My son and I are Considering Swift

After reading tons of posts about the good and bad of Swift we figured we'd like to give it a try but here is our situation:

My Son is 18 and he will be out of High School in June 2010, we'd both like to go to the Swift training center in Texas, we live in northern Wisconsin, What we are wondering is will they take us both seeing as he is only 18, I know they say on their site that you have to be 18 years of age or older, but I know he has to be 21 to run Interstate.

We both have excellent driving records, no accidents, DUI's, etc. but neither of us has ever driven an 18 wheeler, the closes I came to it was a super sized U-Haul

But what confuses us most is they state that you must get a Texas Drivers license, and I'm assuming we will be taking the driving test in Texas and getting a Class A Texas license, then what does that mean when we live in Wisconsin, we come back here after training and get a Wisconsin Class A? And take the Pre-Trip and Air Brake and skills test again, or is it just like a drivers license for a regular car, just take the written and they give you a new license, but that would mean double the fees for the hazmat, doubles, tanker endorsements.

And do you have to stay at the Hotel they suggest or can you shop around for cheaper units seeing as it sounds like we pay for that of course? And what is the chance of my son and I getting the same room, I read on here where a husband and wife team in training can have the same room but I never found no posts on a Father and Son going down to Swift for training.

We have thought about a Tech school for training but the funds are not there for us to do it and Swift seems to provide most of the stuff and deducts it from your check so your basic outlay is for your food, license and DOT exam and hotel costs, or do they cover that.

I would call them to find all these things out but after reading a few posts on here on how the recruiter tries to lock you in and I was just wondering how it worked for any of you coming from so far away to train there.

My son and I won't be team drivers, he will do his thing and I will do mine but we want to go there together and do the training that way, there are no decent jobs up here in the northland, unless McDonald's is considered decent by someone.

So any kind of help or ideas in our situation would help out a lot, we are considering heading down there after all the paperwork the 2nd or 3rd week in June 2010.

Thank you for your time.

 

Just curious to as why state local jobs would require 2 years experience? You would think that with the more responsibility of Interstate driving it would be the other way around?
Thanks for your two cents, I want all kinds of feedback, Does the 2 years experience still apply if say like someone wanted to just drive local parcel type of vans not Class A, to get the driving experience, or does that even count when your not driving a tractor trailer but just a parcel type vehicle.

I forgot to add that of course my son would be trained by swift and hopefully swift would be the one giving him the in state jobs up here in our neck of the woods, so he wouldn't leave them after training to do locals for someone else, unless what you are saying is that swift don't do locals in our neck of the woods. Just to try to clarify my post