Tanker Flatbed Refrigerated

Looks like I've pretty much decided to start my trucking career as a tanker yanker after tons of due diligence research and a job fair in Harrisburg, PA. This thread is fantastic. Still trying to decide on what kind of school, Sage School or Community College in Harrisburg, PA.

I have 3 prehires now. I've interviewed and got a pre hire with Sygma (very physical job with manual hand truck unloading via ramps in overnight hours alone at empty restaurants - concerned about yahoos coming along causing trouble since I'm a female alone. 1st year is $50k-$60k, and 2nd year is $75k, not home every day.

At the job fair, the last person I talked to was for a tanker job. The job itself is Monday thru Friday regional home every day, average is $900 - $1100 week gross 1st year and is percentage of load. They will hire me as a brand new driver out of Sage.

They said the local community college was not an accepted school for them to hire from. I asked why not, because it has an outstanding program of 240 hours as opposed to 150 hours at Sage. HACC trains emergency driving with bad weather, adverse conditions, road hazards. Trains you driving in a tanker, trains driving in night driving. He wrote down what I said and is looking into it.

Chinatown, you're very knowledgeable, & I appreciate all of your posts that I've read. You say that tanker is the best and that you would go with tanker over anything else?? I've been reading other drivers who have driven reefer, flatbed, car carrier, tanker say if they had to do it all over again they'd start with tanker and stay there.

Tanker is unloading with hoses, not ramps and hand trucks and tons of boxes like Sygma. Tanker is quick unloading, not hours of waiting for lumpers and in long lines to get a dock. According to truckers, tanker is best pay.

Based on tons of research and the fact that I'm a single mom with a 17-year-old 10th-grade daughter at home who likes me being home on weekends, this sounds like a good fit for my family (home daily). Now that I've pretty much decided on Tanker (is this a good choice??) , my remaining decision is Sage or Harrisburg Community College, keeping in mind this tanker job hires from Sage only. Is it really that imperative to get 240 hours at a school? Are the best carriers going to require 240 school hours or they won't even consider looking at you for hire?

I've been hauling people for 2 years in a chauffeur job and have a class B with bus driving experience as well (sparkling clean MVR). I'm excited to go Class A!

 

What are some good tanker companies for someone fresh out of CDL school. I livein Louisiana

 

Schneider and Prime for a mega tanker outfit.
Chinatown should know more of the less popular carriers. I think CTL and Trimac are two that might take a grad.

 

Do you know if any of these companies offer good hometime. Preferably every weekend