Expert witness provides a unique, multi-faceted perspective
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Expert witness provides a unique, multi-faceted perspective
As an expert witness primarily in the area of commercial vehicle accidents, Dr. Larry Parker offers his clients a breadth of expertise achieved over time.
Time on the road behind the wheel of a big rig. Time behind the owner’s desk of a trucking company. Time behind a lectern, teaching university classes in supply chain management. And time behind a uniform as a Marine Corps officer specializing in logistics.
“My career, my education, and entrepreneurial ventures have all layered to be some mixture of transportation and logistics,” says Parker, who started P42 Consulting four years ago in Tampa, Fla.
Those layers of experience began in Central Texas, long before Parker’s work ever involved depositions, DOT regulations, or accident analyses. Born in the small town of Rockdale near Austin but raised in Temple near military bases, Parker spent the school year in the city and his summers working on an uncle’s farm where he fed cattle in the morning and learned to work with his hands. The time on the farm with his uncle provided early lessons in responsibility, integrity, and preparation. Before Parker ever learned the language of supply chains, he’d learned the fundamentals of keeping things running and taking ownership when something went wrong.
“I grew to appreciate the importance of physical hard work and the value of taking care of things,” he says.
His mother, Molly Perry, was a licensed practical nurse who raised him as a single parent until she married Lewis Perry, an Army platoon sergeant who would shape the next chapter of Parker’s life. Parker’s stepfather led with structure, expectation, and by example. If his stepfather woke up early to run, Parker ran too.
“From day one, he took me around with him, so I was kind of born and bred to be in the military,” Parker says.
The lessons echoed throughout Parker’s childhood: treat people with respect, be firm but fair, and take responsibility for everything under your care. Years later, those principles would form the backbone of his expert witness philosophy.
In his 24-year career as a Marine Corps officer, Parker served in Japan, Korea, Australia, East Timor, Bahrain, Afghanistan, and throughout the Pacific Rim, Middle East, and Africa.
Even in childhood, there was evidence of Parker’s analytical and curious mind. When he was in second grade, a teacher recommended him for Star Fire, an accelerated magnet program where orchestra, foreign language, science fairs, and cultural experiences were core requirements. He played violin, studied Spanish, and traveled to universities for competitions. Many of his Star Fire classmates would go on to become surgeons, business owners, and senior military officers.
“I was someone who loved education,” says Parker.
He also loved basketball.
By high school, Parker stood tall at 6'7" and excelled in basketball. His stepfather’s expectation was that he would seek an appointment to West Point. But with future NBA Hall of Famer David Robinson making headlines at the U.S. Naval Academy, Parker chose Annapolis instead.
He calls it his “last rebellious act.”
The Naval Academy gave him both opportunity and adversity. He notably climbed the famed Herndon Monument in 1:34:50, completing a long-running plebe tradition. But he also struggled academically for the first time, which ultimately led to his leaving the Academy after two years. The setback, he says, changed him. He returned to Texas that summer and found work at a lumber yard. He remembers coming home exhausted and covered in sawdust. His coworkers encouraged him to return to school to pursue his full potential.
“It lit something in me,” he says. “I never wanted to have my fate in another man’s hands. At that point, I was going to bet on me because I believed in myself.”
The experience hardened his discipline. It also produced a foundational insight he still applies to his expert work: adversity reveals who someone is. The truth of a situation – whether in a classroom or in a trucking collision – does not bend to circumstances.
Parker transferred to Wittenberg University in Ohio, where he flourished. He grew a sweatshirt and T-shirt business in his dorm room, eventually supplying apparel to the university itself. An accountant once reviewed his taxes with him in the student lounge, his receipts spilling out of a Nike shoebox. Parker’s instincts for entrepreneurship, operational detail, and self-direction blossomed as he envisioned a future in business.
After earning a degree in history, Parker accepted a commission as a Marine Corps officer, planning to serve six years before moving on to business.
“Lo and behold, I got in and did my first six years in Japan, and I loved it,” he says with a laugh.
His military career extended to 24 years. He served in Japan, Korea, Australia, East Timor, Bahrain, Afghanistan, and throughout the Pacific Rim, Middle East, and Africa. As a supply officer, he coordinated transportation networks across continents – air, land, and sea – often under extreme pressure. He learned how systems fail, how people react, and how small decisions can cascade into large operational consequences.
Those experiences – especially seeing Marines in hardship – sharpened his instinct to look at people and events without bias.
Larry Parker bought his first truck – which he named “Big Red” – sight unseen while he was stationed overseas.
“The military truly honed and developed my skill to assess people because I got to see someone during adversity,” he says.
In the midst of his military career, Parker discovered teaching. While deployed on the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, he taught classes aboard ship – his first true taste of instruction. A chaplain introduced him to online teaching in 2010. From there, Parker pursued education relentlessly: he received a master’s in business administration from Liberty University in Virginia and then a doctorate in organization and management from Capella University, headquartered in Minneapolis, in 2017. Today, he’s the chair of Supply, Contracting and Acquisition Department at American Public University System, teaching worldwide while managing curriculum in what he calls “the supply chain management department.”
Teaching did more than deepen his technical expertise – it refined his ability to communicate complex systems clearly. His students benefit from his real-world experience; his clients benefit from his educator’s discipline.
After years of owning a trucking company, Parker began driving a truck in 2022. His first load was transporting lightbulbs from Dallas, Texas to Ocala, Fla.
But perhaps the most defining experience shaping his expert witness work came from entrepreneurship, particularly in the trucking industry. He’d always had an interest in business, but it reignited when he learned that a former Marine buddy, Paul Ellison, was working as a truck driver. A curious Parker grilled Ellison about the industry, asking questions about costs, operations, and what it meant to be an owner-operator. Soon after, in 2012, while still serving overseas, he purchased his first truck sight unseen with input from Ellison.
He christened the truck “Big Red.”
He bought his second and third trucks the same way. While Parker was deployed, Ellison managed operations stateside. Parker ran the company remotely, learning compliance, maintenance cycles, insurance pressures, hiring and firing, and the endless logistics of keeping freight moving. It broadened his understanding of how carriers operate – knowledge that would later prove invaluable in accident reconstruction and regulatory analysis.
He paused the business when higher military responsibilities required secure environments that limited communication. But after retiring from the Marine Corps as a Lt. Colonel and Command Inspector General in 2019, Parker restarted his trucking operations in 2022 – and this time, he got behind the wheel. His first load was moving lightbulbs from Dallas to Ocala, Fla. That drive changed everything.
“You don’t get an appreciation for a truck you own until you’re behind the wheel,” he says.
Feeling crosswinds on a bridge, the weight of an 18-wheeler pushing through traffic, the grind of inspections, the fatigue, the discipline of ELD (Electronic Logging Device) logs were no longer abstractions. They were lived experiences. The physical and mental demands of long-haul driving gave him insight no classroom, no office, and no regulatory manual could provide.
It became the heart of his expert testimony: he understands the industry from both the technical and the human angles. The operations and the physics. The paperwork and the road.
A colleague at American Public University System introduced him to the idea of expert witness work, recognizing Parker’s unique combination of ownership, driving, academic depth, and military logistics. The more Parker explored the field, the more he realized attorneys needed experts who could explain – not just describe – why events unfolded the way they did. His credibility came not from theory, but from having embodied nearly every role in the supply chain.
Today, P42 Consulting provides expert witness solutions nationwide. Parker works with both plaintiff and defense attorneys. He understands the pressures carriers face, the realities drivers encounter, and the standards companies must meet.
“There’s value in someone who’s not only operated a trucking company, but who’s experienced it from the driver’s standpoint as well,” he says. “In me, you’re getting both the technical expert and the practitioner.”
His ability to evaluate safety protocols, hiring practices, maintenance records, operational decisions, and driver behavior is rooted in decades of intersecting experience.
Outside expert work, Parker remains engaged in leadership and community. He is a proud member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., the Association of Supply Chain Management, and the National Naval Officers Association. He and his former wife raised two sons – Chris, now a police officer in Suffolk, Va., and William, an intelligence officer in the Marines.
His newest focus is a philosophy he calls “managing the circle,” which he recently presented at the International Coaching Federation. It is a framework for helping people balance commitments, relationships, and personal goals.
“Everything you enjoy is within your circle,” he explains. “Manage your circle, manage your time.”
At the core of all his work – academic, entrepreneurial, and expert witness – is the belief that effort and integrity matter.
“I love the challenge of standing on what I know,” says Parker. “On either side I’m working with, I just stand on the side of the truth of it.”
