CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Steve Williams spent more than 25 years at the helm of an 18-wheeler, a refrigerated rig that stretched 63 feet.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Steve Williams spent more than 25 years at the helm of an 18-wheeler, a refrigerated rig that stretched 63 feet.
No more.
He logged more than 3.3 million miles, won four driver-of-the-year awards, earned a No. 2 rating out of 50 drivers. Last year, he made $67,000.
Forget that.
In the CB era, they knew him as "Hungry Jack."
He won't need a handle now.
He's going to drive a school bus.
On Oct. 3, his employer, Commissary Operations Inc. (COI), closed its restaurant food distribution center near Ripley. The move affected about 90 employees, including 50 drivers.
Faced with skyrocketing diesel prices and the loss of Shoney's Inc., its biggest customer, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July. They planned to close a center in Georgia and continue operating centers in Nashville and Ripley.
"A week later, they announced that they were shutting down all three," Williams said. "That's 900 people out of work."
Instead of hitting the road, Williams found himself pounding the pavement, a 47-year-old trucker searching for work, just another casualty of an ailing economy.
COI isn't the only trucking company to go belly up after spinning its financially worn wheels. The American Trucking Association reported 935 failures in the first quarter of 2008, an increase of nearly 143 percent over last year.
That generous list of driver openings in the classifieds is deceiving, Williams said. "I sent out 19 resumes, every place from Wal-Mart to Walker Machinery. Wal-Mart wanted me to relocate to Ohio. I'm willing to go, but I didn't hear back.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Steve Williams spent more than 25 years at the helm of an 18-wheeler, a refrigerated rig that stretched 63 feet.
No more.
He logged more than 3.3 million miles, won four driver-of-the-year awards, earned a No. 2 rating out of 50 drivers. Last year, he made $67,000.
Forget that.
In the CB era, they knew him as "Hungry Jack."
He won't need a handle now.
He's going to drive a school bus.
On Oct. 3, his employer, Commissary Operations Inc. (COI), closed its restaurant food distribution center near Ripley. The move affected about 90 employees, including 50 drivers.
Faced with skyrocketing diesel prices and the loss of Shoney's Inc., its biggest customer, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July. They planned to close a center in Georgia and continue operating centers in Nashville and Ripley.
"A week later, they announced that they were shutting down all three," Williams said. "That's 900 people out of work."
Instead of hitting the road, Williams found himself pounding the pavement, a 47-year-old trucker searching for work, just another casualty of an ailing economy.
COI isn't the only trucking company to go belly up after spinning its financially worn wheels. The American Trucking Association reported 935 failures in the first quarter of 2008, an increase of nearly 143 percent over last year.
That generous list of driver openings in the classifieds is deceiving, Williams said. "I sent out 19 resumes, every place from Wal-Mart to Walker Machinery. Wal-Mart wanted me to relocate to Ohio. I'm willing to go, but I didn't hear back.
"One interview I'd set up was because of the 'economic situation.' Another company said they'd had 100 applications for one driver opening."
Finally, he applied for a job as a relief driver with the county school board. He starts training at the end of the month. Within a year, he should graduate to full-time status with benefits.
The job pays $103.55 a day. He made about $225 a day as a trucker. But hey, a job is a job is a job. And the school board welcomes him.
"We have a real need for bus drivers," said Jim Lacey, transportation supervisor of safety and training for the Kanawha County School Board. "It's not just Kanawha. Statewide, we're having problems getting bus drivers.
"All our buses are running," he said, "but we're using every available person we have, including our mechanics and technicians. We have supervisors driving. It started toward the end of last year, and it's worse than I ever remember."
A school system employee for 19 years, Lacey spent 17 years as a bus driver himself. "I loved driving," he said. "I enjoyed being on the road with the kids. You have to like kids."
Williams isn't the first unemployed trucker to apply for a bus-driving job, Lacey said. "I interviewed several this week who said they drove tractor trailers. I told them, 'There's a big difference between that and this. Your cargo doesn't talk back to you.'"
A quicker shift to full-time driving status reflects the demand for bus drivers, he said. "When I started, it took me three years to get to full time. It took the people after me five years. Now it only takes six months to a year."
Hiring regulations eliminate many candidates, Lacey said. Along with a DCL license, prospective drivers must be fingerprinted and have clean driving and criminal history records. New regulations require 40 hours of class work and a minimum of 12 hours behind the wheel, including two hours in the dark.
Williams hopes to make ends meet by supplementing his bus driving job with other work. "Luckily, I have minimal debt."
Except for the cycle, of course. "One week before COI told us they were closing, I bought a 2009 Harley-Davidson Ultra Classic. The bank is letting me defer a couple of payments.
"At any rate, it looks like my over-the-road career could be over. But you know, Jim Lacey says he misses driving a school bus. It beats a 190,000-pound coal truck. That was another option."
Reach Sandy Wells at 348-5173 or e-mail san...@wvgazette.com.
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The question remains, other than driving a truck, what other skills does Mr. Williams have? Perhaps an even better question: What level of education does Mr. Williams have? Did he enjoy truck driving to the degree that it became his preferred place to stagnate? Meanwhile, folks like Joe the Plumber have the ambition to actually OWN the business. Which poses another question: Why can't Mr. Williams, with his extensive truck driving experience, start his own trucking company? Oh, yeah, it's allegedly not his fault--he's just a helpless "victim" of the economy.
The current economic mess is due, in large part, to insistence by Democrats that private lending institutions lend money to those who lacked the capacity to repay a loan. So renters became homeowners who are now homeless.
Government created the problem; Obama's solution to everything is MORE government. And we wonder why our national debt is approaching $10,000,000,000,000.00. Change happens.
Think things like this are bad? Just wait: As government continues to penalize success and prepares to implement Obama's wealth-redistribution schemes, those who create the jobs will no longer have any incentive to do so. But such will occur in the name of "fairness" and "change". Brace yourselves, we're all about to become the subjects of a failed, large-scale economic experiment. But it's all about "change," right?
Somehow, our country - and the companies who are privileged to do business here - has to get a grip and put people back into the equation.
By the way, I hope Mr. Williams gets back to driving trucks. I'd feel better about being next to his 50,000 pound rig on the interstate than the cowboy who's 2 weeks out of driving school...