Truck Parking Club: The Clubhouse

Mike (Truck N Things - trucknthings.com) went to school for social media marketing at Madison College, then looked at the money, entry-level marketing jobs paying $40,000 to $50,000 versus truckers pulling six figures, and changed course. He talks with Michael Lombard about getting his CDL in 2015 alongside his dad, and how the whole family followed: mom, dad, and brother all ended up driving. He walks through starting on flatbed at System Transport out of Spokane, bouncing through JB Hunt, intermodal and Home Depot flatbed in Chicago, and PODS work, before landing at a Chicago-area carrier as a 1099 contractor on percentage pay, which he prefers, the kind of split where a single 300-mile load can pay $4,500. He and Lombard get into the 1099-versus-W2 debate that lights up his content, why his wife's health insurance is what makes 1099 work for him, and the rhythm he runs now: grind two months, then take two or three weeks off, plus a long family vacation every year, this year a full month in Orlando. On parking, he is candid about sleeping on the shoulder when he had to, a storm south of Dallas, police now knocking door to door, and finding Truck Parking Club when the I-40 rest areas were closed and the Pro and TA outside Albuquerque were packed, booking a spot near the airport instead. His advice for new drivers: put in your two years at a mega, then find a small family company and actually read their drivers' pay statements, and above all, truck your way and make it fun.Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/h3YiuOiS_-UUse code trucknthings for $20 off your next booking.List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

www.truckinglifewithshawn.comShawn (Trucking Life with Shawn) is back, and this one is a story. The Georgia driver has run 17 years with zero violations, but he's candid about how he got here: a GED earned in prison, then driving himself to CDL school in 2008 on six rotating car batteries after his alternator died, crawling under the truck to shift a broken linkage by hand, and calling Rosedale Transport five days straight until they finally hired him despite his background. He walks through losing 92 pounds on the road, writing seven books including his Amazon bestseller and the new "Carnivore in the Truck," and the reason he's opening a CDL school. He turned down a $100,000 investor who wanted to run it like a mill, then watched drivers fund the whole thing themselves, a lot, two trucks, a trailer, an office, and the last $150 of a $15,000 goal landing at 5 a.m. on the deadline, every name going on a Founders Wall. He and Michael Lombard get into why he teaches on manual transmissions with four students per truck, the free state-by-state truck parking guide he built with Truck Parking Club spots baked in, and the free trucker GPS he's piloting that trip-plans around your hours of service and routes you to a reservable spot before the clock runs out.Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/HIQk0DW0Aug List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Stephen Fagg was a personal trainer and bodybuilder living paycheck to paycheck when a best friend's paychecks pulled him into trucking in 2018. He got his permit solo, was the last driver Hersbach took on a permit, trained eight weeks under that friend, and passed his CDL first try. He explains grinding a lease-purchase to bank about $28,000 in eleven months, putting $14,500 down on the 2020 Volvo VNL860 he still runs and paid off last year, running a year under a friend's authority on an 80/20 split before jumping to his own, and switching off refrigerated freight to dry van for the sleep and the sanity. He gets into surviving the 2023 rate crash by running loads nobody wanted into New York City, why he calls the five boroughs his playground and backing his favorite thing in trucking, and how a blind-side Bronx dock back turned into viral reels (one at 6.3 million views, another at 9.4 million) after his accounts kept getting shut down over the Big Fagg Trucking name. He found Truck Parking Club looking for monthly parking near Midlothian, Texas, has since used it from Minneapolis to Seattle, and wants to buy a lot of his own someday. His advice for anyone eyeing a CDL: if you have a family, run local, and whatever you do, watch your health.

Jordan (Jordan's Way) was a full-time stay-at-home dad who fell into trucking almost by accident, jumping in an automatic day cab to haul corn during harvest because it was the only truck his brother's boss had available. He got his CDL in December 2021, just before training became mandated, and jokes that he was self-taught. He explains working his way up from local cattle feed to tanker to step deck and now running oversize on the detach out of the Oklahoma panhandle, hauling a John Deere 8R the day of the call. He talks about what being his own boss really means (one text message a day, nap when tired, run when he's got energy), the overwhelming reality of parking over the road as a new driver (his first night was spent on an on-ramp), and finding Truck Parking Club off the tags at a lot south of Wichita. He gets into the amenities that actually matter to drivers, a bathroom over showers, DoorDash range, and cameras for peace of mind since he travels with his family, why he's a Kenworth guy stuck in a 2013 Peterbilt 367, his multi-camera Insta360 content setup, and his advice for new drivers: watch what you say out there, and loosen up your grip.Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/vWCUgUtwLjU?feature=share List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Sean Smith, who posts as FitTrucker1975 and rides a unicycle around the country as Mr. Uni America, is 25 years into trucking with 15 of them pulling tankers. He makes the case that tanker work is the easiest money in the business because there are no docks to bump, walks through the different kinds of tanker freight worth breaking into, and warns that it is never the first turn that rolls you, it is the second. He also explains how he fits workouts into fuel stops, and calls in from Paulsboro, New Jersey ahead of a storm bringing high winds, flooding, and possible tornadoes. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_OwT1GYr_4 List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Tereasa was a behavioral therapist for children with autism and a hair stylist before her aunt, in for a haircut, talked her and her partner into expediting. She explains convincing him to walk away from ten years of construction work, paying their own way through CDL school, and only finding out afterward about the workforce programs that would have covered the cost. They now run expedited freight in a Class B truck for a fleet owner on a sixty forty split, which she reckons pays about what over the road work does for far fewer miles. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kxOKNBqYcw List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

OTR Bandit was working a factory job in Missouri with seniority and full benefits when his cousin got into trucking, and he figured he would drive two or three years and quit. More than twenty years later he runs his own authority, having bought a truck after about a year as a company driver and started his own company six months after that. He also gets into the load he lost that morning when a storage facility would not release product over an unpaid bill, the blacklist of shippers he will not take freight from, and why he would rather leave than sit collecting detention. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBuEQ9LnQMI List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Brandon Colson, who goes by Scooter, grew up on his grandfather's stories about running flatbed across the Midwest and came back to that after trying factory work and cooking out of high school. He explains how a classmate who had become an owner-operator walked him through the modern steps, and how PAM Transport covered his schooling before he passed his class in May 2014. Twelve years in, he talks about bouncing between over the road and local work hauling grain and running for PepsiCo, and why the same route every day makes him stir crazy. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4je6IjfubI List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Alex, who goes by King Ace, hits 16 years this September, having left a Lowe's job and college in Baton Rouge after hearing enough stories from his brother and a delivery driver at the store. He describes a six month course at Diesel Driving Academy, starting on flatbed at TMC and rating their training highly for new drivers, and the short detours through reefer and beverage delivery before he settled into tankers. Fourteen years on he owns his truck and runs it leased to a carrier around the refineries and plants of the Gulf South, calling in parked at a shipper in Connecticut. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kAgUanXgOU List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Eddie V grew up shifting gears from the passenger seat of his father's whey tanker in Wisconsin, but never planned on driving until an accounting degree started looking like ten years of school for forty thousand a year. He walks through six and a half years spent almost entirely at small mom and pop carriers, mostly on step deck, including a year of dry van he gave up on over eight hour dock waits and a stretch hauling jet fuel and propane for his dad. He also explains why he asked for the oldest truck in the fleet, a glider with an older Detroit in it, so he could stay off the dealership lot and keep running paper logs. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChhSoCSduOM List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Maribeth Knueve and Joe Costello, both senior vice presidents at Marten Transport, talk about how they landed in freight and why neither would leave. Knueve grew up with a flatbed driver for a father and a mother in payroll at a tanker outfit, started in 2003, and joined Marten in 2011 selling into a Northeast market she had never set foot in, later launching the dry van division out of Edwardsville, Kansas with a couple of trucks and growing it toward 400. Costello came at it sideways, leaving a nursing program over a problem with blood and picking logistics because it looked like the smaller pond, and is 18 years in. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ISPiuId67I List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Demetri, who posts as OffendDOT, was waiting tables in Miami when he got his CDL in 2018 with a plan to drive one year, bank the money, and get out. Seven years later he traces a route through a Chicago flatbed job he found via a friend's connection made at a sauna, quitting twice, renting a beat up Cascadia and a reefer trailer with a hole in the wall after the pandemic, and selling his truck, his trailer, and his trucking Instagram account when the war started in Ukraine. He explains how two weeks back as a company driver ended with him walking into a Freightliner dealership in Austin, buying a truck, and opening his own authority a week later. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMcXTDV5bsU List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

The Ramblin' Nomad returns to talk about what the job did to his health and what he has done about it. He describes putting on about 40 pounds once his income doubled and COVID left him with time and money to burn, landing in the pre-diabetic range, then cycling through low carb and carnivore stretches that never held up against 70 hour weeks. He explains the reverse dieting approach of the last eight months that has him eating three to four thousand calories a day, pulled his numbers out of pre-diabetic territory, and left him the leanest he has been in a decade, all from a line of trucks in Plaster City, California waiting on gypsum. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjKQZpsZUms List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Jacinda is a third generation driver who grew up riding in her mother's belly dump, but never considered the job herself until coworkers at FedEx Express, where she spent ten years as a courier, kept asking why she did not drive trucks. She explains taking a ramp transport shift specifically to keep her afternoons with her kids, running limos and party buses on weekends, then spending two years with a commercial driver temp service taking a different trailer type nearly every day to find out what she liked. She is candid about learning flatbed securement from videos and asking customers to show her how they wanted their own freight strapped. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI8irDhypc8 List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Daiza Cummings was a multimedia journalist working news stations and aiming at sports reporting before a friend in Atlanta running hot shot loads put trucking in front of her. She describes two months at Milwaukee Area Technical College, learning to handle a semi through a Wisconsin winter, and starting at a third generation family carrier six days after passing her test, where she ran dry van for two and a half years. She now owns her truck and runs under Landstar, calling in from a truck stop in Cameron, Missouri with her dog Winter. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_RJN__wZhw List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Casey Duvall got her Class A to operate cranes for the operators local in Tuscaloosa, until a training course in Texas put her in a dump truck and changed her plans entirely. She explains how three or four years of dump truck work led her to cold contact Gentry and Sons after watching their videos, pitching herself with no over the road experience but a hazmat, a TWIC, and a passport, and how she later brought her partner Clayton over from building race engines. They team drive together now, calling in from Nebraska with six hours left to run. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AygrjtkkuSw List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Lolo drove for UPS and worked warehouses before that, and spent her first years out of high school as an EMT on an ambulance. She explains that driving a semi never occurred to her until she saw a woman her own size doing it on TikTok, and how fast that turned into studying for a permit and signing on with a starter company. She also talks about lining up a Louisville delivery so she could make the Mid-America Trucking Show, and why she makes a point of visiting the booths nobody else is stopping at. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJIHYaRMh0Q List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Trucker Misty owned a tire and brake shop in Louisville for ten years before it stopped covering the bills, and got into trucking on the recommendation of friends already doing it. They walk through paying their own way through CDL school at fifty dollars a week, six months of training at a carrier, and buying their current truck from a small operator, with a first trailer purchased at the Mid-America Trucking Show. Six shows in, they argue this year was the most driver focused one yet. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBD7r40BTYw List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Trent is a hotshot trucker, truck camper, and cook who was building fence in Wyoming and pulling gooseneck trailers when a friend from junior high pitched him on running hotshot without a CDL. On the last day of the Mid-America Trucking Show he talks about meeting his sponsor and a long list of other creators face to face after months of only knowing them online. He also explains the habit he brings into every shipper and receiver, asking people how their day is going whether or not they want to talk, and why he thinks it changes more than just his own day. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nduYfmJFlk4 List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Rob Finch talks from the show floor on day two, where the transportation secretary took the stage, which is not something that normally happens at a truck show. He explains why he drove down from Pennsylvania this year rather than bringing his truck: the CAT in his 2006 Peterbilt locked up in Joplin, Missouri, and instead of paying a $10,000 tow he had a fellow Landstar driver bring out an RGN and haul the truck home. He also gets into the brand new engine going in for the long run, and what he set out to do with his Trucking Resources channel. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDFS6EqnngQ List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Trucker DC joins from the floor of the Mid-America Trucking Show on day one, a former chef who lost his kitchen job during COVID and finally went and got the CDL his father had been pushing on him since he was 18. He talks about his wife leaving real estate to get her own license, three years of team driving across all 48 states and into Canada, and hauling pharmaceutical grade refrigerated freight. They also get into what six dollar diesel does to a small operator, and why running team means never having to park on an off ramp. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J75YMMkF_hs List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

The Moose spent 17 years as a cable guy before ending up in the mountains and falling into heavy towing, work he did alongside the only two DOT officers covering six counties. He explains why moving back to the city killed the economics of towing, how he paid his own way through driving school while driving Uber to cover bills, and what his first year running open deck for TMC has been like. He calls in from a Flying J in Haw River, North Carolina, a few hours after a company driver backed into him. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOm_QK7Pz1c List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

The Corvette Couple are a week out from their first Mid-America Trucking Show and planning it down to whether the parking field is paved, how the shuttle runs, and whether there is any food once the short show hours end. They explain how being company drivers means telling their planners where they need to be and letting the loads work around it, and why they want to document the logistics for other first timers. They also talk about arriving in trucking from the car world, and the show producers who were briefly confused by their reservation. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYrcMZXh_EU List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Bad Reputation is a third generation driver with more than 30 years in, following his grandfather and father onto open deck work. He talks about leaving a loom fixer job at a cotton mill, walking into a Georgia driving school and testing out of everything but a two week refresher because his father had already taught him to back and pre-trip, and holding only five driving jobs across three decades. He explains why he stays put, including the two carriers that went under from under him, and why the one he is with now is where he plans to retire. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIZMDCaAbrk List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Trucker Matt left the military in 1989 and was working as a trailer mechanic in Chicago when he started asking the drivers coming through what they got paid, which ended his mechanic career. He describes getting a CDL in about five days back when that was possible, six months learning the job on container runs between Chicago rail yards under low bridges, and buying his own truck almost immediately after. He is 28 years into pulling reefer, and calls in from Nashville after his reefer unit quit and cost him a load over a part that takes ten minutes to install. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24IRxDUKPLI List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Rob Finch, who runs the Trucking Resources channel, grew up in the passenger seat of his father's truck and figures he had a million miles in before he turned 18. He traces his own 24 years from dry van and reefer, through a year pulling a walking floor for a bulk carrier, to the switch to flatbed three years ago when he admitted he was bored. He also explains how he actually learned to drive, trained quietly on the side by a friend at a Pennsylvania carrier, and why the Mid-America Trucking Show is a convention to him more than a truck show. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLUXyZh0kNo List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Marko runs box trucks out of Chicago, a business he first got into in 2020 when his brother needed help covering the fallout of a failed partnership, and he had a commercial license within two weeks. He explains stepping away after an accident in 2021 and coming back in late 2024, and how much harder re-entry was the second time around, when broker portals auto-reject any carrier without twelve months of active authority. Crossing that mark in January opened up his access to freight, and he is looking at adding a second truck. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfTwsRYT0cw List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Steve is one half of the Real Truckers Couple, and he is clear the whole thing was his wife's idea, back when they were in Maryland with nothing and moved south to look after her deployed sister's house and kids. They have run team for 20 years, all of it expedite and mostly in box trucks, from Express One through FedEx Custom Critical to Panther, including a two and a half year stretch out of the truck dispatching from home when the economy turned. He also gets into the custom sleeper with a kitchen, bathroom, and shower that lets them park almost anywhere, and the stranger loads, like airplane parts to a Walking Dead spinoff set and a run to the plant building the reintroduced Camaro. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlrWpPQHtVA List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Rusty Cross worked factory jobs until a local Pepsi route paid for his CDL, and has since run food delivery for Performance Food Group, hauled cotton seed, and spent three and a half years over the road, homeschooling his son from the passenger seat as a single dad. He explains how chasing money turned into two, three, and four week stretches away from home, and how a stranger on TikTok sending him Dollar General pay stubs ended that. He now runs for Dollar General and calls in from their North Little Rock distribution center. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcEiVe6oxE8 List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Sara Dame grew up riding in an old Mack cabover with her uncle, who drove for Campbell 66, and found her own way back to trucking through recovery, using vocational rehabilitation to pay for a third party CDL school in South Florida. She got her license on March 5, 2020, watched her office job close on March 16, and was in a truck by March 25 with the carrier she still drives for, buying her own truck about two years later. She also explains why she locks in a parking spot before she ever reaches the receiver, having had her truck hit three separate times at truck stops. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppDJuxnjjBY List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Certified Redneck is a fourth generation trucker who grew up on a cattle ranch and picked up the handle from his grandfather during a hay season, when his neck was burned red. He talks about joining the Army out of high school in 2018 and being medically discharged a year later, then working as a mechanic before deciding he would rather drive than watch shops half do a job and bill for all of it. He is five years into running solo, calling in from Neosho, Missouri while waiting out Winter Storm Fern. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG-c7SqFK9I List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Chad Keegan walks through the 1978 International TransStar cabover he tracked down on Facebook Marketplace in Muncie, Indiana, days after offhandedly saying he could find one. He traces the truck from the Fort Wayne International Harvester plant to a gravel pit and then twenty years with a farmer, which is how it still shows only 133,000 original miles. He gets into the work since: steer tires dated 2015 and drives from 2002, swapping the Dayton split rims for tubeless 22s, and a 530 mile trip made at 58 miles an hour because anything faster shook it apart. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f92px1hlxkI List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

GrindNGears was a DJ running a music lessons business with his wife until COVID killed a 50 city tour and most of their clientele, so he fell back on the only other trade he knew from his father, a 30 year driver. He traces the road from non-CDL hot shot work for Carvana and DriveTime, through a Landstar lease purchase that went nowhere, to finally owning trucks outright. The way it happened is the story: one YouTube subscriber sold him a 2000 Freightliner FLD, another sold him a Prostar at half its worth, and a third, retiring, handed him the keys to a Freightliner Classic like his late father's. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMRWismOxBI List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

The Corvette Couple run one truck together after decades around Corvettes and Trans Ams. He rode along with an uncle hauling cattle as a kid, then spent years turning wrenches and running a Corvette shop before deciding, once the kids were grown, that it was time to see the country. Dea works the phones with dispatch, shippers, and receivers from the passenger seat and plans the stops, so the trip amounts to more than survival and miles. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBbHLVTdwuc List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Josh grew up on a farm and served seven and a half years in the Navy as a corpsman before working as a Harley-Davidson tech in Phoenix, where supporting five kids on shop pay pushed him toward a CDL. He explains how he wound up with an automatic restriction he is still working to remove, after being told his carrier ran manuals and discovering only the lease operators did. He now hauls equipment for Valley Transportation out of Grand Meadow, Minnesota, running step deck up to eleven axles, and his favorite load so far was a batch of military Humvees. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpT5GjHGWvE List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

The G.I. Joe Trucker checks in from Branchburg, New Jersey during the holiday push, parked off I-287 about 45 minutes outside New York City. He explains how he plans each day around a known place to shut down instead of gambling on a full truck stop late at night, handling fuel and showers mid trip so the end of the shift is already settled. He also settles the pork roll question and breaks down why New Jersey has more out of state football fans than anywhere else. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOdf2uROdww List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Shawn of Trucking Life with Shawn came to trucking about 17 years ago looking for stability after some wrong turns in his twenties, starting at Rosedale before stints at Heartland Express and local work, then returning. He now works from the office as a driver coach alongside safety and dispatch, and still goes out himself to recover trucks when a driver has a family emergency or lands in the hospital. He explains why a safety department staffed by former drivers lands differently, and how the ELD clock turned parking into the planning problem that shapes every day. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JexrLt2vtGY List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Fast Lane Felicia came up through motocross and motorcycle racing, spent her twenties climbing those ranks, and got a CDL in June with an eye on eventually driving for a race team. She talks about how much further connections carried her than raw talent, how little room there is for women on factory teams, and what five months of actually living on the road has been like. The call comes from Hesperia, California, after storms and wrecks on Cajon Pass made shutting down for the night the easy call. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3MWt6kxGLc List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Nate 'The Rambler' Mitchell wanted to fly, and lost partial vision in one eye to a bottle rocket on the Fourth of July in 1999 when he was 16. He explains how the FAA eventually closed the door on commercial flying after his medical retirement from the Army, and how the same eye left him with a CDL restricted to intrastate driving, which meant three years of local dump truck and flatbed work to prove a safe record before the rules were streamlined. He talks about what finally got him cleared to run over the road, and why the draw was always the exploration. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyovmLp7egs List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

The Ramblin' Nomad spent ten years in behavioral health care, working homeless shelters and a psych ward in Albuquerque, before a skateboarding injury ended that job and a stretch driving Uber convinced him he could make a living behind the wheel. He talks about the Greyhound ride to Springfield, Missouri for CDL school, five and a half years at Prime, and a two week stop at a carrier that never paid him. He now runs flatbed for Central Oregon Trucking Company, calling in from Essex, California with a load headed for Tennessee and then Minnesota. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKBjYVwM85s List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Wolfgang Wendland returns on his birthday for a broader conversation about why drivers should speak up. He argues the gaps in this industry are obvious within a week on the road, that staying quiet amounts to complacency, and that recruiters selling a version of the job that does not exist are a big reason capable people burn out and let their CDLs lapse. He makes the case for experienced drivers putting honest expectations in front of newcomers, whether or not they ever post about the larger issues. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTsBSLS-CBE List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

The G.I. Joe Trucker is a Marine Corps veteran from New Jersey who used his GI Bill for CDL school in 2012, after his daughter's grandfather talked him into it. He describes washing out of his first company over the switch to automatics, getting his real start at Frozen Food Express following a bus ride from Newark to Fort Worth, and running local for eight years before going over the road. He now hauls concert and stage freight, including a Dierks Bentley show outside Pittsburgh and a first load that put his truck on the floor of the Vikings stadium. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTi1OcBUE_8 List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Chad Keegan got his CDL in 2008 out of a factory job, then spent years watching carriers hand him their worn out trucks and take them back once he had fixed them up. He explains how that pushed him to cash out a 401k for a 1983 Kenworth K100 cabover he found sitting behind a building in Fincastle, Virginia, and the year of work it took before the truck hauled anything. He also gets into running his own authority, why he stays out of California and the congested Northeast, and the cabinets of trucking memorabilia he has collected. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRFlW6zlBhU List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Trucker DC earned a culinary arts degree and was cooking in Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton kitchens until COVID closed the restaurants and laid everyone off. He explains why he paid five thousand dollars of his own savings for CDL school in Colorado rather than take free training tied to a work contract, and how an instructor's connection put him straight into doubles and triples for a FedEx Ground contractor in Denver at 21. He calls in from I-5 in California with his wife driving, headed to a couple of pickups before turning back toward Missouri. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWmKXWP5CaQ List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Rich of Trucking with Rich worked a Volvo warehouse full time and Estes part time before talking to enough drivers coming through the dock to go get his own CDL in 2017. He runs through the path since: flatbed at Maverick, LTL team work at FedEx Ground, a stint at Landstar, then Southeastern Freight, and back over the road now that he owns his truck. He calls in from the TA in Wildwood, Florida, surprised to find open spots on the back row. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2p1NEOOxgI List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Joe of Trailer Slangin was managing a FedEx line haul operation in Las Vegas and got a CDL when nobody else on the line would, then met her husband in CDL school and never went back to the management job. She explains how the two of them ran team through the height of COVID, and how they later split an ammonia route across West Texas and Oklahoma, one loading and one delivering, so somebody was always home with the kids. The handle came off the CB and stuck. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5dwgqT50nY List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

DJ Dunaway comes from a family of drivers and started out on the other side of the dock, loading trailers in a warehouse before deciding he wanted to see the job from the seat. He maps out the eight years since: three and a half at Stevens Transport, two at US Express running dedicated Dollar Tree and Dollar General freight, and the last three at Hirschbach, whose lease program walked him through setting up an LLC and going owner-operator. He now pulls refrigerated Tyson loads and works the load board himself. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADuetA-zkpo List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Jamie, known online as Just Another OTR Guy, is a military veteran who used his GI Bill to become a licensed crane operator before finding out the jobs he wanted all required a CDL. He describes getting that license through the VA, being recruited by TMC Transportation's flatbed division while still in school, and the eight years on the road since. He calls in on Labor Day from a consignee lot near Buffalo, having pulled in to find the receiver closed for the holiday. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI9sTDI7tT0 List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Manuela Lozano runs a trucking company in South Florida with her partner, both second generation truckers who started driving at the end of 2019 and opened their own authority the following year. She explains that no lender would finance them at 24 and 26, so they bought four trucks and three trailers in cash to use as collateral before anyone would write a loan. She also talks about working as a logistics coordinator in Fort Lauderdale first, having sat on the shipper and receiver side before the carrier side, and about pushing her county on its truck parking shortage. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPwAsLMUDvk List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com

Austin, who goes by Monkey, is with the Truck Drivers of America charity and came to the road in 2019 after a housing recession ended his framing work in Michigan. He walks through the resume since: reefer at Stevens Transport, three and a half years on flatbed as a lease operator at Prime, and the recent move back to company driving for more home time and less liability. He also explains where the nickname came from, and why nobody who has watched him tarp a load questions it. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q2sxHBfFoA List your space or find parking at truckparkingclub.com