Women truck drivers are in it for the 'long-haul'

By Stacie Hamel
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Published Sunday
November 12, 2006

When Susan Volquartsen first became a long-haul truck driver in 1986, she found herself on a lonely career path for a woman.

On one early trip, taking produce from California to Canada, she looked down from her semitrailer truck to find a vanload of elderly men staring up at her.

"They hadn't seen women driving truck up there (Canada)," said Volquartsen, 54, of Red Oak, Iowa. "I'm seeing a lot more women out here now.

There are a lot of women driving trucks by themselves out there now." In fact, the number of women driving long-haul trucks has doubled from 30,000 in 1986 to more than 60,000 today, out of the nation's 1.3 million total long-haul drivers.

Times might be changing, but they aren't changing fast enough for a new organization called Females in Trucking. Formed this fall with the goal of doubling the number of women truck drivers by the end of 2008, Females in Trucking uses the motto: "Solving the over-the-road driver shortage . . . one woman at a time."

The trucking industry is short at least 20,000 long-haul drivers nationwide, according to the American Trucking Associations. The shortage is expected to grow to 111,000 by 2014, unless the industry changes.

Females in Trucking is taking a direct route, connecting trucking firms with women who match the profile of over-the-road drivers.

Females in Trucking founder Marc Bailey of Atlanta said more women already would be driving if they better understood what trucking offers and if trucking executives better understood women.

The jobs are more lucrative - with salaries starting in the mid-$30,000s and paying up to $60,000 after about five years - and less strenuous than many women realize, said Bailey, who also runs TamingTurnover, an employee-retention company.

Trucking companies' one-size-fits-all recruiting approach was written for men because they consider the jobs too physically demanding for women, but company executives don't realize the candidates they're missing, Bailey said.

Women make up 51 percent of the population and 45 percent of the work force but only about 5 percent of over-the-road drivers. In fact, the percentage of over-the-road drivers who are women has hovered at about 5 percent since the mid-1990s, according to the ATA.

"That is still 64,000 women who are doing this job and doing it well," Bailey said. "They (company executives) are all operating under this old-timey notion that women can't do this job. I've got 64,000 examples of why they're wrong."

Publicizing equipment changes, such as automatic transmissions, that have made trucking less physically demanding could make the job more appealing to women, Bailey said.

"The technology has changed. If you can drive an RV, you can drive one of these trucks."

Bailey also has high hopes for his new group's membership. "If we can get all the current women truck drivers to join this organization, we'll have a membership of 64,000," he said.

Ellen Voie, a board member for Females in Trucking, said the industry is coming around to recruiting women, though it has a way to go. She is retention marketing manager for Schneider National Inc. in Green Bay, Wis.

"They haven't really tried to recruit women as heavily as they could," she said. "There are things they could do to make it safer for women, less labor intensive, get them home more often. Truck stops will have 15 shower stalls for men and three for women."

Volquartsen and Bailey both resisted the idea, though, that long-haul trucking must undergo wholesale change to appeal to women. Volquartsen, in fact, doesn't even want a rig with automatic transmission.

"A woman has no harder time driving a truck shifting the gears than a man," she said. "I like to shift my gears." She said equipment changes that help shorter drivers, whether male or female, include a tilting, telescoping steering wheel; an adjustable, oscillating air-ride seat that absorbs bumps; adjustable lumbar cushions; and quick-release pins on tandem trailers.

"These are not just for women. The men drive the same trucks as we drive," she said.

Volquartsen, who drives for Merit Transportation Co. of Omaha, started as part of a team with husband David but had to keep him from doing "all the manly things."

"I had to tell my husband, 'You let me do my job. When it's my turn to fuel or back in, I'll do it.'"

She tells other women driving as part of a team that they must learn it all in case something happens to the other driver. Volquartsen's husband suffered a heart attack in Point Jervis, N.Y., and she continued the trip while he recuperated.

David Volquartsen no longer works as a truck driver, and she has driven solo since last year.

She prefers long-haul driving - which keeps her on the road for three or four weeks at a time - to a dedicated route that offers a more predictable schedule but more repetitive driving and more time at loading docks.

"I like to get out and, as they say, stretch my feet and run. I love my job, otherwise I wouldn't have done it this long and I wouldn't still be out here by myself."

Bailey said changing over-the-road routes isn't the answer.

"It is philosophically and demographically incorrect to assume that a woman needs to be home more than a man," he said. "Of course, if it's a woman with three kids at home, school age, then she's not going to be a good candidate, but I've got news for you: A man in that situation isn't going to be a good candidate, either. It's not like the 1950s."

The Volquartsens had four children at home when they started team-driving 20 years ago. Family members cared for the children, ages 7 to 16, while their parents drove for four to six weeks at a time.

Before going on the road, both had been working more than one job, and they still weren't making enough money.

"And we really didn't get to see our children," she said. "When we started driving a truck, we made good money. And the time that we did get with our children, we spent it all with them."

Still, she would tell someone in the same situation to think carefully before deciding on a long-haul career.

"They do miss a lot of time with family, and it's time that you can't get back," she said.

Volquartsen suggested that women interested in the job accompany a driver to see what the life is like. Also important for truck driving, she said, are a flexible nature, thick skin and an employer who hires quality dispatchers.

Seeing the country has been her favorite part of driving.

"I've been in the mountains in the wintertime, summertime and in the fall. I've seen the changes of the leaves in Pennsylvania and in the New England states, the snow in Washington state." she said.

"I'd go to Hawaii if they'd ever build a bridge."

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