Andrew Sarkisian was part of the brainstorming team behind Ford’s MyKey™ technology. While his official title is safety manger, he is often referred to as the “father of MyKey.”

Andrew did a live chat here on August 14. Viewers could watch and hear him as he talked about what motivated him to bring this technology to production.

“We were brainstorming at work, thinking, ‘Is there anything we could do to our vehicles, anything we could add, to keep our kids safer?’” recalls Sarkisian, who has been with Ford for 31 years.  “And I was living out the scenario at home.”

At the time, he recalls, his younger daughter Kristin was going through driver’s education training, and his older daughter Lauren had just received her driver’s license.  He and his wife Sharon knew they couldn’t always sit in that passenger’s seat and offer direction.  But, he wondered, was there a technology that could?

“MyKey is not about control – it’s not anything that dramatic,” he says.  “It’s about love.  It’s about helping your children manage that transition from childhood to adulthood and keeping them safe while they do it.”

Ford’s MyKey feature, now standard equipment across many Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models, allows owners to program a key that can limit the vehicle’s top speed to 80 mph and audio volume to less than half the maximum.  MyKey also encourages safety belt usage, provides earlier low-fuel warnings and can be programmed to sound special chimes at 45, 55 and 65 mph.

Andrew Sarkisian