17
Cover Story
G
rowing up, there was little doubt
Jeremy Dones would join the
military. What might come after
was anybody's guess. "I always
liked trucks," he says. "It was kind of a fam-
ily thing; always working on stuff and fi xing
things."
After a four-year tour of duty with the
U.S. Marine Corps Infantry, Dones – now
in his mid-20s – graduated from the diesel
technician program at Elizabethtown (Ky.)
Community and Technical College and
turned his love of trucks and fi xing things
into a second career. Dones' mechanical
aptitude, which helped him land a job with
a shipper with a fl eet of Peterbilt trucks, was
a natural fi t in an industry he had identifi ed
as needing qualifi ed employees.
"There's a shortage of truck mechanics,"
he says, "and it's only going to get worse." In
fact, trucking will need as many as 200,000
technicians over the next 10 years just to
keep up with current truck maintenance
demands, says Phil Byrd, chairman of the
American Trucking Associations and presi-
dent and CEO of Bulldog Hiway Express.
Poaching employees isn't pumping new
blood into the labor force and has only
created a turnover cycle that drives up
incentives and pay for a select few willing
to change jobs. A recent survey from TP
&S
W W W . T R U C K P A R T S A N D S E R V I C E . C O M O c t o b e r 2 0 1 4 | T R U C K P A R T S & S E R V I C E
Part 1: Demand
for technicians
outpacing
schools' ability
to provide them
WANTED
