WRITTEN BY EMILY BURNHAM
Many things about the trucking industry have changed in recent decades, from major technological advances to evolving rules and regulations around safety and emissions.
But many of the core reasons people begin careers in trucking remain the same, said Karen Stone, workforce grants and program manager at Eastern Maine Community College. Last year, Eastern Maine Community College began a partnership with Ancora Training to offer a 160-hour Class A CDL program.
“You make good money, you don’t need a college degree, and there’s something really appealing about being on the road and traveling around the country,” Stone said. “Those are things that don’t change. But there’s lots of stuff that is different now as well.”
For starters, many of the people entering the trucking workforce — whether straight out of high school or coming to the industry in their 30s or 40s — are looking for a work-life balance that in previous generations wasn’t generally available.
“A lot of folks are looking to start families, or already have kids at home, and want the kind of flexibility that allows them to be home for the holidays or other big milestones,” Stone said. “Truckers today, I think, value that work-life balance, and the industry has had to respond to that in order to make these careers appealing.”
Stone also said she finds there are generally two types of people looking to get their CDL licenses. The first are people coming straight from high school, many of whom come from trucking families involved in the lumber, paving, or construction industries. They want to continue their family business and may have parents, uncles, or grandparents who drove.
Then there’s a second wave of license-seekers who come to the industry in their 30s and older, who may have had a different career previously and are now looking for something different.
“Trucking is a new adventure for some of those folks,” Stone said. “This is a second career. We had a couple come into the program who both got their CDLs, so both the husband and the wife can team drive. That’s not something that would have happened in previous decades.”
For those younger drivers, however, Stone said many tend to be much clearer about what they want out of their careers and are willing to advocate for themselves to make sure the job is giving them what they want.
“I tell them to set their expectations for what they want and to find the employer that will give it to them,” she said. “Years ago, people went on the road knowing they were gone until they came back, and they were on their own. But now the industry has become more accommodating for employees. There are more jobs than there are workers, so they have to be.”
In Maine, there are multiple places where prospective drivers can get their licenses. In addition to CDL training courses at Eastern, Central, Kennebec Valley, and Northern and Washington community colleges, Northeast Technical Institute locations in Bangor and Cumberland have long offered CDL training. Other options include Caribou Regional Technology Center; Loring Job Corps Center in Limestone; St. John Valley Technology Center in Frenchville; Maranacook Adult Education in Readfield; Oxford Hills Adult Education in Oxford; Region 9 Truck Driving in Mexico; Tri-County Technical Center in Dexter; Somerset Career & Technical Center in Skowhegan; Keep Right Commercial Driving School in Albion; and GoDriving in York.
The workforce training programs at Maine’s community colleges are, for now, free thanks to funding from the Harold Alfond Center for the Advancement of Maine’s Workforce. But Stone said she finds that students coming for their CDL licenses or other programs aren’t solely doing it because it’s at no cost to them.
“They’re not coming because it’s free,” she said. “They’re coming because they’re seizing an amazing opportunity.”
