long-handled tools come in different diameters. They need to be reachable by someone in gloves, secured on rough roads, and stowable after a twelve-hour day in a flood zone. The answer to that question, and dozens like it, is what became Ford‘s redesigned disaster-response Transit for Team Rubicon.
The finished van, built through Ford Philanthropy’s Building Together program in partnership with Team Rubicon and storage specialist GRIDRACK, gives the organization’s volunteers, called Greyshirts, back roughly two hours per day in the field. Less than 48 hours after the build wrapped, the Transit was already in the Texas Hill Country supporting flood recovery.
Problems First, Blueprints Second
Ford didn’t start with a van. It started with a conversation. Ford Philanthropy engaged the GRIDRACK Consumer Insights team to shadow Greyshirts through actual deployments, mapping what equipment the volunteers carry, how often each item is accessed, how tools are pulled from storage when hands are dirty and time is short, and how the kit changes when the type of disaster changes. Ryan Keith, a Ford employee who also volunteers as a Greyshirt, put the original inefficiency plainly: “I saw that we were using a lot of our time loading and unloading vehicles. I questioned how much more we could be doing for people if we didn’t have to do this.”
That question drove the design brief. GRIDRACK engineers modeled solutions in CAD, built prototypes, put them in front of Team Rubicon, and revised based on what came back. The long-handled tool storage alone went through multiple iterations, working through vertical and horizontal configurations before landing on something that fit the van’s cargo dimensions and stayed accessible under field conditions. “That’s real field work,” said Matt Colvin of Team Rubicon. “Beating the hell out of this equipment and telling hard truths.”
Everything Has to Fit
The harder problem was density. At one point the GRIDRACK team laid every piece of Team Rubicon’s standard kit on the floor to see whether it could all coexist in one Transit. “There were a couple times where we had all of the things laid out, and we’re like, ‘There’s no way we’re going to fit all this stuff in this van,'” said Kristy Safarik of the GRIDRACK Consumer Insights team. Within about 90 minutes, she recalled, the equipment was organized and off the floor.
The finished setup uses dedicated vertical storage for long-handled tools, purpose-built bins for essential equipment, and modular wall panels that can be reconfigured depending on what a deployment requires. A flood response and a wildfire debris operation don’t draw from the same toolkit. The Transit accounts for that.
Two Hours Is Not a Small Number
Joe Provenzano, Director of Mobility and Volunteer Engagement at Ford Philanthropy, frames the two-hour figure in the clearest possible terms: “That’s two hours back to the community. That’s two hours more of work orders that Team Rubicon can execute.” Jim Brooks, CEO of Team Rubicon, adds a second dimension to those hours. Greyshirts return from the field carrying physical exhaustion and, often, the emotional weight of working in communities that have just lost homes or livelihoods. Time that isn’t spent wrestling with gear is time that can be spent regrouping before the next day starts.
Ford has been reaching beyond vehicles lately in ways that are easy to miss alongside the bigger product stories, from the $2 billion Louisville Assembly overhaul built around the Fathom electric truck to the workwear-inspired F-150 Carhartt Edition. A custom Transit for a nonprofit disaster-response organization won’t move the sales chart. But the global market for emergency and disaster-response vehicles was valued at $16.2 billion in 2023 and is on course to reach $25.6 billion by 2032. Ford is learning something useful about how purpose-built cargo space actually works, and it started with figuring out where to put a shovel.
Ford Transit Team Rubicon disaster response Photo Gallery
Source: Ford. Images courtesy of Ford.
