Team driving with Stevens -H&W ?'s

So I've been reading these forums in and out this evening, and my wife and I are looking into companies that will front the money for training and allow us to drive as a team in the end. I am 25 and she is 24, so we still have a lot of time working ahead of us.

Stevens is at the top of the list for me at the moment for the sheer fact that I have been able to get in touch with them, and they've contacted me back a few times since then. In fact, I just sent out my paper application this afternoon.

But then I found this website, and it's bringing up some questions.

Basically my wife and myself do not have CDL licenses. We don't have much cash (none) either, since I've been out of work since December of 2009. We've looked into the local CC training school, but the tuition there is $5295 EACH and would be just as much as going through one of these programs, and we don't have the cash to front anything. Nevermind my credit isn't stellar for getting financial aid.

We don't have kids, and we plan on storing our "stuff" at my mother's place until we decide to go local in a few years. So having "hometime" isn't really all that important to us. Home is where each other are.

Right now we are living in Massachusetts, but that being said, we really don't care where we end up. We honestly plan on living out of the truck for the most part, and using our days off around the country, and rarely coming back to this neck of the woods. In fact, I literally cannot wait to get out of Taxachusetts.

What we want is good training. It seems like Stevens does train well in this respect, and it seems almost like across the board kind of thought process here.

They also seem to pay a bit better than some of the other similar companies out there, and that's always a plus.

I spoke with Katrina this afternoon, and besides a few canned answers, she was able to talk me through a couple questions I had with the application. (Being as I have 0 experience, some of the questions ask about it).

Now something my wife and I were wondering is that if I started school ASAP and she were to start in a month or two, would Stevens have a problem with us being a team when she is done? I wouldn't have any issues driving solo for awhile until she was ready, but it's what our "end goal" is persay.

I guess it's also a matter of us both being accepted, but we both have no reasons to not be as far as I am concerned. No accidents in the past 5 years, nothing to do with drugs and no physical disabilities. In fact from my last job (driving, non-cdl) I have my DOT card and my Smith Driver training.

What we want in the end is a company that will give us the miles and let us be together, even if it isn't throughout training. (We've been together a long time and have had to deal with being apart, it's not something we are afraid of).

We do NOT plan on leasing a truck within the next 3 years. We've talked about it at length and want to make sure we know how to drive and the ins and outs of the business before we make a huge decision like that.

Is there anything specifically to Stevens that you would say "get away ASAP"? To me, having a basically guaranteed job for 36 months (or however long it takes to pay off the loan) sounds pretty good to me right now. And if I wasn't paying it off, I'd be paying for it now. So in the end, that's less of an issue for me than actually getting a CDL.

As a note, some of the other companies we are looking into are Covenant, Conway Truckloads, C.R. England, Prime, Swift. Some of them require driving schools ahead of time, but others do not.

Thank you for your time in advance. As I will be making a decision about this in the next few weeks, I really appreciate any feedback you can give. What we want is a great company who really tries to put Teams up front, and we want to make sure we can be a team together. Care to try and sell me on Stevens?

 

Thank you. So once we do the 90 days of solo, they will allow us as a team I take it. Crucial piece of information there.