Good day and looking into career change

If everyone lived near a terminal, not much freight would be moved.
Companies hire drivers that live in the hiring area for that company, which also means you can be scheduled for hometime. You won't be hired if hometime cannot be scheduled for you and if the truck can't get maintenance.
It's not important to live near a terminal. When your truck is scheduled for maintenance, you'll be dispatched to a terminal or outside shop that does contract work for the trucking company. You also get paid for that.

 

THERE IS NO TRUCK DRIVER SHORTAGE. If you are willing to do your homework, the smartest way to enter the industry is to let a company pay for your training and work for them for a year, IF YOU CAN FIND A COMPANY YOU WANT TO WORK FOR. Imagine saying I will not be committed to a relationship with the hottest woman you know because she requires a 12 month contract. SO WHAT? MOST newbies do little or no research and do a 12 month contract with some random company that doesn't fit them. In that case the contract is like a prison sentence. There is virtually NO DIFFERENCE between getting your CDL through a for-profit school, a community college/vo-tech. Neither if them will teach you anything but the minimum to pass the state exam/test. You learn 95% of what you need to know during the ride-along period at your first employer. No CDL school is going to know the company procedures, customer procedures, fueling, weighing, etc that are the everyday part of trucking. CDL school is not like college or high school where there is lots of time to learn things. CDL school is mostly JUST ENOUGH time to teach you how to pass the state test. One advantage of the company sponsored (12 month contract) type of school is that one school for that one trucking company does know the company procedures you will be using and they do teach you those.

The only real decision, the decision that should inform all other decisions, is where will your work your first year in trucking. It's the foundation for success or failure. There is a wide variety of trucking companies with differences that fit some people and not other people. When you pick that employer you pick your type of schedule, your amount of home-time, your region of driving, and many other things. Companies don't adapt to drivers, you find the collection of working conditions you need and which employer fits those needs. Then you sign up.

I paid for a 3 week CDL school only because I was almost homeless, I had a job waiting for me the Monday after CDL school, and I knew everything important about that employer because my dad, and then my brother had worked at the company. I could have stayed in FL and waited the 16 weeks necessary for the waiting list to run out and start a several month CDL school that only cost $800 or I could sign-up for a loan of $3500 and start CDL school in 5 days and be earning money at a good employer in 4 weeks and 5 days.

IMO, the job hunt comes first, and only after it is complete do you make a decision about CDL school. Trucking is not like every other industry. Trucking is a lifestyle until you have enough experience where driving the truck is just what you do between 8-5pm like other jobs and you go home. It can be a life of 14 hour days for 6 days per week and no promise you will find a place to park when the day is over. It is NOT like some romantic long car trip you remember as a kid.

 

LOTS of people getting into trucking are financially desperate and would work for a company on the moon if that company paid 2 cents more per mile and claimed on the web site their drivers average X amount per year. Lots of newbies start with OTR trucking where they only get home after several weeks away. They quickly learn the difficulty of being away from home for weeks and weeks and the long commute from a terminal or how finding safe parking for a bug truck is not easy or free.

Your understanding of the advantages of working for a company with a company terminal near you is exactly right. Lots of newbies think "the company allows me to park the truck at home" as a big benefit. It's not. It allows them to not have a car, but it makes them give up hours and hours waiting around for their truck to get maintenance and it introduces them to HOAs and commercial vehicle parking conflicts they didn't anticipate.

 

You may find you get more input fro drivers if you post and read the New Driver section of this forum.
Questions From New Drivers

or the CDL school and training section.
Trucking Schools and CDL Training Forum

 

Just one example is Freymiller. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, but hires drivers from 48 states. This means you can be scheduled for home time to your home address anywhere in the USA. If the truck needs maintenance, you'll be dispatched to the nearest contracted shop to wherever you happen to be at the time.

 

Here's another example.
Pride Transport
West Valley, Utah
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Hires drivers from 48 states.
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Here's the hiring map. The green area is the hiring area. The whole 48 states is green. Home time and truck maintenance can be scheduled anywhere you happen to be.

 

Reading the OPS engineering-based job description, trucking will be a simple task. It is simple for military veterans and he might also be a military vet.

 

Know before you go -- in the following video, a college grad turned trucker discusses the pros & cons of getting into trucking:

Pros & cons of trucking

-- L