mentor’s job to stick with them until they find that fit somewhere.” New partner Maverick has
three mentors. About 30 percent of Maverick’s current drivers come with a military background, and the company recently received the GI Bill that will allow eligible veterans to receive tax-free benefits from the VA while attending trucking school and receiving certifica- tion. Maverick’s public relations man- ager Spring Dixon says, “We’ve always wanted to recruit former military mem- bers because they make great drivers.” Carriers like Maverick provide a
structured work environment. “We like things done a certain way. We want our equipment clean. We want it tarped our way,” Dixon says of Maverick’s structure. The veterans are used to that highly-struc- tured environment. They are clean-cut, fit, safety conscious, professional and familiar with being away from home. And while military professionals
have been exposed to highly-structured training and seem to have the attitude and values that carriers seek, recruiting the right individuals for the job is still a challenge. The Trucking Track has asked its partners to set goals and show they are serious about solving both the driver shortage problem and veteran unem- ployment problem. Maverick had never tracked the number of veteran hires in the past, but now they are striving for 1,000 veteran hires within the next two years. “Being with Jim Ray, Fastport,
Hiring Our Heroes—that’s the main piece of the strategy to reaching our goals,” Dixon says. She reports they have already had several mentoring requests, phone inquiries and some web traffic since joining the Trucking Track last month. She says they are excited to work with Fastport and Hiring
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Our Heroes. “They’ve been extremely responsive, and their heart is in the right place as far as finding good truck- ing job for veterans. We think it has a lot of potential.” Trucking Track is setting some
overall goals for the program as well. They are aiming for 50,000 veterans placed through the program. Ray has already seen successes and men and women who have served their country find the jobs of their dreams in the cab of a truck. One of the very first placements
was a man out of the service, exiting the army out of Ft. Drum. “He wanted
too hard to find. The JobMaps technol- ogy is showing job seekers that it just isn’t so; jobs are out there. Mentors are ready to make sure there aren’t just jobs for those who are tech-saavy. Prospective applicants can chat with mentors, send emails or just pick up the phone to talk with someone who can help. In addition, the Trucking Track
has trained counselors in all 75 state- side ACAP centers, the U.S. Army’s career program that assists soldiers and their families find jobs when they transition out of military service. The Trucking Track provides the counselors with information about the trucking industry, so they can recruit prospec- tives to the website and match them to the mentors. There are so many people involved to make the matches, fill the positions, solve the problems, but the teamwork efforts are impressive and being taken seriously. “When Hiring
a job in Alaska, because he loved it and wanted to live there. . . Middle of Alaska and he wanted a job, and we were able to find him one!” Ray said. The success stories make the goals
seem attainable, but not without com- bined effort. Ray says the most excit- ing part of the solution to the industry problems is teamwork. Any carrier can post jobs on Fastport’s technology, but the partners with the Trucking Track are setting the stage for the entire industry to gain attention. “I think everybody is realizing that our real problem as an industry is twofold: One is we’re doing a terrible job matching people to our companies. The second thing is a cul- tural problem. It’s a perception problem. And if we work together to solve the perception problem, it will make a big difference.” The perception is that all truckers
are never home and that the right job is ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 4 2014
Our Heroes came to Fastport and loved our tech, they said, You’ve got to go impress the colonels,” Ray tells the story. “When we arrived to Ft. Bliss, we thought ‘Man, we must be in the wrong place because this conference room is enormous.’ And we realized as all these colonels start piling in, that, no, we were in the right place because they need every seat around this conference table. They were taking it seriously, so we started showing them this tech. One of the colonels said, ‘Well, my home- town is Carplake, Mich, let’s see if we can find me a job,’” Ray continues. And he did. One by one, around
the room, he showed how he could find jobs near every small town or big city for each colonel. It worked. The colonels were impressed. The jobs are there, and with so many hands working together, Ray believes the problems are solvable.
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