Need more info/recommendations for job

Jim Palmer Trucking is a good outfit and starts their drivers out at a high pay scale.

 

Go to Jim Palmer. It is a small company atmosphere but with big company connections. JPT is an Advanced Prime Fleet company. That means it is separate from Prime, but you operate as a Prime truck. Fuel where Prime can fuel. Train like Prime trains. Pull Prime freight. Big company benefits and small company atmosphere.

JPT has their school in Missoula, MT. Classes are far smaller than at most CDL schools. Think 5 students instead of 30 students. They have a hotel next to yard. I am 95% sure they provide the hotel room. It's where I was going after I decided to leave my 18 year driving job with a big company in the Southeast.

To understand their training timeline watch YouTube Prime CDL schedule. You do a couple weeks training & studying locally in MT. You do a few weeks with one trainer. Then test, get your CDL, and get assigned to a mentor for 40,000 miles 1-2 months. Then you get assigned your own truck.

JPT will buy you a bus ticket, or equivalent cost if you prefer to fly or drive to Missoula. I think they do the same pay/advancement as Prime. I ultimately decided to pull tankers and went somewhere else. The biggest thing only you can answer is how do you do being alone all day, every day. Most people are not prepared for that. To some of us it's a benefit, not punishment. If yo are social, this job will feel like punishment.

 

I was at CRST and they did not hair follicle test. Steven's did. As of 3 months ago when I started with CRST anyways. Also, they both train in Keenesburg, CO at a place called Careers World Wide. I'm not sure where the other schools are, but they had people there from east to west coast. Just in case you wanted that info.

 

Stevens changed their policy then. Its difficult to keep up with now.

 

I dont envy you trying to keep up with everything lol.

 

You mentioned years of self employment in one of your posts. I hope you have kept all of your self employment documentation going back 10 years. I also had years of self employment, and my first carrier after graduating school wore me out on the documentation needed to prove that status, each and every year. They told me it was a federal law for all new hires, and the must hold on to the documentation I provided for 10 years, even post employment) Thankfully TN requires both county and city business licenses (even home based businesses or 1099s) with stated revenue, so it made it easy to prove my self employment status for each year.......but they waited to asked for the proof on the second day of orientation. Thank God I went with a local Nashville carrier and I could go home and get my business records to continue with training.