Comments By Harry the hat

Day 1

This is a weekend only class, by CDS, Workforce, and Lord Fairfax Community College. They offer a 4 week full time m-for class also. Started at 8 am, class size of ten. We will be alternating weekends between classroom and outside. They have five trucks, 48, 53 ft vans, and a flatbed, but haven't seen this yet. They are at a separately location in Front Royal Virginia. They took us one by one to do our paperwork, but had some computer problems. Didn't phase us at all, as the instructors kept us entertained. They gave us an overview of the entire course, what they expect of us and what we should expect of them. Gave their own backgrounds, and of success stories of the school. They definitely gave us confidence and showed that there are going to be mistakes made. They answered a lot of our questions which of course as you know on first day there are too many. For the textbook they Supply but you need to leave it there at the end of the day. The book is from the JJ Keller group. We covered for different chapters today and took the small little quizzes in the back the kind of evaluate where we stand. And of course all classes need to be DMV approved and documented for auditing purposes. Overall, good feeling.

Placeholder, started today, weekends. Will post later

I'm calling them tomorrow sometime. If Michael is talking about the same, it's the day cab job for lowes flatbed in hagerstown md. I want to find out if they do a seven weeks training when it's day cab vs otr.

Just an update, seems jb hunt is no longer offering this. It ended with the start of the new year. Bad part was the recruiter did not know until now.

Scott, I think one of my neighbors works for them, Henry is his name I believe. Another named Tony left over a year ago for McElroy. T didn't say many bad things, but wasn't happy. Was hoping to speak with people that work there, as the internet hasn't been to kind on the forum side for DM B.

I've looked into a reimbursement type hiring, like Schneider and some others. It is close to the same, apply with them and do the paperwork, go to school and graduate, then you're with them in the division that you can find something with. Schneider and some others, US Xpress, offer a hiring bonus, but I believe that its either the reimbursed money (to $3500) or the hiring bonus, not both. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. Swift, they said I would be better off taking their own school in Richmond, and using their tuition program. Not sure if that recruiter, who has the sweetest southern drawl, was keyed more towards her own companies program or if that was all they could offer. They have a small "terminal" in my town, so I wanted to consider them. Oh, and the classes cost for CDS , $5000 total. You get a discount of $1000 if you pay up front cash, and ofcourse there are financing options with the community college they are partnered with. HCC is $5700, cause I'm out of state, but long. They also offer a weekend class system, and do the class at Hagerstown's Volvo/Mack Powertrain facility. James Rumsey was about $4000, but several weeks longer than all. Another one was Road Pro in Clearbrook, VA.

Wow.....had I known this....I might have considered them! Now I'm already in school on weekends, so I could keep my week job. $15/hour while in trucking school would have been fine and I would have been able to pay my bills. Also, instead of being in trucking school for 10 weeks, I would have been done in a month and then have a job? *sigh*

See, I was thinking of doing the weekends too through cds or hcc, but I would have been burned out mentally. That's 20 hours on top of the 65 I do now.

So here is my thread on my new career. Hopefully you can help me with some feedback.

I'm 36, father and husband, and sick of my job. I work as a parts manager for a Volvo CE dealer in Virginia. The times have been tough for this industry, as my company just down sized in one branch, and we are the next branch up on the list of profit. Pros and cons of my job are neither her nor there, but I want something that is going to be a stable job, not something I have to constantly look over my shoulder. Only thing I would miss here is the stray cat we adopted.

I looked into many schools and company paid programs. Hagerstown Community College and James Rumsey both have good classes, but are a little long at 8 and 12 weeks, respectively. I found that CDS out of Lord Fairfax CC has a 4 week program, and it seems pretty well vetted. With going to a private school, it would let me stay home, which my wife persists on. I'm not a super-trucker in training with a family, especially after reading Brett's book.

Now, I contacted a few places, did some research on here and some other forums (which this is by far the better of the three I am on), and talked to a few recruiters. JB Hunt has a program that is the following, and I quote, "With our program we can help find a school but you will have to pay for the school out of your gi bill or some sort of tuition. We will pay you 15 dollars an hour while you are in school and when you get into training we will pay you from 500 to 750 a week. School lasts about 4 weeks and training lasts 4 weeks as well. Once you are done with training you are then put onto the local or regional position you chose before going to school."

Has anyone heard about this, and is it something I can count on? I am looking to go local or at least regional/dedicated/intermodal, where I have the weekend home time if not more. I'm pretty much waiting on taxes and wife to get back to work so we have the income from her too, as she has been out of work for a year for lay off. I was making enough to support the stay at home mom lifestyle for her, until the current job cut our pay, so we can have better benefits (they say).

After reading this over, changing some stuff, I noticed I'm just a run on talker even in text version. I think what I'm after is getting some reassurance that these are some viable options to take. What's your take on this? Thanks guys and gals!

I have a small terminal near me in martinsburg wv, so I'm hoping that I can work something out for home time.

Great log of the 17 days! Thanks for this!