Tiffany Haire, of Bennettsville, has always known she wanted a career on the road and now, she is only days away from realizing her dream as a truck driver.

“I’m planning on doing this for the rest of my life,” she said as she watched a classmate practice backing a tractor trailer 90 degrees through in the parking lot of Northeastern Technical College campus in Dillon.  “My family is involved in trucking, I want to see the country and I know there are job possibilities in this career.  So, I enrolled in the class to become truck driver.”

On September 15 Haire and her classmates will graduate from a new four-week truck driver training course offered by a partnership between Northeastern Technical College and Xtra Mile Driver Training, Inc., of Bishopville, S.C.   

“Out students graduate from this course with a Class A Commercial Drivers License (CDL), which is the highest driving license you can get,” said Jack Allen, an Xtra Mile instructor with more than 10 years of professional driving experience.   According to Allen, having this credential will give theses students a ticket to a career pathway with a bright future.

“Right now, trucking has an endless amount of career opportunities,” he said.  “There are thousands of trucking companies out there looking for drivers and last year, the
industry was 87,000 drivers short.  Demand is high.”

Instructor Jack Allen, of Xtra Mile Trucking, encourages Northeastern Technical College student Tiffany Haire during a recent practice session at NETC Dillon.  Haire is enrolled in the college’s new Truck Driver Training program offered by the Division of Continuing Education.  The program is a four week course that prepares students for a career as a truck driver.  Classes start regularly and additional information is available by calling NETC Dillon at 843-841-2014 or the Division of Continuing Education in Cheraw at 800-921-7399.

So high in fact, that representative from trucking companies have sent materials, and visited NETC’s classes to recruit potential drivers.  A table at the back of the indoor classroom is littered with applications and calling cards from some of the leading companies such as Marteen, Prime, Inc., Schneider, Swift and Warner. Each company offers different incentives like tuition reimbursement and hiring bonuses, which makes the most challenging part of the course the decision to choose an employer.  Allen agrees.

“Most of our students have several pre-hire offers by the third week of class,” he said.  The course lasts four weeks and includes 170 hours of training, including 16 hours in the driver’s seat.  “These drivers may start out making $30,000 - $35,000 and if they do their job well, they can be making close to $50,000 in five years.”
The demand for truck drivers is evident in the Pee Dee region also.  Dan Bozard, president and chairman of Dillon Provision in Dillon, says his company is currently looking for CDL drivers and he hopes this class will continue to generate potential employees.

“There is a critical shortage of drivers in the distribution business across the nation and right here in Dillon,” he said. “So I commend NETC for providing a pathway to train individuals that fills an  employment gap in the region.”

Bozard went on to explain that increased driver restrictions as well as an increase in soon-to-retire drivers will continue to fuel the need for drivers with the proper training.  

“The career potential is there for anyone who is interested in this type of career training,” he said.  “Just look at the local paper for evidence.  I counted 30 ads for CDL drivers in a recent edition.”  

The classified sections in newspapers around the region also almost always include advertisements for CDL drivers. 

“Every time you look in the newspapers like the Dillon Herald, Florence Morning News and The State, there are always truck driving jobs,” said Reggie Bethea, of Dillon.  Seeing these ads convinced him there was steady work so he visited the local One-Stop program and found out about the class offered through NETC Dillon.

“And now I have a job and a bus ticket to get there,” he said as he walked to the Xtra Mile tractor trailer to take his turn at ‘straight line backing’. The day after he graduates, Bethea will continue down his paved pathway to the future by boarding a bus to Atlanta where he’ll begin working as a driver for Warner Trucking. 

For more information, contact Northeastern Technical College's division of Continuing Education at 1-800-921-6900 and ask about the pathway to driving training. Information is also available by visiting www.netc.edu and clicking on “Continuing Education.”