Another Wannabe Checking In

Hello truckers and fellow wannabes! I've been thinking about trucking as a second career for quite a while, and have started to dig in a bit more, so I found my way to the forum.

I left my first career about ten years ago, and since then have been taking care of things at my old dryland farm property, and taking some courses at my local community college, but haven't found anything that really grabs me. I live in a rural area in far southwest Colorado, so opportunities are somewhat limited here, but trucking of some sort seems like a decent possibility. I spent a lot of time in my youth riding around in trucks while working for a traveling carnival (that's another story), and always enjoyed my time on the road, in spite of the hardships.

Between my carny experiences growing up, and taking care of things down here at the ranch, I'm no stranger to wrestling with machinery, getting grimey and putting in a good day's work. I spent quite a few years working in offices and living in business-type hotels; did it for the money only, while detesting it, and can't imagine going back to anything like that.

I know the guy that runs the CDL program at the local college, so I'm going to try to speak with him to find out how he thinks his grads have been doing, and where they're working.

I'm somewhat fortunate as far as not having my back to the wall. I've already read through quite a few threads here started by people who are jumping in to bad deals as a last resort, with bad results. I don't need or expect much money out of the deal right away, and have some other financial resources. Due to the lousy economy, my main objective is to supplement my other sources of income for the next fifteen years or so, as long as I don't get too decrepit to work.

So, if it sounds like there are reasonable opportunities when I've had a chance to check it out a bit more, I plan to start my training in mid-January. Meanwhile, if I have any particular questions, I'll post them up in the appropriate forum.

Thanks to all who've posted up the great information here!

 

Well, this sounds like a go for me. The college is running a course starting mid-January; 4 days a week for 3 months. The cost for the course is $2500, which sounds competitive, saves me from spending time away during school, and will let me avoid being an indentured servant to a company in return for paid schooling.

I spoke with the instructor; he sounds like a decent guy and offered up a lot of information about job prospects, what kind of students he's seeing in his courses, local vs. OTR jobs, getting that first year of experience and all of that. I've already seen a few jobs advertised around the area, hauling ag products, aggregate, ore and that kind of thing. We have a lot of oil and gas development around here, and he says it's slow right now, but when it ramps up, there's good demand for drivers doing that work too. The one year of OTR experience seems to be the key requirement, so I'll have to start figuring out the logistics of being away from home a good bit of time while I get in time on the road.

I guess this may be fun, or it may be hell, but it sure doesn't sound like it'll be boring!

 

Thanks for the greet, TREE.

I'm already being fed into the paperwork mill. This college does all of their admissions and registrations online...and their website kinda works, but not quite. I think I'll be over at the campus tomorrow doing it with pen and paper.

 

rambler and chainbinder, thanks for the greets!

American-Trucker, that's some good information, thanks a lot. I saw some good postings about Watkins-Shepard elsewhere on the forums. I admit, I don't have a clue yet how things work with terminal locations and all of that. I live way down in the southwest corner of Colorado on the other side of the Rockies from Denver (used to live over on that side, though). Although, from what I gather, if I run a year or two out on the road for the experience, my home location may not matter much, 'cause I won't see much of it!

A couple of positives for this location is that it's right at the intersection of two US highways (160 and 491), there are no rail lines nearby, so everything in the region is carried by truck, and there's an awful lot of heavy trucking associated with oil and gas industries. I'll put those companies in my list, and start checking them out.