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It could be said Roberta McKenna was born at the wrong time. It would have been nice if her life had unfolded in an era when a farm girl from Ohio could grow up to be and do anything she wanted without suffering sexism and harassment at every turn. But then again, truly remarkable people define the times they are in — not the other way around. And McKenna, the Women In Trucking Association’s February member of the month, is one such person. “In the area I grew up in, girls were either a cashier, you worked in a sewing factory, as bank teller or nurse. A lot ended up being nurses,” she said. “There was no opportunity to be a truck driver or a mechanic or anything like that. Women did not do that. It was frowned upon. ‘That’s a man’s job.’” McKenna always knew she was never going to do anything that conventional, not growing up at the elbow of her grandfather John Hagan who farmed 300 acres outside of Malaga, Ohio. Like all farmers, Hagan served as both operator of and mechanic for his equipment as the situation demanded. That included his truck, and he passed these skills onto his granddaughter — along with the toughness and independent streak that would fuel McKenna for the rest of her life. “I was always out helping (my grandfather), and growing up around the equipment, I always had a fascination for the trucks,” she said. “But in Ohio, women didn’t drive trucks. Being in the farm country, you would think there’d be more opportunities there, but there wasn’t. You’d hear about it once in a while, but it was very, very rare.” Straining against such social norms, McKenna moved to Maryland in her 20s, where a youthful marriage unraveled, leaving her a single mother with a son to support. A friend suggested driving a big rig. “I was about 25,” she said. “At the time, I was a photo technician retail manager, which sounds great. Didn’t make a whole lot of money, but had a nice title. “My friend helped me get my license,” she shared. “He had a brand-new Western Star with a trailer, and he taught me how to drive and how to get around in different situations. I got my CDL at 28.” Holding a commercial license was quite an accomplishment given the times, but a piece of paper alone doesn’t pay the bills. When looking for a job opportunity, McKenna heard about a local paving and construction company that thought differently about its workforce than many other employers at the time. “Cunningham Paving of Crofton, Maryland, hired mainly women,” she said. “I went in there and I talked to the owner, Jimmy Cunningham, and he gave me a shot. We mainly were hired for running the dump trucks hauling asphalt.” McKenna doesn’t think Cunningham was trying to make a social statement at the time; she believes that hiring women just made great business sense. “Whether you want to call it ‘vision’ back then or what, but with women driving the equipment he had better interest rates, fewer accidents,” she said. “We didn’t get out there and showboat. A lot of guys showboated. The women didn’t have to prove a point as much as the men and their egos. “It was a company that made a statement,” she continued. “Even our mechanic was a female, and she was tough! She was a tough cookie.” McKenna drove for the company for two years, and she would have probably stayed there longer had a local controversy not driven her out. A company driver was involved in a traffic fatality, which unleashed a wave of community animosity toward the other employees. “We started getting death threats,” she said. “People would pull up beside us, and just because we were driving one of the company trucks, they would yell at us. I mean it was ridiculous the threats that we were getting.” McKenna soon landed at a local bakery supply house, and it didn’t take long to understand this was a whole different ball game when it came to workplace environment. Not only was the freight physically demanding — moving 100-pound sacks of flour and barrels of other baking supplies — but there was considerable hostility among her new co-workers. “I was with them for five years, and that was a tough company,” she said. “Some people respected me; most of them did not. Like, ‘I wouldn’t have my wife doing this. This is a man’s job. You shouldn’t be doing this job. You should be home barefoot and pregnant.’ “It was bad, the harassment I got,” she shared. “But I had a handful of guys who stood there with me and helped me get through it.” McKenna’s allies taught her how to maneuver and carry the freight — some of it approaching her own body weight — without injuring herself. Management intervened whenever harassment was brought to their attention, but McKenna wouldn’t rat anyone out. She was there to do a job, covering a territory that ran through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia, and no one was going to keep her from doing it. During the five years at the bakery supply, she went from being a curiosity to one of the most-requested drivers the company had. “It was always funny with the little old ladies who had their bakeries. They were a trip,” she said. “A couple were, ‘Hey, we’ve got a woman driver now.’ ‘Oh, there’s no women doing this stuff.’ ‘Yeah, we’ve got a woman driver.’ “One time in particular, I’m backing down an alley,” she recalled. “You’ve got like 2 inches on either side and I’m backing down this alley and I see a couple people standing back there. I go to get out of the truck and (hear), ‘It is a woman! There is a woman!’” By the time she left, McKenna was a seasoned pro. She then spent 10 years driving for a grocery chain, where she got her first experience hauling liquids, and then she drove for Walmart. By the early 1990s she was burned out on East Coast traffic and seeing the same scenery, so she relocated to Texas. There, she landed with outfits that started sending her to places she’d never been. By the time she joined Clean Harbors in 2013, she’d hit 47 of the lower 48 states. “South Dakota was the one state I hadn’t been to,” she said. “I still haven’t made it there.” Clean Harbors opened a new chapter on McKenna’s resume — driving a tanker hauling hazardous waste, spills, oils and in her words, “a few things I don’t want to mention.” Dangerous cargo notwithstanding, she loves her company, from the work environment to the management. “I love driving the country. You get to see so much. You get to learn so much. You meet so many wonderful people,” she said. “Coming to Clean Harbors has been relaxing.” McKenna has no intention of retiring, especially now, when she can see how the trails she blazed and paved have become a firm roadbed for many others to follow. She’s proud to see today’s women out on the road or through the WIT organization, and she offers the same hard-won advice about making it in a man’s world any time she’s asked. “Cover your ass. Don’t become a victim,” she said. “It’s not an easy job. Whether you want to do the local, whether you want to do the long haul, it takes a certain personality and a certain background. But if you stick it out, you can make good money. There are so many different opportunities in the industry now that weren’t back then. You can have a good career. I’m proof positive. I’ve been here 36 years. You can do it.”

Growing up in a family with trucking connections, you would think that the obvious choice for a child would be to follow in the family business. That was not the case for Jamie Hagen, who started driving in his teens. Now, at 48, he is the owner and operator of Hell Bent Xpress. Hagen’s earliest travel plans — more of a mission, really — wouldn’t have just taken him across the country. He would have left the planet entirely. Born and raised in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Jamie was a big fan of the sci-fi series “Star Trek,” and he dreamed of a life in the stars. “It was a little ambitious of a dream,” Hagen said. “Once I got into my teenage years, my uncle and my dad both drove trucks, and it became my passion. I started driving when I was 16. My dad had trucks on the farm and I kind of worked my way into it from there.” His father, Norman Hagen, started bringing Jamie with him on the road when Jaime was only 3. Hagen says he considers himself to have been “raised on the road.” Those early experiences are part of the reason Hagen followed in the footstep of his family — that and the fact that there are, at times, virtually “no co-workers,” Hagen joked. “It’s the freedom to do your own thing,” he said. “Someone tells you, ‘Here is A; now get it to B.’ You’re the master of the ship, and that’s the part of driving that I love the most. That and being in charge of my own day, so to speak, and nobody micro-managing you. That’s how I treat my guys too.” It’s that spirit of freedom that made Hagen realize he wasn’t entirely happy with the way the trucking business treated him and other drivers like him. He says he was often treated not as a person, but just as another piece of equipment. That’s what inspired him to found Hell Bent Xpress in 2020 — he wanted to create an environment where those who work for him feel respected, valued and trusted. “When my guys call and ask what they think they should do, I tell them that they are the master of their ship,” Hagen said. “You do whatever you think you need to do get you from A to B. That’s all that I ask of them.” The creation of Hell Bent Xpress was the chance for Hagen to grow and build something bigger, and to take on the challenges of ownership. “There’s no better challenge than to be completely on your own,” Hagen said. “When you’re leased to a carrier, they handle all of the ups and downs. You’re sort of isolated from the situation to some degree. I wanted to get a real good ‘kick in the teeth’ of trucking.” Hagen is not only the owner of Hell Bent Xpress; he is also part of the driving team because, he says, he still has that passion for driving. He enjoys listening to audiobooks and “a lot of podcasts” to pass the time on the long hauls. “My days are pretty full, dispatching my trucks and dealing with issues of running a business,” Hagen said. “I have a pretty full day on the phone.” Hagen is typically gone for one to two weeks at a time on a run, depending on the scenario, but he likes to be home with his wife and children as much as possible. The father of five girls, his blended family includes his wife, Hillary, and daughters Taylor, 27, Grace, 20, Elizabeth, 13, Camille, 11, and Celeste, 7. Continuing the family tradition begun by his father and uncle, Hagen has brought the kids along on his trips, just as his father and uncle did with him. “(With my daughters) it was when they were younger,” Hagen said. “When they get to those teenage years, the trips kind of loses their shine. It’s fun when they can load up in the sleeper and watch movies … all of them have been with me at some point.” Hell Bent Xpress has two different fleets with four trucks leased to Cliff Viessman Inc. in Gary, South Dakota, which handles food-grade liquid tanks. In addition, he has six trucks that haul dry vans (according to Hagen, this freight is “whatever you can stick in a box”). For Hagen, what he loves most about the job is that it offers adventures. “Some people hate it for that aspect, but I love it for that aspect,” Hagen said. “Every day is a new problem that has to be solved, whether it’s weather or a mechanical issue or a shipper or receiver issue — in my opinion, there’s always an adventure.” Hagen bought his first truck, a 1992 Freightliner FLD, in 1995. Even though the tractor was only 3 years old, Hagen said it had already seen its better days. Still, he was elated at the purchase. After nearly three decades in the industry, he still loves trucking. When queried about his opinion on the truck driver shortage, Hagen said that’s part of the reason he founded his company. “There is no driver shortage; there is a shortage of treating people like decent human beings,” Hagen said. “We create a lot of drivers every year with people getting their CDLs. We don’t retain those people to a large degree. They are burned right out of the gate with some of these mega-carriers, and in some of the little ones too, that mistreat people.” Numbers wise, Hagen said he believes there is somewhat of a driver shortage simply because many drivers are retiring, and there are not enough younger drivers entering — and staying in — the business. For those who are entering the trucking industry, Hagen says the No. 1 thing a new driver needs to have is patience. “You’re not going to make seven figures the first year,” Hagen said. “It takes a while to grow and find what you like and master the craft. I look back at my first few years, and they were kind of a disaster. It takes time to learn the way of the trucking life. Even though I was born into it and definitely traveled a lot, it’s a whole different story when you’re on your own and doing it. Had I given up then, I would have never gotten to this point where I have a small fleet and I’m loving it. Hagen said it is his mission to do things differently in the trucking industry. “I try desperately every day to treat my people like decent human beings. I want them to feel like they’re part of the company and not just working for it,” Hagen said. “I want to them to feel like they have ownership of it, to some degree.” He said he feels that, in some cases, truck drivers feel like they’re just another number, and that their opinions don’t matter. “That’s the biggest reason I created Hell Bent Xpress,” he explained. “It’s one thing to talk about it, but another to actually do it. Every day we are trying to grow and evolve and be profitable, but still have our people be a part of it.”

On recent evening somewhere in the Mid-South, professional driver Tom Kyrk sat at a truck stop with a laptop in front of him and a pair of large headphones covering his ears. No longer piloting his big rig down the interstate, Kyrk was on the air at the Transportation Network Channel (TNC) from his cab, offering up his thoughts on the day’s biggest trucking industry news. The driver shortages (or a lack thereof), a lack of big rig parking, the latest trucking legislation — name a topic and Kyrk can opine on it. TNC is a free, web-based radio streaming service based in Texas, and Kyrk got in on the ground floor of the startup. But the upstate New York native is quick to tell you he’s always a trucker first. “Different people define this different ways,” Kyrk said while on a recent layover in Little Rock, Arkansas. “I’ll say that until I hang up the keys and get off the road: Trucking is priority one.” Kyrk is a husky man with a baritone voice that was made for radio. He jokes that he knows a little about a lot of things, but hearing him speak during either “The Morning Grind” or “The Evening Surge” — his shows on TNC — a listener can tell that his thoughts are well researched. For Kyrk, radio and trucking go hand in hand. He said truckers are often considered knowledgeable because of their “world experiences.” “It’s because we have a lot of time to think out here on the road,” he said. “Some might call us conspiracy theorists. Sometimes our conclusions are right. Sometimes, the more odd they are the more realistic they are.” Kyrk said he was first introduced to TNC by a co-driver who was president of the Truckers Christmas Group (TCG), an organization now in its 12th year of helping trucking families who are down on their luck. TCG is very dear to Kyrk, who, during his November stop in Little Rock, was doing his best to secure Wynonna Judd for the annual online concert sponsored by TCG. (He did, and the fundraising concert was a rousing success.) Kyrk is a promoter at heart, and it was a short interview on TNC last year as a TCG representative that led to his partnership with the station. “I was doing PR work right around the time TNC radio got started,” Kyrk said. “They found out about Truckers Christmas Group, so I was on there. They liked me, so they asked to have me back a few times to talk about other topics. And we did that. Eventually, it became a daily thing.” As it did with millions of people around the world, COVID-19 affected Kyrk and his path during 2020. Just after Tom Kelley, president and founding partner of TNC, was stricken with a severe case of COVID, Kyrk stepped up and basically took over as host for on-air operations. Kyrk told Kelley he could use his headset and lead shows while driving his truck — and being fed information from the studio through the headset. “As far as I know, we are the only radio show to ever do (broadcasting) that way, but it worked,” Kyrk said. “I was just driving down the road and talking about topics that were of interest to fellow truckers.” Kyrk still hosts shows that way, but he prefers to be stopped so he can open his laptop and have a better view of the news and events happening daily. Kyrk said the goal of TNC is to “build something for drivers that is unique to them. Drivers miss the old days of radio. You get so much information, but also a variety show of sorts. It’s music, it’s comedy, it’s news. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But I feel like, overall, it’s a really good program.” Kyrk said it’s important to have a sense of humor while on air … and in life. And he and Kelley, along with others who are regulars on the network, are always joking around. “Most of what I do on the radio is … they give me a topic, and I give them my opinion,” Kyrk said. “If I see something going on on the road, I call in and give them the information. Or it could be that I see something … I see smoke, and I call in to them and ask them to investigate it. It could be nothing, or it could be a major accident that drivers need to know about.” As for trucking, Kyrk said he describes himself as a driver who “delivers extreme white-glove service” to his clients. He can’t go into further details due to security reasons related to his carrier. Growing up in upper New York State, Kyrk said he remembers being fascinated by the snowplow trucks and farm equipment. He said that early interest likely planted the seed for his love of trucking. He also credits trucking for making his life better. “Most of the education I have gotten has come from the real world and school of hard knocks (on the road), not college,” Kyrk said. “I think college is great for people, but I also think that you should learn some kind of a trade. Because then you have something you can use later in life if you have to fall back on it. Also, you can do simple repairs around the house. I am a big advocate for that.” Kyrk has been on the road for 15 years and has traveled nearly 2 million miles. He started out with Stevens Transport after quitting the retail business and enrolling in a trucking school. Now, at 46, he said he knows he won’t be able to drive a truck forever, no matter how much he loves the industry. “I know there are drivers my age who are having major health issues,” Kyrk said. “I’m realistic that trucking is rough, and your body wears out. Diesel is a bit of an addiction. If you wanna get into trucking, make sure you’re out there for at least five years. At that point, you probably won’t want to leave. Once you get it into your blood it’s very, very, very hard to get rid of.” Though he now lives in the Pittsburgh area, Kyrk said he considers his truck to be his “home.” And he doesn’t want to imagine it any other way. “I try to be the best person and driver I can be,” he said. “People say the brotherhood of trucking is gone, but I think it’s still there. It’s had to change with the times, but the days of helping a fellow trucker on the side of the road are not over. I’ve benefitted from that, and I have been the helper. You just do the best you can do. When you do the right things for the right reasons, you will feel good about it.” To listen to TNC Radio, log on to tncradio.live. The “Morning Grind” show is on the air from 8-10 a.m. Central time Monday through Friday, and the “Evening Surge” airs from 4-6 p.m. Central time weekdays.

If you ask Marcus Kurtz what he hauls, he’ll probably say he drives fresh and frozen food to the Midwest for Brent Miller Trucking of Allenwood, Pennsylvania, but that’s only part of his load. He also carries 25 years of industry experience. He often carries his wife and four children — but not all at the same time. And he carries on a family tradition that began in 1884. That’s when Kurtz’s great-grandfather started a feed mill in Akron, Pennsylvania, and launched the family’s trucking legacy with feed-related loads. He passed on the business to his son, who left it to Kurtz’s father and uncles. Kurtz was born in 1979. In 1987, his father moved to upstate New York and started a second mill, which became independent in 1991. Kurtz’s brothers now own the mill, as well as a farm where they raise dairy cows and cash crops. “When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was farm,” he said, adding that he still helps plant and harvest. “I wanted to drive a truck, too, so I decided to get into trucking, and it just kind of stuck.” Trucks were a part of Kurtz’s daily life growing up. He said he started driving equipment around the mill when he was 12 or 13, and he drove his first semi down the road when he was 16. He drove straight trucks for his father, earning his Class B commercial driver’s license at 18 and his Class A at 21. The family only drove locally, and their farthest runs were three hours away. “Back then, that was a very big deal to be gone all day on the truck with my dad,” he said. “Now my kids think the same way.” When Kurtz was 23, he married his wife, Julia, and began driving for her family’s company, Black Bear Trucking, of Mifflintown, Pennsylvania. The pair are now parents to Sharla Joelle, 17; Leslie DeShawn, 15; Sheryl Janae, 13; and Shannon Jewel, 8. Kurtz usually leaves on Sundays and returns on Fridays, a schedule he said his children have grown to accept. “It makes it difficult, especially for me, when they get to go do family functions and I’m here, working a thousand miles from home,” he said. “It does pull hard on the heart, but at the same time, when I get home, they’re always the first ones out to the truck to meet me.” Kurtz’s father-in-law sold him his first truck — a 2000 Kenworth — in 2004. In 2007, Kurtz dozed off at the wheel and rolled the truck down a 20-foot embankment. “If it would have been a minute earlier, I would have went down a 200-foot ravine; and if it had been a minute later, I would have run head-on into a rock wall,” he said. “I’m very thankful to be alive today.” He bought a second truck, which he sold in 2011. He said he looked for a day job at that time, but the lack of good-paying work in his area soon put him back on the road. He added that he enjoys the family-centered environment at Brent Miller Trucking, where he has worked since October 2018. “They actually bought this truck for me,” he said of the 1995 Kenworth W900L he now drives. “Growing up, this was always one of my dream trucks to drive, and they actually bought it and surprised me with it.” The rig is equipped with a Kenworth Aerodyne Sleeper and a 2016 Great Dane 54-foot trailer. The company purchased the truck in May 2019, and Kurtz took it on the road that fall. He carries a toolbox with him so he can complete minor repairs on the go. One of the perks of using older equipment is that it is relatively easy and inexpensive to work on, he said. He is happy to rattle off the details of the truck — 550-34-60 cab, 18-speed transmission, 3.36 rears, 295-inch wheelbase — as well as the work his company put into it. Their shop rebuilt or upgraded everything from the engine, drivetrain, suspension and brakes to the wiring, dash panels and carpet. Most of the interior is original, Kurtz said, and he still plans to work on the rears. “I run it as if I own it,” he said. “Between me and the shop, we keep this truck running in tip-top shape. That’s the kind of person I’ve always been. I always take care of my truck, because it’s how I make my bread and butter.” The truck has 3.3 million miles on it, and Kurtz has covered his fair share of ground. He’s driven the truck as far as Texas, Tennessee, Washington and Connecticut. Last winter he fulfilled a long-standing dream by driving across the Rocky Mountains. Trucking is not easy work, he said, adding that he wishes more people could see drivers’ daily lives so they would show more consideration when it comes to giving drivers room to maneuver or places to park. “It would be really nice if people could understand more of what we do and more of what we go through to put food on the shelves for them,” he said. “It’s the way we support our families, but also, it’s the way we support our country.” Kurtz has also received his share of appreciation. He said twice other diners have anonymously paid for his meals when he was on the road, and he also enjoys the bonds forged between drivers. “There’s people that are out here simply for the paycheck. I’m out here because it’s my livelihood,” he said. “It’s a passion of mine. It was always something that I wanted to do, and I guess you could say that I’m fulfilling one of my dreams.” Kurtz says he might have passed the trucking gene on to his son, who hopes Kurtz will buy another truck and give it to him when he turns 21. Whether that happens depends on the economy, Kurtz said, and he has a different goal to look forward to — farming. “I keep saying that I don’t want to drive trucks all my life, but so far, it seems like that’s about how it’s working out,” he said. “I would hope someday, maybe in the next 10 or 15 years, to slow down and buy a small farm anyway, and do a little bit of hobby farming with my kids.”

The movie set is abuzz with activity as crew members wheel lights and cameras into position and the director barks orders. It’s hot, but the production team pushes through on a short schedule. Ever since Hollywood got back to work following a long COVID-19 layoff, shooting time has been at a premium as everyone scrambles to complete their projects. Tommy Ukauka stands off to the side and coolly takes everything in. The 52-year-old is not a hot new TV star, a harried screenwriter or a fast-talking movie producer. In fact, the soft-spoken native Hawaiian is easily overlooked as just one of hundreds of people helping to make the magic happen. But without Ukauka, things on this particular set would grind to a halt very quickly. Ukauka is key to keeping the talent happy. For the past couple of years, the 30-year trucking veteran has driven for Sunrise Dressing Rooms of Glendale, California, towing mobile dressing rooms to shoot locations for movies, television and commercials. “I love this job right here,” Ukauka said. “I love coming to work. I love doing the job. I wouldn’t trade this job for anything.” Like a lot of things in Tinseltown, there’s a lot of sweat behind the scenes. Ukauka delivers the customized trailer to a set and then is basically on standby until the shoot is completed. Fourteen, 16- and even 18-hour days are common. “Sometimes we stay at a location for two days; sometimes we stay for five days,” he said. “Every time they move the location, we move. Wherever they shoot, you move to the base camp — it’s called a base camp, where they park their trucks and everything. I stay there the whole day helping them out, driving trucks or whatever has to be done at the base camp.” Ukauka’s role requires a weekly commute, he says. “I just got a house in Vegas. So, every weekend me and my buddies, five of us have houses in Vegas, and we drive to LA on a Sunday. We stay there during the week, and Fridays we drive back to Vegas to stay in our homes,” he explained. “There’s five of us from Hawaii, and that’s what we all do.” It’s about 2,500 miles from Hawaii to Los Angeles, but Ukauka’s truck driving career has come a lot farther than that to be here. “In 1989, I got my CDL license and, for all that time I’ve been driving semi tractor-trailers, tandems, anything that’s got wheels on it, I drove,” he said. “My uncle used to own his own trucking business in Hawaii, and we would drive up and down the dump quarry where you dump trash.” Ukauka landed his job with Sunrise Dressing Rooms through a friend, who called him out of the blue one day. “My buddy called me up,” he recalled. “He called me up on a Thursday evening. He said, ‘You wanna work, you gotta be here tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. sharp.’ So, I just left everything and just jumped on a plane. Got here at 5 o’clock in the morning, went with him and never stopped. Never looked back.” Shifting his career from Hawaii to the mainland took some adjustments, Ukauka noted. “Driving is a lot different in Hawaii than it is over here,” he said. “They don’t have freeways like in LA. They’ve got one freeway; it’s called the H3 and it goes from one end of the island to the other end. It’s not a big, easy highway like here, either.” It might be easier to get around here on the mainland, but the job has the same headaches and mishaps of any trucking assignment. Ukauka recalls one run to Vegas to shoot an episode of the NCIS franchise, when disaster struck. “We took two honey wagons, and both honey wagons had blowouts. I blew a tire on the 15; I was almost into Vegas when my tire blew. I just drove slow. I drove 30 more miles to a Love’s truck stop — and I got there, and they couldn’t fix my tire,” he said. “So, I stayed there for eight hours waiting to get my tire fixed — but we got to where the location was,” he said. “Our filming was on Fremont Street. It was a pretty good gig, actually. It was one week; got there on a Monday, came back on a Saturday. Yeah, that was pretty nice.” As they say in Hollywood, success comes with a price — and in trucking that means losing out on time with loved ones. For Ukauka, that sacrifice is deeper than most. “I have a family but they’re all back in Hawaii, so I have nothing over here. I just work. Work for my family,” he said. “I only get back there, maybe like once a year. Maybe twice if I’m lucky. With this COVID thing, I was up there for five months because they shut down everything here. But it’s very busy here now.” Despite missing his family, Ukauka said he thoroughly enjoys his work because of the changing scenery and interesting locations. And, of course, there’s the unique added perk of rubbing elbows with famous (and not-so-famous) movie and television stars. “Oh yeah, I took some pictures with some interesting people,” he said. “Andy Garcia, Ronda Rousey, Kenan Thompson. I’m doing a show now called ‘Hunters’ with Al Pacino. I’m with these guys ’til November. It started about, oh, three weeks ago. So that’s a pretty good run of about five months.” For Ukauka, being an essential part of the behind-the-scenes production never has a dull moment — and he loves every minute of it.

Depending on the day, James Weverka pops up in his TikTok videos wearing a well-shaped baseball cap, a bone-white straw cowboy hat or occasionally a stocking cap. All of these are appropriate, considering the number of “hats” the father of three wears during the course of his life on the road and in service to others. Weverka, an owner-operator based in Nebraska, has quickly risen to social media fame as his alter-ego “Cowboy” maneuvers through one situation after another behind the wheel of “Hercules,” the real-life Kenworth with which he hauls livestock across five states. From TikTok Weverka has expanded to Facebook, Instagram and his own YouTube channel, where fans can keep up on his adventures. And it all started on a bet. “(It was) my kids, believe it or not. They downloaded this TikTok app and they’re like, ‘Hey Dad, you really need to download this.’ I was like, ‘No, if I do that, I’ll blow you guys out of the water,’” Weverka said. If responding to a challenge from his kids was all there was to Weverka’s start on TikTok, viewers might have dismissed the 33-year-old Texas native as little more than an attention-hungry loudmouth, posting videos to satisfy his ego. But there’s a lot more to James Weverka than meets the eye — or the ear. His goal is actually to use social media to reach others, provide fellow truckers a chuckle or, when needed, to rally his followers for a cause. “The whole point of the TikTok was I wanted to do something good,” Weverka said. “I got in touch with another gentleman who goes by Doc Cowboy. He said he also wanted to do something positive.” The duo decided to launch a TikTok charity run and donate the money raised to help someone in need. The first charity run benefited a man dealing with spina bifida whom they nicknamed Teddy Bear, aka Wheelz, and a sensation was born. “When I did that TikTok, within the first 48 hours, I had over 20,000 followers on my account,” Weverka said. “We ran this charity run and it came out very, very successful. I think we raised just under $10,000 to build a wheelchair-accessible porch for Teddy Bear at his house. We ended up getting about 50 people together to go up there and actually build the porch for him.” Inspired, Weverka and Doc started looking for more opportunities to help others — and they didn’t have to look far. People passed along news of families who were going through tough times because of personal illness, a sick child or some other difficult situation. Since that first charity run, every step of the process has been refined, from Weverka’s manic marketing on social media to setting up cash apps and financial audit procedures to assure the public that everything is above board. People can donate money directly during each 30-day fundraiser. Many drivers play a bounty game, where a specific trucker is called out by his or her peers, who pledge money to be donated once they are “caught.” “We have a person who keeps track of who the money comes from and where it comes from. Once the money is all added up, on that 30th day, we transfer the funds,” Weverka said. “All of the funds. Every dime of the funds. Whatever we raise, we transfer to the person that we were running the charity for,” he said. “On top of that, we also send information about who donated so that whoever receives the money can send out thank-you cards or whatever they want to do for everybody that donated for them.” Of course, not all of Weverka’s videos support a charitable cause. On TikTok he’s a naturally rowdy performer. He’s completely in his element, whether lip-syncing to music, providing comic relief or ranting about something that’s gotten under his skin as the mood hits him. He’s even created a skit character — the hapless “Rookie” — and will occasionally get into a discussion with Hercules, with the truck talking back to him. Weverka’s loud-and-proud, not-politically correct banter rates a solid PG-13, but no more so than a group of buddies sharing a few beers and swapping stories. And that, Weverka said, is exactly what he wants to do. “My ultimate goal is to put a smile on everybody’s face, whether they’re having a bad day or not,” he said. “I come up with crazy content. I’ve been told hundreds of thousands of times that when people are having a bad day, they just look at one of my videos and I change their lives.” Weverka feels such a connection to his fellow drivers that you’d think he’s been in the trucking game his whole his life. In fact, he’s only been on the road about five years, finally following a childhood dream. “My dad was married to this woman back in the day. I was about 9 or 10 years old, and her dad was a trucker. He pulled flatbed, and every summer I would go ride with him in the truck all summer long. We would go down to Vegas and do all kinds of stuff,” Weverka recalled. “He’d always put me to work and make me crawl up on the trailer and tarp it down and stuff like that. He had a Kenworth W900 back in the day, and it was my dream truck,” he continued. “I would go with him for weeks on end. He kept me busy, and I had a blast. I just was fascinated with the size of the trucks. I felt like I was the king of the road when I was a kid riding with him, and it just kind of stuck with me as I got older.” As fate would have it, Weverka got the chance three years ago to buy his dream truck — Hercules — and he promptly started tricking out the 2005 Kenworth W900L from nose to mudflaps, investing thousands of dollars. “I slowly started adding stuff to it and customizing it and making it look pretty and stuff like that,” he said. “I was into car shows big-time for a while there, and I was like, that’d be cool to start going to shows and doing something crazy. Before I started my whole TikTok thing, we started on the truck just getting it better looking.” Today, Hercules has a life of its own and is as much of a draw on social media as its fast-talking owner. As the notoriety of “Cowboy and Hercules” has grown coast-to-coast and around the world, requests for tributes and mentions roll in regularly. One message reads, “My dad was a trucker all his life. His CB handle was Hillbilly. He passed away from cancer in 2004 and today is his anniversary. Can you do a call for him on the CB please?” Another reads, “Could you do this for my dad? He was a driver for Werner. He passed away February 13, 2021. He went by Eagle. If you would, could you post it for me?” As brash and hyped-up as many of his videos are, Weverka hits the listener just as hard when he softens his tone to honor these requests, talking about the fallen or the sick or the struggling. It’s easy to care, he says, when you’re surrounded by the kind of people he’s met and befriended in trucking. “A lot of this stuff I can relate to, and there’s a lot of this stuff that I can’t,” he said. “I have a tremendous heart and a softness for people who are struggling because I know what it’s like to struggle. “I had a rough childhood myself, losing people. I lost my best friend of 19 years almost three years ago, killed in a head-on collision,” he explained. “And going through medical conditions is something that hits hard with me, especially when it comes to kids. I’ve got three of my own, and my daughter went through medical issues herself.” Weverka hopes to bring back the “old school” of trucking — revive the image of truckers as the “Knights of the Highway,” as they were once known. “I’m trying to bring back the way it’s supposed to be, where you see a truck on the side of the road, you pull over and help them out. You don’t drive by,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about. As soon as you join the trucking community, you’re family for life. The people are the best part.” Much like his driving career, Weverka’s social media adventure has come a long way in a very short period of time. But he has no intention of slowing down, having seen the impact he has had on so many. In a cruel twist, Doc himself was recently diagnosed with some serious health issues, leading Weverka to do a charity run in his honor. It was yet another reminder of how social media can be a powerful tool for good, matching regular people in difficult circumstances to others who care enough to help them. “I have met so many friends doing this, it’s ridiculous. Lifelong friends, friends that will drop anything they’re doing in the middle of the night to come help you. And those are the friends that you want,” Weverka said. “It’s funny. Everybody looks at me as if I’m an inspiration,” he mused. “But in all reality, everybody else is the inspiration to me. We wanted to take this nationwide and because of them, we did that. It’s been a heck of a ride, and I’m going to continue to take that ride.” Find Weverka on TikTok (cowboyandhercules12), Facebook (The Legendary Cowboy and Hercules), Instagram (cowboyandhercules) and YouTube (Cowboy Hercules). To keep up with the latest charity runs and chases by Weverka and Doc, visit truckercharitychase.com.

After two years on the road, Lori Hendrickson, and her cat, Kali (pronounced like the shorthand “Cali” for California), are tried and true when it comes to trucking together. Kali, a 9-year-old domestic shorthair is the oldest of Hendrickson’s cat crew, which also includes two males — a black cat named Vesper, and Simba, a black and gray tabby. Kali is the only member of the crew that hits the road with Hendrickson. Vesper and Simba aren’t left behind as Hendrickson’s least-favorite companions; rather, the pair are Kali’s least favorites. At home, it only takes one look from either of the two males for Kali to give a warning growl or hiss at them from across a room. “It’s like, ‘Calm down! They’re not even doing anything to you,’” Hendrickson said with a laugh, noting that Kali’s personality is the complete opposite of the other two cats. Where Vesper and Simba play and run around together, Kali is more like a “cranky old lady” — at least when she’s at home. Trucking transforms Kali into a completely different creature. “When she’s in the truck, she’s loving and she’s calm,” Hendrickson said. “It’s like at a complete snap of the finger, she’s like two different cats. I can barely stand her at home because she’s growling and hissing all the time, but then we’re in the truck and she’s sweet and loving. It’s like, ‘Who are you?’” Trucking provided a much-needed transformation for Hendrickson, too. Just two years ago, she was working as a non-emergency medical transporter, pushing wheelchairs and driving people to and from appointments. She had some “regulars” and was familiar with the routes between their homes and doctors’ offices. But Hendrickson wanted more. She had no clue that Kali did too. Traveling the world was Hendrickson’s dream, but lacking the funds to do so, it impossible. Then one day she realized there was really nothing holding her back. “I finally had it,” Hendrickson said. “I want to see more. I want to do more. I’m single. I don’t have kids. I don’t have anything tying me down.” She thought, “Let’s do this. Let’s do something for myself.” In the two years Hendrickson has hit the road as a professional driver, she hasn’t regretted making that decision — especially since she can bring her feline friend along. Hendrickson says Kali is a true trucking cat: She gets in a little “igloo” or onto the bed, and she stays there until it’s time to eat or visit the litter box. When Hendrickson stops for food or checks into a shipper or receiver, Kali stays put in one of her favorite spots. “I swear, she gains like 10 pounds because she doesn’t want to leave (the truck),” she laughed. In part, Kali is a great trucking companion because she is wary of the outside world, Hendrickson said. On the other hand, Vesper craves outdoor adventures, and Simba will run if he gets spooked. Because of the loud noises at truck stops, shippers and receivers, Hendrickson said she would be worried about Vesper or Simba running off. If Kali hears loud noises, she runs under the bed or hides behind the pillows. That’s why she makes the perfect trucking pet, even though she’s grumpy at home. Those growls turn into purrs when Kali is in the truck — until it’s time to go home again. “Even just going the one mile from the truck to the house, she will literally sit there and meow the whole time, because she’s not happy about being outside of the truck,” Hendrickson said. “So she’ll sit there and meow and be all upset.” As Hendrickson’s first cat, Kali may be the most spoiled. When Kali was just a kitten, Hendrickson retrieved her in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, an hour away from her hometown. “During the hour-long car ride, I was just thinking of any name and would say it to her to see if a name would perk her up or get her attention,” Hendrickson said. “(Kali) was the one name that every time I said it, she would look up at me.” The two have shared a special connection ever since. That connection grows even stronger when the two hit the road together for about a week at a time. When she’s not driving, Hendrickson likes to watch other people drive in demolition derbies and races. As a child, she says, she fell in love with watching all the vehicles get smashed together when her dad took to events. “I just fell in love with watching it,” she said. “It’s one of the things that me and my brother go and watch all the time. It’s just our thing that we love to do.” The farthest she’s traveled from to see a demolition derby is Iowa. However, she noted, trucking allows her to enjoy watching drivers all cross the U.S. Those weeks on the road not only help Hendrickson find entertainment, but also to find and love herself. The added benefit is seeing the world. “In two years, I have seen all 48 lower states,” she said. “I would have never been able to do that if I just stayed where I was. I love it. I wake up in one state and then I get to go to bed in a whole different state. I get to do it over and over again.” Of all areas in the U.S., her favorite area is the Southwest. “I’ll stop somewhere for a rest break and see the view, and it’s just a reminder of why I’m doing this,” she said. “With the desert and the mountains, it just puts me in complete awe and it’s so beautiful.” Kali, on the other hand, is indifferent to the scenery or locale. Kali just wants to be in the truck.

After 11 years in the trucking game, John Williams finally realized his dream of becoming an owner-operator with the purchase of his own rig last September. And while that milestone may have been more than a decade in coming, he’s more than made up for lost time. Everywhere he goes, people recognize the Superman-style design of his truck. “The Superman logo was on the truck when I bought it,” Williams admits of the 2005 9900 IX International he purchased off of an acquaintance. “Somebody at the dealership decided to put it on there. It wasn’t an idea of mine.” The paint job may not have been his doing, but the identity has quickly stuck to the Louisiana native. “Mercer Transportation, the company I lease my truck to, is based out of Kentucky. They have over 2,000 drivers,” Williams said. “When I was in orientation with them, during COVID, they were only doing 10 people at a time. Those guys see me now, they always say, ‘Hey Superman!’ That’s what everybody called me. “Now, don’t matter where I go, doesn’t matter what state I’m in, they see the Superman logo and everybody calls me Superman,” he continued. “And I work out, you know, so I’m kind of a big guy. I’m not a scrawny guy. I’m a little muscular, so it just goes with it.” All of that makes a charming story — but Williams’ life on the road has demonstrated that his “Man of Steel” mettle goes much deeper than a coat of paint. If ever there was a guy who started at the very bottom in an industry it is he. “Since I was young, I always knew I wanted to drive trucks. It’s not a family thing. It just always intrigued me, ever since I could remember,” he said. “After I got my license, I was 19 years old, and me being so young, nobody wanted to hire me. So, I kind of asked around, asked a few of my friends (about job leads). A cop that stayed down the street from us, one of his buddies owned a sanitation business, like portalets. “I stayed there for three years and got me some experience; started out with a Class B truck with a tanker on the back, pumping out portalets,” he recalls. “Once I did that, I moved up to the Class A, and I started driving in the oil fields. And then I started driving big trucks, big tractor-trailers.” Williams reveled in the open road, just as he had dreamed. In addition, he said, he felt a sense of pride for his ability to support his family, which now includes two boys and a girl, ranging in ages from 1 to 12. He was also fulfilling the core values his mother, Constance, instilled in him early in life. “Man, she always told me, even when my dad wasn’t there and it was only my mom and my siblings, ‘My kids, when they get big, they won’t depend on anybody, and they’re going to have their own,’” he said. “She said, ‘You ain’t going to depend on the government or anything. You’re going to go out there and you’re going to work, and you’re going to strive to support you and your family.’” So, when the oil fields suffered a downturn and Williams’ income plummeted, he never had any option but keep pushing onward. A friend recruited Williams for some job opportunities outside of trucking in West Texas and, despite being separated from his family, Williams did what he had to do. “Trucking just wasn’t in it for me at that time. I was looking for an alternative to support my family,” Williams said. “Turns out I needed my CDL, because I had to drive the crane trucks and all the rest of the equipment. I got my crane certification with them. I got my craning license. “I stayed with the company for two years, working 28 days on and 14 days off. I saved up my money until it was time for me to come back home,” he continued. “I made really good money, but I just got tired of being away from my family all the time.” The experience helped Williams get a leg up on his next goal, one that had been hatched while still trucking in the oil fields. “When I started, I wanted my CDL so bad. I really wasn’t thinking about owning my own truck. Getting my CDL was the only thing on my mind,” he said. “In the oil fields, there’s a lot of owner-operators, and they all told me, ‘If you ever have the opportunity to buy your own truck, that’s the way to go.’ “When I came home from Texas, I knew for a fact that I was going to buy me a truck,” he explained. “They have this Facebook group for truckers back home and I put on there, ‘Hey, if anybody has a truck for sale, I’m interested in buying one.’ All these people hit me up, saying they had a truck for sale for this price, that price. There just wasn’t anything that caught my eye to where I had to have it.” As word got around, Williams’ friend eventually approached him about buying his truck, Superman logo and all. Making that deal, Williams had come full circle, not only with his career, but with that particular piece of equipment. “Actually, this truck here is the very first 18-wheeler I drove when I first started driving,” Williams said. “When I moved up to the 18-wheelers, this was my very first truck.” Williams said the life of an owner-operator has fit him to a T, providing the chance to earn while doing what he loves, and on a schedule that helps him minimize time away from home or missing his kids’ events and activities. And it’s already sparked his next goal. “I want to own at least two more big trucks. I would love to help out somebody that’s in the same shoes that I was in, where nobody really wants to give them a shot,” he said. “But you have to have the same mindset as me. I want somebody that’s on the same level as me, that’s going to respect my truck, that’s going to respect the business and respect themselves. You know what I mean? Have the decency to respect another man’s craft. That’s how I’m providing for my family, as well as you, the driver. Simple as that,” he continued. “I’m never going to put just anybody in my truck that’s going to go out there and is going to total my truck or hit somebody else, kill a family, or that’s going to disregard anything that’s going on with the truck,” Williams concluded. “I want somebody that wants to be there, that actually loves trucking and sees it the way I see it. If they’ve driven, I’ll give anybody a shot. I don’t care who you are.”

For Liz Imel, an over-the-road driver for Maverick Transportation, the best thing about trucking is the ability to travel and see the country. “It’s awesome. I’ve got the best office view there is,” she said with an easy smile and a laugh, adding that she can’t imagine herself having an office job and sitting behind a desk all day. “That would just make me crazy. I love traveling and seeing different things all the time.” While Imel’s trucking career started in 2012, her experience with heavy equipment began at a much earlier age. Born in Sterling, Illinois, Imel’s first driving experience was on the family farm at age 5, operating her dad’s 4020 John Deere tractor. Next, she said, she drove a five-speed pickup truck from the corn field to the house. “He basically said, ‘Follow the road, and when you get to the gate, turn the key off and step on the brake,” she recalled. “You learn to improvise when you farm.” Imel discovered a love of big rigs nearly a decade later when, at age 14, one of the family’s neighbors, a grain hauler, hired her to wash his truck on the weekends. “He drove a really nice Bicentennial long-nose Peterbilt. He’d take me over to where the company was, and I’d wash his truck for him — and then I’d help the other guys wash their trucks,” she said. “Then he’d let me drive it around the yard. My interest in trucks started there.” During high school, Imel excelled in athletics, becoming a state-qualifying shot putter in addition to playing softball. While she had a definite interest in trucking, she said, life took a different course. After working in a farm equipment repair shop with her then-husband for seven years, she was employed by an automotive parts manufacturer, serving as a calibration specialist and an electronics technician for six years, before going to work for National Manufacturing Co., a century-old hardware-manufacturing plant. “I loved my job at National, I really did,” Imel said, adding that she started out working on the assembly line. During her more than 12 years with the company, she advanced to assistant foreman. “I’ve done a little bit of everything. I unloaded trucks, steel and everything, and then I became a die setter. I set up presses and ran 200-ton presses, stamping out the hardware.” When National was forced to close because of foreign competition, the employees received federal grants for job training. That’s when Imel’s career in the trucking industry was born. “It was like, ‘This is my chance!’ I’d never traveled much, so this was a good opportunity to travel AND get to drive a big truck,” she explained. “I went to the local community college and took a one-month CDL course.” After earning her CDL in May 2012, Imel knew it was time to hit the road — but first, she took some time off for her oldest daughter’s wedding. In July, she was hired by Maverick Transportation to haul refrigerated trailers. After company training, she was assigned her first truck and drove her first route in early September. “I went to Russellville (Arkansas), to the Tyson plant,” she recalled. For the next seven years, she explored the lower 48 United States, hauling a refrigerated trailer. When Maverick sold its refrigerated division, Imel found herself working for the carrier’s newly acquired boat division. For the past year and a half, she’s been hauling lowboy flatbed trailers loaded with pontoon boats — a change she has happily embraced. “It’s harder (than refrigerated), but it’s not a bad hard,” she said, noting that her schedule is more structured now than when she worked in the refrigerated division. During her years on the road, Imel has earned a reputation for safety and reliability. She has been recognized by Maverick twice as driver of the month, once in October 2014 and again in February 2019, and was the carrier’s 2019 driver of the year. More recently, she was honored by the Women In Trucking Association (WIT) as the organization’s member of the month for March 2021. “Maverick’s all about safety — the safety of the motoring public as well as their drivers,” she said. Imel said she loves driving for Maverick, and she is particularly proud of the company’s Employees Care program, which she describes as “Maverick employees helping other Maverick employees.” The program, spearheaded by current and past drivers of the year, is completely employee-funded, and is designed to help Maverick employees financially in case of an accident, illness or other situation. “When you get hurt on the job, it takes a couple of weeks for your disability to kick in,” Imel explained. “Well, during that two weeks, your insurance premiums still have to be paid, so when you finally get that first disability check, there’s two week’s worth of insurance premiums withheld — and disability checks are only 60% of your regular wages.” Maverick’s Employees Care program has also provided assistance to employees impacted by natural disasters, such as floods or tornados, she said. “A lot of drivers don’t think they need disability insurance, and they just don’t think anything’s going to happen to them,” she continued. “But our job is dangerous. At any given moment, anything could happen.” Like many professional drivers, Imel was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that swept the globe beginning in March 2020. “I was really thankful I was a truck driver when all of it started hitting,” she said, adding that even though there was little need for boat haulers during the worst of the pandemic, Maverick worked to ensure its drivers had paying loads. “They kept us moving. I didn’t have to go home and sit,” she said, adding that she loves being on the road, especially driving in wooded or mountainous areas. That’s not to say Imel doesn’t look forward to home time. Between her two daughters and their spouses, she has four grandchildren, ranging in age from newborn to 8, and Imel said she loves spending time with the family. “Also, I bought a house on 3.9 acres, and there’s timberland — so when I go home, I’m busy trimming trees and mowing the yard. I guess that would be my hobby. That and seeing my grandkids. And taking them candy,” she laughed. Imel’s oldest grandchild, Landon, is active in sports, including basketball, baseball and soccer, and she said she looks forward to catching one of his games whenever she’s not on the road. When she’s on the road, however, her focus is on safety, and on safely transporting her loads. While some drivers decry “newfangled” features such as automatic transmissions and advanced driver-assistance systems, Imel said she appreciates the newer technologies. “I learned (to drive) in a stick, and I don’t have a problem with a stick, but the newer automatic transmissions are fabulous, especially in traffic,” she said. “It’s easier on your shoulder and your knee, because there’s no clutching and shifting.” Imel has also participated in the road-testing of driver-assistance technologies through Maverick, including Stoneridge’s MirrorEye camera system. “The cameras are mounted right above my truck’s doors, and they pan in and out with the truck. When the truck turns, they move with the truck,” she explained. “You see twice as much as you do in a regular mirror.” In addition, Imel employs a blind-spot camera that’s wired into the MirrorEye system, which she says helps to ensure safety on the road. She’s also a fan of dash cams, which she said can provide valuable information in case of an accident. Even though the number of woman drivers is steadily growing, many people still view trucking as a male-dominated industry. Imel said she doesn’t believe she’s faced any additional obstacles because of her gender, however. “I’ve pretty much been in a man’s world my whole working career,” she said, adding that her height (she stands 5 feet, 10 inches) and her demeanor probably help. “A lot of it is how you carry yourself. You’ve got to have that self-confidence,” she explained. “Whatever I do, I try to be the best at it. I have made more money driving a truck than I have ever made in a factory, and it’s because I’m driven. I keep the left door shut,” she said with a laugh, referring to staying in the driver’s seat until each run is complete. “If you keep that left door shut and know how to manage your clock, there’s good money to be made out here.” Imel is quick to point out that while trucking can be a rewarding career, it’s not for everyone. “You have to be self-motivated,” she stated. “It’s not like you have to get up and go to a factory and punch a clock, but my electronic logbook (ELD) — that’s my time clock. As soon as I start that clock, I’m rolling, because that’s how I get paid. I don’t get paid if I’m sitting still.” While Imel may be all business when it comes to driving, she said she also enjoys relaxing and just having fun with family and friends. During a recent photo session with members of The Trucker Jobs Magazine staff, Imel kept everyone laughing with her exclamations of, “Cheesy pickles!!” whenever the camera shutter clicked. “I like to laugh,” she said. “Life is just too short not to laugh.”

A mini dog with a big personality keeps Ken and Katie Faykosh keen on the road. The married duo, with their mini Pomeranian by their side, truck together — and love every mile of it. Becoming a driver wasn’t intentional for Ken. In fact, he said he accidentally landed in trucking. His plan was to do what he’d always done: Drive flatbeds and dump trucks around northwest Ohio. Then the commercial driver’s license (CDL) requirement came along, and Ken realized he needed to have one if he wanted to keep his job. So, he set out to earn his CDL. That’s when he met Katie. Katie, who said she’d wanted to go into trucking all her life, had grabbed the opportunity for training — just at the right time to meet Ken at a CDL school in Florida. Six months later, Ken had earned his CDL and wed Katie — but he didn’t keep his job. Instead, he said, he “fell into” over-the-road trucking and has been driving ever since. Katie drove over the road herself until she left to take care of the couple’s children, Trischa, Matt, Jeremiah and Josh. Once the children grew up and left the house, the pair found themselves stuck with contrasting schedules. One night, they asked themselves why they were working without ever being able to spend time together. Ken said he has always prioritized his home life. He was asked once to be a part of management, but said it wasn’t for him. “I want to retire, and at my retirement party, everybody ask, ‘Who the hell is he?’” Ken said with a laugh. “That’s the guy I want to be.” So, with the kids raised, Ken and Katie headed out on the road together. “We’re out here to make a few bucks, to pay off our camper, get us set up for retirement and just spend time together,” Katie said. “We lost so much time with him being on the road while I was raising the kids, that we just decided it was time for us.” Not only was it time for Ken and Katie — it was time for them and a dog. Their first Pomeranian was a full-size rescue dog named Toby. “She was just so mellow,” Ken said. “I used to take her for motorcycle rides, or you’d roll the window down and she just wanted to stick her nose out so she could get the wind in her nose. That ferocious little soul. She just did something for me.” Ken and Katie loved the Pomeranian personality so much that they looked for more Poms to hop on the truck with them. Little did they know, they would find a “princess,” as Katie calls her. “We ended up with what we have now — total 180 degrees opposite (from Toby),” Ken said. “I figured she was meant for us and now we have an attachment.” Their current Pom, named Possum, is a total diva princess, according to Katie. “Whatever she wants, she gets,” Katie laughed. “If she’s not happy, no one is happy.” During the winter, Katie thought it would be a good idea to get socks to keep Possum’s feet warm. “Boy, was I wrong,” she laughed. “I put those socks on those feet, and she just gave me this look like she was going to kill me. She quickly pulled those socks off, and if I tried to put them back on her feet, she would try to bite me and growl at me. For the whole rest of the day, she was mean to me, like she was punishing me.” Despite her diva ways, Possum is still the couple’s pride and joy. She’s just what Ken needs on the road, too. Ken looks like a truck driver who might own a Rottweiler or a Doberman, but Possum fits just right. “You don’t need to have a mean dog,” he said. “That’s what a lot of people talk to me about: Don’t you need a bigger dog than that to protect the truck? I say, ‘No, I don’t. I just need a dog to bark and let me know there’s something’s wrong.’ Then, I’m going to toss her in the bunk and take care of the problem. I’m not going to put my dog in harm’s way. I’m the one that’s going to take responsibility to take care of what’s going on.” Ken and Katie try to give Possum a joyful life through their trucking experiences. Stopping at different places with new smells is what makes the trucking life so lively for the Pom. “The joy for us is how much she’s getting out of her life with trucking,” Katie said. “Trucking dogs have a good life. There’s not a whole lot of people that understand that. But trucking dogs have a good life because they have lives that other dogs just don’t have. They have smells, they meet other dogs, and everything is new every day for them. It’s just really neat how trucking brings out a unique personality.” Possum’s life isn’t spent sitting in a house all day, waiting for her owners to come home, or being locked in a kennel. “(Truck dogs are) with us 24/7,” Ken said. “There are people who go out and get a dog — and they’re gone all day at work for 10 to 12 hours a day. Then they go home, the dogs are excited to see them and then they push the dogs aside because they’re tired from work. Maybe if the dog is lucky, you’ll throw a ball in the backyard a couple of times. But out here we’ve got so many guys … that you’ll talk to them about their dogs, and they’ll get emotional.” Ken said Possum will be his last dog, ever. He’s had about four dogs in his lifetime, but he said he just can’t take the heartbreak when they pass. “It’s hard towards the end,” he said, his voice breaking. “When it gets to the end, it’s just hard. I can’t do it anymore.” Possum is 14 years old, and Ken and Katie want to do their best to give her the best life possible. The two are on the road almost permanently at this point, considering their days off are spent camping and seeing nature. The couple once lived near Yellowstone, Montana, so naturally, it’s their favorite site for camping. “We’ve got to have a view,” Katie said. “We love the mountains, and we’ll probably always stay in the mountains.” Having the opportunity to travel primarily in the Midwest is one of the reasons the couple drive for Transport Design out of Minnesota. It makes it easier to camp where they want. In addition, Ken gets to use skills from his first job as a mechanic. Those roots have led him to fixing up an old pickup truck — a 1977 Chevrolet — to pull their camper. “I love tinkering with my own vehicles and love cars,” he said. “I tinkered with cars in my earlier years.” Now, he gets to enjoy his hobby, and it allows the three of them to travel. “I couldn’t imagine my life without my doggies; that’s all there is to it,” he said. “I would trade my life for them.” Ken said he doesn’t know what he would do without all of it — the traveling, Katie, his children and, of course, Possum. They all keep him on his toes as he trucks on.

It was a match made in hog heaven when Jerry and Melissa Cooper met on an internet chatroom in 1998 and married a month later. Melissa, who started driving trucks in the early 1990s at age 19, taught Jerry how to drive a big rig in 2005. The pair now spend their days on the road together with their three dogs and their 1-year-old Juliana mini pig, which the pair named Jake Brake. “The funny thing is it started out to be Jake — just regular Jake,” Jerry said. “Then, when we took him out to go use the restroom, get exercise or whatever be the case, we’d say, ‘Come on, Jake, let’s go back to the truck, let’s go see Mommy.’ He’d lean back and dig his front feet into the ground, just like a Jake brake does on a truck to stop it, because he didn’t want to go. That’s how ‘Jake Brake’ came about.” Jake is the couple’s third pig, he said, adding that they adopted their first pig, Charlie, three years ago to fulfill Melissa’s long-standing dream of having a pet pig. “I fell in love,” she said. “After Charlie passed away, it broke my heart.” The couple soon found a second pig, Frankie, but had to donate him to a rescue because he became too large to fit in their truck. At about 85 pounds, Jake is a good fit for the rig, a 2016 Volvo VNL 560 equipped with a 156-inch custom ARI Legacy sleeper, Jerry said. A pet gate divides the sleeper from the cab, and the couple covered the linoleum floors with carpet because of Jake’s hooves. “It’s kind of funny to watch him ‘skateboard’ — you know, slide around on the floor,” Jerry said with a chuckle. “(But) it’s not too fun when you’ve got to stop and you’re doing 65 or 70 miles an hour.” He added that his favorite thing about pigs is their intelligence. “As a matter of fact, Jake Brake has got the mentality of a 5- to 7-year-old kid,” he said. “You can actually teach them to do tricks.” Jake can sit on command, and close drawers and doors in the sleeper, and he also goes outside on a leash. Melissa said potty training and leash training a pig is easier than training a dog. “When we first got him … he had his accidents because he didn’t know what to do,” she said, adding that he quickly learned from the couple’s “boys” — their three dogs. “He noticed that when we were putting harnesses on the boys, the boys would go over to the passenger door.  He started watching, and he started to move toward the passenger side. He was like, ‘I want to go,’ so we put his harness on and he just automatically trained himself.” The couple takes Jake out three or four times a day to ensure he gets plenty of exercise. It is a sight that brings joy to most everyone Jake meets. “His picture’s been taken so many times by other truck drivers, it’s unreal. People fall in love with him,” Jerry said. “They ask me what breed he is, how big he’ll get. ‘What does he eat?’ is the biggest question. I tell them the list of foods he won’t eat is longer than the foods he will eat.” Since Jake will not eat his pig feed plain, the couple dresses his food up with powdered peanut butter, collagen supplements and vegetable supplements. Jake also enjoys making spitballs, Jerry said. “One thing with pigs that you’ve got to watch out for is, if you ever let them tear paper (they discover) it’s soothing for them,” he said. “They will find any piece of paper — doesn’t matter what it is — and shred it because it calms them down.” Because pigs need constant companionship, it is usually best to get two, Melissa said, adding that it is important to supervise relationships between pigs and dogs, who may view pigs as prey. Oliver, the couple’s 11-year-old Italian greyhound, is the leader of the pack, she said. Also on the truck are Fred, a 6-year-old miniature dachshund, and Earl, a 5-year-old basset hound and dachshund mix. “Jake and Earl are best friends,” she added. “When Jake and Earl are back here by themselves — you know when two little siblings are fighting in the back seat and picking on each other? That’s what it’s like. We’re like, ‘Would you knock it off?’ Nine times out of 10, it’s Earl sleeping in Jake’s bed on the floor, and Jake wants him to move.” While a pig may seem like an unusual road companion, Jerry said he knows several truckers that have pigs, including two teams who have 300- to 350-pound potbellied pigs that use a ramp to get in and out of the trucks. “If you’re going to get a pig for the truck, be sure to check out the pig’s parents,” he added. “That way, you’ll know what size they’re going to (be).” Melissa also emphasized the need for prospective pig parents to research the pets’ needs before adopting. “Be prepared that once you get one, you’re in it for the long haul,” she said. “They can live up to 20 years, and they can be very demanding.” Although caring for Jake and his brothers is a full-time job, the pets make life on the road more enjoyable. Jerry said the critters notice when he and Melissa get stressed, and will often chase each other to break the tension. Sometimes Jake will pick up his food bowl and bang it against the gate, “like he’s in piggy prison,” Jerry said. “It’s very stressful out here on the road when you’re going full time, because you’re going to different places, different environments, and having a pet just helps with your mentality,” Melissa said. “It helps because a lot of drivers are out here by themselves, and pets are just reassuring that everything’s OK.”  

Like a lot of drivers, Martin Dover loves what he does — and has ever since the first time he climbed into the cab of a truck. Like a lot of drivers, he’s experienced the joys of the open road and the perils of being apart from his family, which are part and parcel of the career he’s chosen. But unlike a lot of drivers, who after a long day want only to get some grub and shuteye, Dover shifts into a new gear when he puts his rig in park for the night. The 32-year-old fires up his computer, logs on and tends to the day’s schoolwork, moving him one step closer to his dream of earning a bachelor’s degree in logistics and transportation. “You have options as to how many classes you’re willing to take,” he said. “I’m currently taking two classes per quarter, and that’s considered full-time. Each class is eight weeks long. I have to read about what topic we’re discussing and then post in a discussion forum by either Wednesday or Thursday (of each week), depending on the class. Then, by Sunday, I have to do a quiz or write a paper.” He shrugs. “The workload isn’t too heavy,” he said. Granted, compared to the physical demands and inherent hazards of over-the-road trucking, reading a couple of chapters or knocking out a quiz feels like small potatoes. Nonetheless, Dover‘s motivation to see his degree through is admirable. At five years and counting, the road to earning a college degree is the longest haul this driver has been on, outdistancing runs to 48 states and Canada. “I currently have 79 out of 120 needed credits. My personal goal is to be done with it by the first of 2022,” he said. “I had to take a break after two years because I was involved in an accident and everything got destroyed. I actually rolled my semi.” Another shrug. “No harm, no foul,” he said. As a population category, truck drivers have lower than average educational attainment compared to workers in other professions, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Only 7% of truck drivers hold a bachelor’s degree compared to 35% of workers overall, even as the industry has reached an all-time high in number of drivers  (3.5 million). That growth is driven by younger adults who typically have more education. These facts aren’t lost on Dover, who said he doesn’t see many of his peers sharing in his goal of earning a college degree. “For your Average Joe driver, I don’t think it’s something that they might be interested in,” he said. “To be honest, people coming into this industry are money-driven. They’re not exactly pursuant to higher learning.” Dover said this is a troubling fact, particularly in the case of veterans who have the GI Bill at their disposal to help pay for their college coursework. And those ranks are considerable. According to the Census Bureau an average of one in 10 drivers served in the military, as did Dover. “There are military personnel out there that come fresh out of the service and they get into truck driving — and they have the GI bill laying around,” he said. “I strongly recommend it to all military people to use that to their benefit, because it’s not that hard to get your degree and drive a truck at the same time.” Dover’s own experience with the military predates his stint in the Navy (2007 to 2012). His father, Terry, was in the Army for most of Dover’s childhood, and he grew up in Germany. Living in Europe, he didn’t get the bug to drive trucks until he enlisted. “The military actually introduced me to driving a truck,” he said. “Being raised in Germany, truck drivers — while they do have them over there — it’s not exactly a common occupation, I should say. “I first learned how to drive a truck when I was stationed in Sigonella, Sicily, in the Navy,” he continued. “I first learned to drive on a 13-speed Mercedes. I fell in love with it as soon as I got behind the wheel.” Following his Navy hitch, Dover earned his commercial driver’s license and began the life of a professional driver in 2012. Now with his fourth carrier, Central Oregon Trucking Co., Dover said he’s seen plenty of logistical nightmares through his previous work experience. Seeing how common these issues were for his fellow drivers inspired him to do something about it, and earning his degree is the first step in that process. “I see the drivers around me, and I was looking into how we were treated as people, as drivers,” he said. “For instance, there’s lots of down time where drivers are having to sit at truck stops for hours, sometimes days on end without their next load. When our wheels aren’t turning, we’re not making any money.” “I wanted to figure out a way to make a difference where drivers are treated better than what they have been and currently are,” he explained. “For me personally, Central Oregon is one of the best companies I’ve ever worked for, but I still want to be able to get out there and change the industry to help out my fellow drivers.” Dover started out on an online business degree from Southern New Hampshire University when he had his accident. During the resulting downtime, he started exploring other educational offerings and found American Military University. “They have this course that’s specifically tailored towards transportation and logistics. That was more my calling right there,” he said. “I figure being an operations manager, having that as a goal, would possibly be a stepping stone to very ambitiously being able to change the game, so to speak. “Knowing that I’ve been behind the wheel for so many years, I can get my degree in logistics and transportation and hopefully be able to make a change for the better,” he said. “I know it’s not going to be an overnight thing and it’s going to be years’ worth of work, but I still want to try.” Another motivation for Dover to further his education is closer to home: He wants to set an example for perseverance and commitment for his 9-year-old daughter. “I hope that she is eventually able to find something that she can be passionate about that drives her to where she wants to make something of herself in it, whether it’s music, art, maybe even driving a truck,” he said. “Whatever she decides to do later on in life, as long as she’s 100% committed to it, the commitment and the pride in what you do is what I hope she achieves.”    

Family is important to most professional drivers, and children often grow into roles in the family trucking business. Brandon Davis is pretty sure his two boys are on track for careers in the industry. Both are already pitching in with maintenance and truck-washing duties and, of course, riding with Dad when they can. Davis’ youngest son, 8-year-old Remington (nicknamed “Rooster”) is already learning to be an owner-operator with a tiny truck of his own. That truck, dubbed the “Wee Pete,” was Brandon’s brainchild. He had already modified a child’s wagon to resemble a semi-trailer, complete with lights and a battery for power. He and wife Cortney used the wagon to pull the kids around truck shows. After observing Rooster trying to haul the wagon behind his bicycle, Brandon knew he needed to do more. “I didn’t really have a plan, and once I started it just snowballed,” he said. “I used a few old parts to get started, but I handcrafted most of it. I used a lot of square-tubular steel and sheet metal to make most of it.” Brandon had help with the project. “I helped with wiring the switches, some of the painting of the body panels and installing the trailer floor,” said Rooster. The finished product is a close replica of Brandon’s own 1994 Peterbilt 379, which was a rock-hauling truck for most of its career — until Davis lovingly restored it. That Pete, with a white-on-light-blue color scheme, sports a Caterpillar 3406 mechanical engine and an 18-speed manual transmission. The Wee Pete has an identical color scheme and replicates all the chrome on the 379, including the windshield visor, dual stacks, air filters, grille and (liftable!) Texas bumper. But wait, there’s more. The Wee Pete is equipped with more than 100 lights that are powered by two batteries, along with working gauges, a radio and an air compressor with a tank to power the locomotive horns. Powered by a 400cc diesel engine with a centrifugal clutch, the tiny tractor pulls a spread-axle replica of Brandon’s trailer. Like the big Pete, the Wee Pete’s driver has his own CB “handle.” “My dad and I were hauling military equipment and I was talking on the CB to some other drivers,” Rooster recalled. “They started calling me ‘Rooster’ and it stuck.” Dad uses the larger Pete to pull a 2020 Wilson step deck trailer. “We haul a lot of limestone, marble, granite, lumber and steel,” Brandon explained. The family operates from their home in Willard, Missouri. “We usually stay within a couple hundred miles so we get back the same day, but when we go farther, we’ll pick up a return load from a load board.” The business also has two independent contractors leased on, and Brandon’s wife Cortney makes hotshot runs with a pickup and trailer. Brandon comes by his truck-driving acumen the way many drivers do, and his training was of the old-school variety. “My dad was a trucker. I think I’ve always wanted to drive a truck,” he said. “I worked for a local construction company and when I turned 21, the owner asked if I’d like to get my CDL,” he explained. He trained with co-workers and, once ready, passed the exams to obtain his CDL. After that, Brandon held a variety of trucking jobs. “I hauled some refrigerated, some grain and cattle after I got out of construction,” he said. “Then we moved to Colorado in 2010 and I started doing heavy-haul. I’ve been pulling flatbed ever since.” On many of his trips, Brandon was accompanied by one of his sons. “Tyler did about 100,000 miles with me in one year back when I hauled refrigerated. When Rooster was born, I took him with me a lot to give his mom a break with the newborn,” he said, adding that it wasn’t long before Rooster began riding, too. “When he was four or five weeks old, he went on his first trip when the whole family went,” recalled Brandon. “Rooster was just born into trucking.” Brandon recalls how Rooster would observe trucks on the road and what they were hauling. “He copies everything,” he said. “If he sees a trailer or a load that looks different, he tries to find something like it to haul on his toy trucks. He’s just ate up with it.” Davis often creates videos of Rooster and the Wee Pete, but Rooster doesn’t go on camera until he has his trucker outfit on. His jeans, western shirt, boots, belt and cowboy hat must be “just right” when the video starts. “I just decided that’s the look I want to have,” Rooster explained. One video, featuring Rooster performing a walkaround inspection of the Wee Pete, was viewed over a million times in the first 48 hours and topped three million views in three weeks. It can be seen at youtu.be/JCQMJ92SS00. Another video features the young trucker showing off a hood ornament he received from Raney’s Truck Parts — a chrome rooster, of course. Rooster has also attracted the attention of Wilson Trailer, which made the full-size step deck pulled by the senior Davis. The company is sending hats and decals to Rooster. The youngest Davis does as much of the maintenance on the Wee Pete as he can. “I clean the wheel wells, the grille, bumper, and I fill it up with diesel,” he said. As for future additions or modifications, he said, “Reverse. It’ll be great to have reverse.” While Rooster gets most of the public attention, Brandon talked about his relationship with both boys. “Get involved with your kids,” he said. “They love it.” He advises any parent to find an interest that is common to both parent and child, and to spend time pursuing that interest. “Kids are so involved with phones and tablets that they miss what’s going on in the real world,” he said, adding, “They’re only kids for so long.” Brandon and Cortney spend a great deal of time following both boys in sports. “They play football, basketball and baseball,” he explained. “We’re always running to a practice, a game, or some function.” Tyler, according to Brandon, has the potential to become a professional athlete one day. “He’s really good at everything,” he said. “In football, he’s naturally awesome at it.” At home, Tyler washes trucks and performs other tasks for the business. “I think he’ll be the manager at a truck wash someday.” The family has attended truck shows in Morrison, Colorado, and in Joplin and Perryville in Missouri. They love to participate in local events, too. “I just drove in the Christmas parade in our town,” Rooster said. “I had a Christmas tree on the trailer.” Davis plans to build another Wee Pete, this one for Tyler. “Probably a cabover with a cattle trailer. He loves the idea,” he said. As for the business, Davis doesn’t plan to expand. “I like what we’re doing and we’re doing OK with it,” he said. Although he hasn’t planned the specifics, Rooster said he’s sure he’ll build a career in trucking. He had some thoughts on the future specter of sharing the highway with autonomous trucks. “I’d be VERY scared,” he said. “I think people should still drive.” In the meantime, there will be more parades, truck shows and other opportunities for the Davis family to show off both full-size and “wee” truck versions — and lots more time for Dad and Mom to spend with the boys.