Modernizing at the Source | A Conversation with Casey Garber of Carvana

For volume 12 of eLUMINATE: An eSTART Coalition Profile Series, we sat down with Casey Garber, a key leader on Carvana's DMV and Industry Affairs team. With a career that spans state government, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), and the private sector, Casey brings a rare, full-spectrum view of title and registration modernization.

In this conversation, Casey reflects on lessons learned as a former regulator, why coalition building matters, and how modernizing titling and registration directly improves the consumer experience.

Let’s start with introductions. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your role at Carvana?

I’ve been in the industry since 2006. I started with the Missouri Department of Revenue, where I worked on the legislative team before becoming the Administrator overseeing title and registration functions, along with dealer licensing. After that, I joined AAMVA and managed vehicle programs, including serving as project manager for a multi-year e-titling initiative.

I later moved into the private sector, focusing on remote online notarization and electronic signatures, before joining Carvana’s government affairs team. Today, my work centers on DMV and regulatory relationships, along with partnerships with law enforcement. I focus on compliance, modernization, fraud mitigation, and strengthening the partnerships that make the system work.

You’ve seen this ecosystem from multiple vantage points. How has your perspective changed over time?

It has changed significantly. When I was in a regulatory role, I understood dealer, auction, and other stakeholder feedback at a high level, but I did not fully appreciate what happened on their side of the transaction.

If I could go back and give my former regulator self advice, it would be to lean in and learn more about dealer and auction operations. I would visit their sites and watch how transactions actually happen. There can be a perception that industry feedback is self-serving. But in many cases, the friction they experience reflects real inefficiencies in the system that affect everyone.

Another shift in perspective has been around technology. Just because something has always been done a certain way does not mean it has to be done that way going forward. Often the law doesn't specify whether something must be paper-based, leading to decisions that box us into limitations that don’t actually exist.

Why is eSTART so important to Carvana?

Coalition building is incredibly important. When a single company approaches a state about a policy change, it can be easy to view that request as narrow. I would get asked by lawmakers, who else cares about this?

When dealers, auctions, technology providers, and service partners speak with a unified voice, it changes the conversation and shows that the issue is not isolated, but systemic. It also helps motor vehicle agencies prioritize among competing requests from the industry, because they can clearly see which issues have a broad impact. Anytime you can pull together different stakeholders within an industry and move in sync, it makes it a lot easier to solve a problem.

The eSTART Coalition provides a focused forum dedicated specifically to title and registration modernization. That narrower focus allows stakeholders to move the needle on practical solutions in a coordinated way. eSTART’s aim is to improve processes that affect dealers, lenders, auctions, service providers, and most importantly, consumers.

Carvana’s mission is to change the way people buy and sell cars. How does title and registration modernization support that goal?

Any time you remove friction, you improve the customer experience.

If paperwork can be prepared electronically, securely delivered, and signed without requiring someone to take off work, meet a notary during business hours, or wait for overnight mail, you’ve made that process easier for the consumer. Delays, errors, and stress are all reduced.

Modernization also benefits customers on the DMV side. If dealers can submit transactions electronically and resolve issues upstream, customers are less likely to spend hours waiting in line or making multiple trips because of missing documents.

There is also a misconception that electronic processes are inherently riskier. In many cases, electronic systems provide stronger authentication and better audit trails than paper. Paper can be altered the moment it is printed. Digital systems can provide layered safeguards that are difficult to replicate in a manual environment.

Where do modernization efforts most often break down?

E-titling in general can be really intimidating. Especially because e-titling is defined differently depending on who you talk to. The process touches liens, ownership records, dealer workflows, court systems, and more. It's a huge undertaking, and people don't know where to start.

There are also structural gaps, such as the lack of a comprehensive national lien database. When vehicles move across state lines and lien information does not travel cleanly with them, that can create complications for lenders, dealers, and consumers.

Another barrier is fear, particularly around fraud. Regulators are understandably cautious, but when states that already allow electronic signatures are asked whether fraud increased as a result, the answer is consistently no.

What are some practical places to start?

An immediate opportunity is reviewing where wet signatures are required purely by policy rather than statute.

Every state has adopted some version of an electronic transactions framework, and in many cases, electronic signatures are already legally permissible. So then it begs the question - why are we requiring a wet signature on this document?

Challenging those assumptions can unlock meaningful improvements without requiring legislative change. Even incremental policy updates can significantly reduce mailing costs, processing delays, and administrative burden.

If there is one message you would share with regulators and policymakers, what would it be?

I would challenge them to ask whether the current process is truly safer than the digital alternative. Often, paper-based systems are viewed as the default safe option, but that assumption does not always hold up under scrutiny.

I would also encourage regulators to talk with the states who have already implemented electronic signatures or digital workflows about what actually happened. What were they concerned about? What did they learn? In many cases, the feared outcomes simply did not materialize.

Modernization is not about removing safeguards. It is about strengthening them while improving efficiency and the customer experience. If we’re willing to have open dialogue, agree on some common ground, and question the way things have always been done, we can create a system that actually works better for everyone involved.