ABERDEEN — If you ask the women in the Grays Harbor College commercial driver’s license program if they’ve had good training, they’re likely to answer, “10-4!”
The college’s program was resurrected less than a year ago. It had been absent from the curriculum for about five years. The course features two quarters of largely hands-on study, plus a third academic quarter that allows trucking students to qualify for financial aid. Not everyone takes the last quarter, instructor LaDonna Scott says, noting that “some people are ready to pick up and go.”
Scott is a former college trucking student. She earned her commercial license years ago, she said, after a divorce that left her as a single mom with three kids and a desperate need for a decent income.
She looked at nursing, but concluded that it would take too long to get a career that way. Trucking was a living-wage job she could jump into more quickly.
Novice truckers can make $15 to $25 an hour locally, but with some experience, long-haul truckers can make up to $150,000 a year, according to Mimi Reeves, a specialist at Worksource Grays Harbor.
So Scott hit the road. Ironically, she eventually earned a nursing degree, but left health care to teach trucking.
“I am really passionate about this program,” Scott said.
So are her students. Many of them are older. They want more options and more security.
Amber Brewer, 46, of Hoquiam, is a road construction flagger. She loves working outdoors and said she was inspired to push for a commercial license because she wants to do more in construction. “I want to drive a gravel truck. That’s what motivates me,” Brewer said.
Shannon Johnson, 39, of Raymond, did all kinds of driving in the military and once drove a garbage truck for the City of Tacoma. Now she wants to reconnect with her skill, but in a big rig, with a complicated stick shift.
Julie Dillon, 44, of Aberdeen, said she spent her younger years working as a bartender.
“I had a drinking problem, and when I no longer wanted to be part of that lifestyle, I needed to do something that supported my being clean and sober,” Dillon said.
The women say they have faced no resistance at all from their male classmates, and in fact, they say the trucking industry is a great place for women to work.
“It’s one industry where there is guaranteed equal pay for equal work,” Scott said.
“It’s all about mileage,” says Johnson, who said she has a job waiting for her in Dallas once she passes her licensing exams.
Kirk Church, the advanced instructor, said the college has had at most about eight students per class but can accept as many as 12.
Although the easiest jobs to get are long-haul, several students have found work driving locally.
The students praised the quality of the program, saying they felt prepared to take their rigorous exams.
“Washington state is probably on the cutting edge by being one of the hardest places to get (a commercial license),” Church said. “It is really hard to pass.”
But the women say they built confidence from the first day, when they sat in the seat of a big rig.
“I always thought trucks were really intimidating,” Brewer said.
“Once I drove it, it didn’t seem like it was that big any more.”
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