Truck Driving Job News

Those who say beauty is only in the eye of the beholder never met Carmen Anderson. For Anderson, beauty is all around. It’s everywhere in this world, she says; you just have to look a little harder for it sometimes. For example, take a look at her canine traveling companions, Rodney and Otis. The two pups are both Chinese crested dogs, and are hairless except for a wispy smattering about their faces. Put delicately, they don’t fit the standard definition of “cute” — which is exactly what Anderson loves about them. “I’ve always thought they were just the neatest dogs,” she said. “I had my first one, Homer; his name was Homer because he was so homely.” Her two almost-furless companions have basically been raised as truck dogs. Rodney has touched 48 states and Otis, the newer addition, has seen 30. Anderson, who drives for Wisconsin-based America’s Service Line, wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’ve always been a big dog lover. When I first started driving in the 1980s I had a dog,” she said. “Then I took some time off and had a son and raised him. Ever since I came back (to trucking), I’ve always had a dog with me. “That first one was an Australian shepherd, Abby, and she was very protective. The only reason she let me in the truck is because I had to drive it for her,” she shared. “But with these two, it’s about companionship. These are smaller, and they’re hairless, so they’re hypoallergenic and you don’t have to worry about the hair. And they’re just neat, friendly little dogs. They love everybody.” Anderson applies the same beauty filter to her job, too. While some drivers might grow jaded with the long treks and inconveniences of life on the road, Anderson who’s racked up 2 million accident-free miles and counting, still exhibits exuberance for what she does. “Growing up, we didn’t do a whole lot of traveling, and I always wanted to see the United States. What better way to see it and to get paid for it, besides?” she said with a laugh. “I go someplace different every week, and I get to meet all these great people, and I find out what is made around the country. It’s fascinating.” Perhaps the most poignant way Anderson has applied her innate “beauty detector” is in the causes she’s been involved with. A longtime fundraiser for the Special Olympics, she champions those who are different. “I’ve been involved in the Special Olympics for probably like 12 years now, for the truck convoy,” she said. “I just love that organization.” Anderson has been involved with Special Olympics in both the South Dakota and Wisconsin state chapters, where she’s distinguished herself in organizing fundraising events. “All the money we raise stays in each state for the athletes. I think we’ve raised over a half a million dollars over my eight years in South Dakota,” she said. “I’ve only been involved in the Wisconsin Special Olympics for about four years now, but one of my specialties is that I’m very good at asking for donations. I’m not shy about that. So, they put me to work in that aspect.” Her advocacy work also includes Truckers Against Trafficking, through which she stands up for society’s forgotten victims who are often powerless to escape their circumstances. “Truckers Against Trafficking, I’m nationally certified through that,” she said. “Back years ago, I was sitting in a truck stop in Phoenix and I was watching this motor coach. There were a bunch of young girls that kept walking in and out of it with an older gentleman. I didn’t think that was right, so I ended up calling the police just to find out what was going on. I just really feel bad for all the poor kids who are trafficked, and adults.” Anderson talks about her charitable work casually, dismissive of any suggestion that she’s doing anything other than simply what’s right. But her commitment and leadership have caused others to sit up and take notice. In 2019, the Wisconsin Motor Carriers named Anderson Truck Driver of the Year. She was the first woman to win the award, not only in Wisconsin, but in any state. She followed that up in 2021 with inclusion in Women in Trucking’s list of Top Women to Watch in Transportation. And earlier this year, she received an even bigger surprise from her employer, ASL, a private fleet with 200 heavy-duty trucks and 350 refrigerated trailers. In May, company leadership handed her the keys to a new Volvo VNL760 70-inch high-roof sleeper, specially wrapped to help raise awareness of Special Olympics. ASL obtained the truck in partnership with Milwaukee-based Kriete Truck Centers. “As a long-time supporter of Special Olympics and all the professional truck drivers (who are) out there every day delivering life’s essentials, we at Kriete Truck Centers are thrilled to be part of this effort,” said David Kriete, president and CEO of Kriete Truck Centers and a board member with Special Olympics Wisconsin. “Carmen is a shining example of what can be accomplished through hard work and a commitment to serving others, values that are at the core of our culture at Kriete as well as Special Olympics.” For her part, Carmen was equal parts thrilled and tickled by the presentation. She said the first mention of the possibility of getting such a rig was more or less said in jest. “We were at a [Milwaukee] Brewers game, and the one gal with the Wisconsin Motor Carriers was telling this group from Volvo about all the stuff I had done,” she said. “One of the guys there said, ‘We should get you a wrapped truck.’ “We all just kind of chuckled, but lo and behold, here we are with the wrapped truck!” she said. “It was kind of cool when they decided to do that. I actually got to design the truck and pick the colors.” Anderson hopes the new ride — which she says drives beautifully — will greatly increase awareness of Special Olympics. She also plans to inspire as many donations as she can while she does the job she was born to do. At age 62, she says she has no intention of parking her rig any time soon. “I’ve been given a lot of opportunities and I have the time to be able to give back to an industry that I love,” she said. “I just wanted to give back.”

The phrase “man’s best friend” is frequently used to express the special relationship between a human and his or her dog. The relationship between trucker Shane Lloyd and his Great Dane, Moby, exemplifies that distinction. However, Moby is more than just a best friend — he is also Lloyd’s lifeline and protection. Lloyd, an Army veteran, is an amputee. Lloyd was born in Utah but moved to Alaska where he was raised. He eventually moved back to Utah and then to Nevada; the Lloyd family now make their home in Las Vegas. Truck driving was never really something Lloyd considered as a career until an inspiration from his daughter, Gabby, sparked a dream. At the time, Lloyd and his wife, Nikole, owned an RV business but were in the process of shutting it down. “My daughter graduated from (the University of Nevada, Las Vegas) and was working at the college of Southern Nevada while also running my RV business. She already had experience driving bigger tucks,” he shared, recalling the day Gabby told him she had decided to become a truck driver. Lloyd said he knew she was up for the challenge, and he supported her decision. That decision spurred him to do a bit of research about trucking life. As he read about the industry, particularly the increase in husband-and-wife team drivers, he realized trucking could be a career for him and his wife. The couple applied for their authority, went to school and bought a truck. “We got everything done, and my wife and I started together,” Lloyd said. “We liked to travel, and the RV business had given us a way to travel. This is another option to get to do this.” Family is important to Lloyd. In addition to Gabby, Lloyd and Nikole have three other children, Chancey, Shiloh and Alexis. In that spirit, Lloyd and Nikole formed Shanik Logistics. The unusual company name comes from the first three letters in their first names, Shane and Nikole. “My favorite thing about being a business owner in this industry is the freedom,” Lloyd said. “When you are stuck in an office setting and going into the office on all days, there are not times to get away. With this, my wife and I just jump in the truck and go.” The couple enjoys the variety of scenery as they travel, plus the chance to eat at new restaurants. Shortly after leaving the Army, Lloyd said, a tragedy occurred: He was the victim of a violent attack and was shot 15 times. He was hit in the femoral artery twice, and lost his leg below the knee. That’s when Moby entered the picture. “I raised my service dog since he was eight weeks old,” Lloyd said. “He is a massive dog, and I’ve trained him to be a mobility dog. So, wherever I go, he goes. He has done everything.” Moby is essential to Lloyd’s career in trucking, and he also makes an excellent companion. It’s not all hugs and belly rubs, however. When it comes time for Moby to do his duty, Lloyd says the Great Dane is all business. “If we have a long walk to do, like at a trade show, when I am walking it’s pretty hard to swing the leg,” he explained. “I hold on to him, and he will provide me with some forward momentum, and he will heel right next to my side. I give him commands too. It’s almost like he’s driving the truck in those situations, and I’m steering him.” In addition to being a vital part of Lloyd’s career, Moby plays an important role in Lloyd’s leisure time. Lloyd says he loves to hike, and his faithful companion allows him to get out and explore. Moby is not the only canine in the Lloyd family. They also have a lab, Sitka, who was intended to be a service his service dog but was too small. Sitka weighs in at nearly 100 pounds, but with Lloyd standing at 6 feet, 1 inch tall and weighing 240 pounds, he requires a bigger dog for assistance. “He helps in ways that most people don’t know that service dogs do,” Lloyd said. “He does a great job. When I’m in the shower — I mean, standing up on one leg in the shower is difficult. He will sit right there and hold me right up.” As for Moby, Lloyd says the dog seems to love traveling with the trucking couple. “He really enjoys the different scenery,” Lloyd said. “Every time we get somewhere or go somewhere, he is always out sniffing around. He likes to just roll with us. He is like a giant kid. “In the truck, he tells me when he is thirsty, and he has a little water jug of his own. When he is thirsty, he will tap the water jug and then look at me. When he is hungry, he will tap the food bag and look at me,” he continued. “When he needs a potty break, he will come nibble on my ear or pinch me on my shoulder. We will pull over and he will jump and do his business, then jump back into the truck.” Moby is dedicated to his human companion. “He likes just going around and seeing new places — as long as he is with me. His job is to be with me at all times,” Lloyd explained. “When are at a five-star restaurant or the theater or wherever, I have to tell him to stay if I have to go to the bathroom. Once I get up, his face will not leave that general direction until I return. He always knows where I am at. The second I am not in his line of sight, he feels like he does not have a job.” Lloyd and Moby have a long history together, including many visits to the Six Flags amusement parks, where Moby was trained to ignore all the loud sounds. The busy settings were also helpful as Moby learned to interpret the difference between happy laughter and “scary” laughter and between tears of joy versus someone who may need help. “It is all part of good training,” Lloyd said. “When I go to the airport, he is all happy and playful, but once we enter the doors, he immediately snaps into work mode. You can see that change.” One of Lloyd’s favorite Moby stories is when they were preparing to board a train in New York City while visiting some of Lloyd’s Army buddies. “This really — I mean really — creepy looking guy that caught our eye in the vestibule,” Lloyd said. “He just looked at us and Moby, and (he) whined about liking cats. Moby, out of his natural instinct to protect not only me, but my group of friends, corralled us to the back of the vestibule. He then walked toward the front and stood right between us and this guy. He looked at him and let out a low growl. He just stood there with a look to the man like he was saying, ‘Stay away from my people.’” Man’s best friend indeed!

Not long ago, Peggy Arnold had the pleasure of watching her granddaughter, Aubrey O’Kelley, walk across a stage to accept her college diploma. Arnold was not the only beaming grandmother in the crowd, just as the young graduate wasn’t the only person in the room who made sacrifices to make it to this milestone. But as she watched the graduation ceremony, Arnold couldn’t help but marvel at the road that had been traveled to bring her family to this point. It was both a literal journey, behind the wheel of a big rig, and a spiritual one, in the firm belief that raw determination would someday pay off in celebrations like this one. “(Driving a truck) put me solidly in the middle class, and that was important,” Arnold shared. “It was important to me, it was important to my family, my children and even my extended family. I was the first person in my entire family that ever made any kind of money. I helped all of my family — my mother and my sibling — everybody. “It is a success story and it helped me to be able to do the things that I wanted to do for my family and even continues to do that now, as I’ve helped my granddaughter get through college. I’m rewarded every day,” she continued. The family has had a lot to celebrate these days. In addition to her granddaughter’s long-awaited college graduation, Arnold recently attended another ceremony — this one for herself. During the Mid-America Trucking Show, held in Louisville, Kentucky, in March, Arnold was named the 2022 Driver of the Year by the Women In Trucking Association (WIT). Arnold accepted the award with her granddaughter looking on. “She said to me when I won, ‘I’m so proud of you, Nanny, and I love you,’” said a beaming Arnold. She says that talking about the award, for which she competed against two other finalists, still takes the breath out of her body. While Arnold has been driving for more than three decades, the vast majority of those years for Yellow Corp., she says it still doesn’t seem that long ago that the thought of having a good-paying, professional career — not unlike her granddaughter’s goal of earning a college degree — was as far-fetched as flapping her arms and flying around the moon. “I grew up with a single mother. My father had passed early on,” Arnold said. “My mother did the best she could, God love her, but she didn’t know to tell me the things that I didn’t know. I went to school, but I never heard a lot about college or anything like that. It was a struggle growing up, a very difficult childhood.” Arnold stayed in school until the 10th grade before dropping out to go to work, where she accepted menial, low-paying jobs that, at the time, she thought were her only option. The work was hard and the pay was lousy, but what she lacked in formal schooling she more than made up for in bone-deep grit. “I grew up on work,” she said. “Early on, I worked primarily in the service industry, either doing waitress work or cleaning rooms of hotels or working as a cashier at a small truck stop. I can remember working for $2.65 an hour a long, long time ago. And I can remember working for $4.50 an hour. It was the poverty level is what it was.” Arnold had no direct exposure to truckers until her husband became a driver, and she remembers well stretching her already meager paycheck to help him get through driving school. In return, he taught her how to drive, a skill that wouldn’t add anything to the family coffers until she got her commercial driver’s license (CDL). So off to truck driving school she went, in Lebanon, Tennessee. “It was about a six-week course, and I couldn’t afford to take a hotel,” Arnold said. “I remember they had old (truck) cabs out there sitting on the ground, and there was a truck stop across the street. There was an old red Peterbilt cab. I slept and studied in the sleeper bunk of that thing and went across the street for a shower and to get food at the truck stop.” Once she earned her credentials, Arnold got a job driving, but she says she underestimated how difficult it would be to leave her two small children for weeks at a time. She put in two torturous years before coming off the road and going to work at a truck stop. “You go through this terrible time where you feel guilty for leaving your children,” she said. “You go through all of that, thinking, ‘I’m not there for them enough.’ You go through missing them. It was a terrible, terrible roller coaster time. And I did leave trucking and went back to the service industry because of my children and needing to spend time with them. “But it just so happened that I was in the cashier business and there was a trucker that came by, and he made that his normal stop,” she continued. “We became friends, and one day he said to me, ‘Hey, you do know you can get into trucking and not be gone for weeks at a time.’ Of course, I did not know that. So, I was like, ‘Tell me more!’” In 1992, she joined Consolidated Freight, only to switch shortly thereafter to Roadway Express, which was later bought by Yellow Corp. And while the runs were shorter and allowed her to spend time with her family, they added up over three decades to now total 1.9 million accident-free miles. Arnold’s accomplishments piled up along with her mileage. She has been honored with Yellow’s Million Mile Safe Driving Award, has been noted on the list of 2022 Top Women to Watch in Transportation by WIT, was a finalist for American Trucking Associations’ America’s Road Team Captains for 2022, and received Yellow’s Road to Excellence Award for 2021 and Certified Safety Trainer for 2021. She also serves on her company’s Women’s Inclusion Network Employee Resource Group, where she has the opportunity to offer new women drivers the kind of mentorship she never had. “It’s right straight to the ground, right straight to my heart to help as many women as I can,” she said. “Especially when I see these women that maybe came from a job at McDonald’s or Subway, that came from a minimum wage-paying job, and they have children. I see myself in them. I so desire for them to be successful and to make it.” Arnold has a passion for helping other women succeed, both in the trucking industry and in life. “I tell them never give up, because you can’t give up in this industry. You may have a bad day, but you just pull up those bootstraps and you keep struggling right on,” she said. “I give them my phone number and they can call my phone number 24/7 because I want them to have someone to call if they have an issue,” she continued. “And I always tell them, ‘You can go and do anything you want to do in this world. You just have to have the grit to go after it.’”