CCJ Innovators profiles carriers and fleets that have found innovative ways to overcome trucking’s challenges. If you know a carrier that has displayed innovation, contact CCJ Chief Editor Jason Cannon at [email protected] or 800-633-5953.
In the six months he has been an over-the-road truck driver, Ryan Vlk has seen almost every state in the continental U.S. Maine, so far, is his favorite with its beautiful scenery and Dysart’s truckstop in Hampden that has a “really good chicken pot pie.” Vlk said he loves seeing the country through the windshield of his Kenworth T680, and he got the opportunity to get out from under the hood and into the driver’s seat through Brakebush Transportation’s new Driver Finishing Program that recruits employees from other areas of the business to become drivers.
The idea for the Westfield, Wisconsin-based carrier’s new driver recruitment strategy came about in 2018 in an effort to fill more seats amid a driver shortage, but despite that ongoing industry dilemma, the program came to a screeching halt before it ever got started when COVID-19 hit, said Brakebush Transportation General Manager Mike Schwersenska. The pandemic led the company to shift its priorities to keeping the drivers it did have safe.
With somewhat of a return to pre-pandemic normalcy, Brakebush has been able to refocus on the program. The company – the private carrier for Brakebush Brothers Inc., which evolved from a trucking company in the 1920s hauling livestock and poultry to include its own chicken processing and egg packaging facilities – now has a waitlist for drivers with 86 of its 90 trucks filled.
Vlk was the first person to go through the program, which recruits qualifying drivers that either graduated from Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT), or have less than two years over the road experience. Vlk received his CDL just before the ELDT mandate went into effect. Another driver in Texas went through the program around the same time as Vlk, and now two more – Ryan Ruck, a shop tech in Wisconsin, and Rebecca Clay, the daughter of a current Brakebush driver – are enrolled in the program.
“Our first student was one of our mechanics (Vlk), and he went through the program, graduated and is now one of our OTR drivers,” Schwersenska said. “We have just started to have conversations with some additional people that are interested out in the plant. We also have another one of our maintenance techs who just started CDL school, and once he comes out of CDL school he'll go through our finishing program.”
The program – still in its infancy – has had a 100% retention rate so far, he said.
