Moving between divisions (flt bd, reefer, van, tank) within a company?

Ultimately this question (***) centers around the fact that our ultimate goal for a driving career is to become a team. “Our” is referring to myself and my fiancé.


I would be the first to jump in and get my feet wet before she comes along for the ride. As well, I’m planning to capture any/every endorsement to allow for running virtually anything. Once she’s had a taste of OTR life and I’ve clocked a decent amount of miles, I plan to put her through school.


In my mind the best possible way to evolve this plan initially would be to go flatbed, since I have more experience (albeit indirectly) with flatbed loading, securement and tarping from my previous career (oilfield). Then, once I’m covered for riders and/or she is approved to ride, we hit the road together. If during this time I have an opportunity to also run reefer or dry van, that would definitely be an added advantage to making a decision in the future. I also realize the majority of tanker runs would prohibit a rider, so that option would have to wait pending her licensing, endorsements and time.


My thinking on this is basically to gain multi-level experience within one company to not only expose us to the more options for our goal of team driving, but to limit any exposure to economic downturns within the industry. This method of thinking served me very well within the oilfield industry but unfortunately did not run parallel with recent pitfalls of basic supply/demand economics.


***So if I run with a company that has multiple divisions and I have the proper endorsements and desired time on the road, what kind of issues or difficulty can I (we) expect to encounter moving between divisions??***

Thanks for any advice!

 

Oh snap, I forgot to change my location before I got back to the states this month. I'm from Wisner, LA. I've been living on/off in Thailand for last couple of years when the drilling season is over on the North Slope (Alaska). My bad for the confusion.

Roger that. I'm straight up American but with Thai fiancé. Guy I worked with was married to Thai lady (ex-military-retired), so I had it good even being there post-coup (May 2014). I lucked up and eventually met my fiancé, who's sister works for the Thai equivelent of the FBI and her BF works as an officer at the palace in Bangkok. Life is good and I'll retire there eventually. We're both excited to be doing something together since my previous career had us apart for long periods of time even though I've also had long periods there (Thailand) during my off season.

Roger that. I'll for sure stick to where I'm assigned and become more comfortable with that particular dept as well as gathering general OTR learnings. It'll be roughly a year before she's even ready to move here to start school with some periods in between that she'll fly over and hang with me OTR. At some point I just need to be receptive to how she's going to fall into place with my on-going experience and understand what's eventually going to being our best course of action for a solid team career. As many hours as I've spent gleaning every single facet of trucking knowledge available to me online or in the flesh, my long term thoughts run from ice road to cryo to seasonal reefer runs. But for sure once I find that niche we'll be sticking with it.

Thanks all for the advice.

SB