The road to invention
Built through experience, observation and persistence.
Joshua’s path to invention was shaped not by a laboratory or a traditional engineering career, but by decades of hands-on experience, mechanical curiosity and an instinct to search for better solutions.
He began working at age sixteen at Crower Cams, the racing-parts manufacturer where his father worked. Although his first responsibilities involved cleaning parts, the environment introduced him to precision manufacturing and the mechanical systems behind high-performance engines. He became fascinated with understanding how things worked, why they worked and how they might work better.
That curiosity developed into a defining way of thinking. To Joshua, every system is a puzzle waiting to be solved. His mind rarely stops examining the world around him for overlooked problems, lost efficiency and opportunities for improvement. One principle captures his approach particularly well: “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” For him, meaningful progress comes from understanding each part of a system, moving deliberately and building the right solution rather than rushing toward the first one.
Joshua’s professional life deepened his understanding of transportation. He developed a lifelong love of driving, completed evasive-driving certification and earned his Class A commercial driver’s license at age twenty-six. He later operated his own trucking company and gained extensive firsthand experience with commercial vehicles, including Peterbilt trucks and their mechanical systems. Rather than depending entirely on others, Joshua frequently worked on his own equipment, developing a practical understanding of how complex vehicle systems perform under real operating conditions.
The idea that ultimately became Vela De Vento began with an observation that was both humorous and revealing. Joshua saw an electric vehicle being towed by a diesel-powered semi-truck. The irony made him laugh, but it also exposed a larger problem: battery-powered transportation would remain constrained if vehicles could not better manage energy depletion and extend their operating capability.
As a Californian, Joshua had often seen large wind turbines capturing energy from moving air. Drawing on his mechanical experience, his awareness of battery-depletion challenges and his belief that a better solution had to be possible, he began studying how those systems worked. He arrived at a deceptively simple question: Could energy already present around and within a moving vehicle be captured and put back to work?
That question became the foundation of a much broader vision. Joshua recognized that he was not examining only a potential solution for electric cars; he was exploring an energy-recovery platform with possible applications across transportation. Piece by piece, the concepts behind Vela De Vento took shape.
In 2022, Joshua met Erin Ley. Together, they developed the foundation of the technology portfolio and later established Vela De Vento Corp. in January 2024.
Joshua’s value as an inventor comes from the intersection of practical experience and persistent inquiry. He understands transportation from the driver’s seat, the business owner’s perspective and underneath the hood. His work reflects a straightforward belief: some of the most important innovations begin when someone with firsthand knowledge looks at a familiar problem and refuses to accept that the existing answer is the only answer.
