N.W. rookie... Looking for advice

Hello, I felt your pain when I started out. I'm in the Portland, OR area. Options are few and far in-between. Pretty much OTR and 11 Western, I would look into Knight. Do you have your CDL? Are you going to go to a school? Or are you going to go through a company?

Best bet is Knight, I was home a lot with them. Then again, I live off the 5 so I was always doing my 10's at home and then hometime. I also know they run cans outta the Kent, WA terminal and the Ports. They're home everynight from what I hear, they run down South and East. Might be your cup of tea. Depending on what you haul I was told it was $160-200 a trip M-F weekends off. Plus, I've seen them running around with superchassies or maxi chassies. I'd be great experince to throw on the resume.

 

Stevens hires from that area. Check out Watkins Shepherd.
No matter which OTR company you go with, home time will likely be the same: one day off for each week out and home every 5-6 weeks.
Regional jobs from that area are hard to find, but local jobs after a year or two OTR are not too bad.

 

Those are good options. Also Swift has JC Penny accounts and Costco which run to your area. Good luck.

 

Hey Zachary I am going to start sage mid December after I am done with NIC. I got my pre-hire letters from Swift and Werner today a few hours after I dropped off my apps with Sage. I really want to go to ND and get some oil money but I have not talked to them yet. When are you starting or have you started already.

Ignacio

 

There are plenty of choices besides Swift Werner and Schneider. Do some research before committing.

System Transport and/or TWT would be worth checking into... guaranteed hometime every weekend if you can get on the regional fleet.

 

Thanks FwL,

I will look into them, I am also looking into US express and May trucking. There are not to many companies that hire people straight out of school.

I have read countless threads out there and from what I gather nobody seems to like Swift or Werner. You know people don't usually don't just go around talking about how they love there job but they do complain about it. So a lot of this you have to take with a gain of salt, and when a company has hundreds of drivers that also plays into it.

But I have yet to find anything nice written about Swift or Werner. But if that is what I have to put up with for work and experience.....

 

If hometime is any kind of a concern I wouldn't do it. Plus you have a wife and kids. There are thousands of other careers in which you can go through a three week school and get hired on and be at home. It all sounds like roses right now but you will be crapping your pants when you realize actually how long you will be gone from home. Its not a one time thing either. You will be gone for 4-6 weeks at a time with a couple days off in between. Yes its possible to get a local gig but highly unlikely in todays economy. There are too many experienced drivers to choose from these days when it comes to local gigs hiring.

There was a newbie on this forum and for months he was excited to live the truck driver dream only to realize his first week out, after spending thousands of dollars, what it entails out there. For some unknown reason newbies just don't comprehend how long you are actually away from home for and that you are working 24/7 for usually a couple months a time.

I would strongly urge you to reconsider. Not meaning to sound negative just giving you the truthful facts about this lifestyle.