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| Updated: 5/07/2012 11:17 pm |
Published: 5/07/2012 8:13 pm |
How would you like to make 35-thousand dollars a year with just four weeks of training? Five Arkansas companies need to hire more than one-hundred new employees right now.
The Truck Driver Training Pilot Initiative is a free four week course as long as you stick with the job for at least one year.
FOX16’s Kelly Dudzik met two new drivers who both went from unemployment to making more money than they were at their old jobs in just one month.
After just six months on the job, Maverick USA driver Justin Thevenot makes more now than when he was in management.
“I was managing a video store down in Arkadelphia. The video store shut down, and I put in my application, and here I am today," explains Thevenot.
Out of a job, Thevenot heard about the Arkansas Trucking Association's Truck Driver Training Pilot Initiative, a month-long course done in partnership with the state, and followed his dream of hitting the open road.
"As a kid, I wanted to drive truck, and I never got that opportunity until this came about, so I’m actually living one of my dreams driving a truck," he says.
The ATA also promises salaries of at least 35-thousand dollars in the first year.
"Going from being unemployed or even just the employment I had, I wasn't making nearly that and now I'm making more than my wife does, and she's got a college degree," says Stallion Transportation driver Daniel Roach.
Drivers go through a rigorous screening process, then spend four weeks at ASU Newport training.
Thevenot says his typical work day is 14 hours, with eleven spent driving cross-country.
"Do you get to see any of the cities that you go to, or are you working the whole time?" asked Dudzik.
"You drive through the cities, but as far as like the most beautiful skyline I've seen would be Cincinnati, Ohio," he replied.
Plus, Thevenot usually makes it home every weekend.
"Definitely love this job, but I've got a one-year-old and a three-year-old at home plus my wife, so it gets harder every weekend, but we're out here doing it," he says.
New classes start every three weeks. The next starts Monday in Newport.
