Profile For Joe T.

Hey guys,

My name's Joe and I've been at Roehl's GYCDL program at their Conley (Atlanta area) terminal for 5 days now and just finished my first week!

What can I say, I'm impressed! They have found a way to move at a quick pace with the training, while remaining highly safe and effective.

I arrived at the hotel on Sunday (they sent bus tickets, but I was lucky enough that my aunt from Atlanta was in Louisiana, where I live, and offered me to bring me, so I got to skip a most likely horrible bus ride. Monday was mostly paper work, and a strength test. I was in USMC boot camp, but injured (hopefully returning next year to earn my EGA) and sent home, so it was a piece of cake. Mostly just pushing strength with arms and chest, and the legs.

Tuesday, things started to pick up. We had a 3 hour safety class called "The Roehl Way" and I was impressed with the overall objective of "Driving for others" We also began learning paper logs, and the pre-trip that day.

Wednesday surprised me. They put me in a truck! I had never touched a manual transmission (unsynchronized OR synchronized until that day.) but, lo and behold, I was double clutching by the end of the day.

Thursday was mostly studying the PTI, and going over logs. I also got to take the truck out on the road, with no trailer. I did well for my 2nd time in.

Friday (today) we added a trailer to the equation. Boy, was I afraid and nervous. Standing next to this, large, intimidating 53' monstrosity, attacked to an equally intimidating death machine. But, all of that nervousness and fear had to be thrown out of the window; it was my time to put this thing on the road and do it safely. We were at a QT stop out of Lake City, GA, where the first student just finished driving. He had a bit of issues with remembering to pay attention to RPM and MPH with upshifting and downshifting, respectively. I took one more good look at this thing, and entertained the thought of chickening out for a few seconds, then manned up and got in. We drove out of Lake City, into Forest Park, and onto I-75, up to exit 7, and back to the Conley terminal from there.

My instructor said I did extremely well, and showed lots of progress since the last day. It's now 20:26 (still Friday) and I've got the weekend off, and feel accomplished after a hard week's work. If anyone here has questions, or comments about the Roehl GYCDL program, please feel free to reply here!