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Kilgore features Commercial Driving Academy
“Smokey and the Bandit” brought it national fame, former Utah Jazz great Karl Malone now does it as a second job and country band “ Alabama” produced a top-selling song featuring its famed 18-wheels.

“It,” in this case, is truck driving. It’s intriguing American folklore has secured a place in the country’s culture and it’s promising future assures it will remain prevalent.

The trucking outlook is so bright, in fact, that properly schooled and licensed driver’s are virtually guaranteed a job after obtaining their commercial driver license, or CDL.

Job Forecast: "Wide Open"
“The job forecast is wide open,” said Gene Leshe, Jr., an instructor for Kilgore.“Last year there were national reports showing that 610,000 trucks sat unused because companies didn't’t have drivers for them.”

The local demand for CDL drivers is very apparent to Leshe, a 22-year trucking veteran.

"Demand is so big in East Texas because of the oilfield. There aren't enough CDL drivers available to the oil companies. We recognized the need, have brought our program here and our main focus now is to get quality drivers out to these companies, she said."

Want to earn $60,000 a year?
Salaries for big rig drivers range to $60,000. Many East Texas-based driver openings are starting at $40,000.

Kilgore offers the latest training methods
Kilgore College is one of the nation’s most experienced driver training schools--one noted for the excellence of its graduates.

Excel’s training methods differ from traditional driving schools.

In 2001, they departed from traditional CDL training methods and launched a brand new technology for the trucking industry – students interacting with driving simulators designed to compliment classroom instruction, electronic learning and hands-on applications.  

“A lot of what we’re teaching is fact-based applications,” Leshe explained. “The roads get more and more populated ever year and we’re trying to get these drivers as highly trained as they can be. Our program is more safety based and simulated hands-on driving. If you don’t use it, you can go into a classroom all day long and not learn the practical application of what you’ve been taught.”

With mobile training delivered to KC’s Workforce Development parking lot in the form of a simulator, Excel puts students in the driver’s seat where they can experience numerous situational circumstances forcing them to be aware of what’s out on the roads.

A focus on safety
“I’ve got 22 years of experience driving trucks,” Leshe said. “There aren’t too many places I haven’t been and I’ve seen a lot of wrecks and accidents that could have been avoided. We really want to teach the students about safety.”

And this knowledge of safety is something that will benefit driver’s down the road when obtaining extra endorsements on their licenses, like the hazardous materials endorsement.

A haz-mat endorsement shows the driver has not only completed his CDL, but that they have knowledge of the materials they are hauling. In fact, drivers can haul certain materials unless they are haz-mat endorsed.

“If an employer gets a driver off somewhere and there’s a hazardous load to be hauled, the endorsed driver could haul it, making money for him and his company, while the other driver couldn’t,” Leshe said. “I stress that students to go ahead and get all the endorsements they can, even if they don’t necessarily need them right now. For every endorsement you have on top of the minimum requirements, you’re that much more attractive to employers than an average driver.”

- Article by Chris Moore

Brenda Brown
Program Specialist
Phone: (903) 983-8288
bjbrown@kilgore.edu

cdl_info 06/05/08 v3