Trucking school expansion aimed at getting “young people and people of all nations, colors, and creeds to be truck drivers”

A North Carolina Trucking School recently upgraded their facilities in order to accommodate the students who will lead a new generation of truck drivers. 

Crosscountry Truck Driving School is now located on Tucker Street in Burlington, North Carolina after moving from Thomasville and will now be able to accommodate as many as 108 students a week in their 17,000 square foot facility. With this expansion, the school hopes to bring in a new generation of truck drivers with a special focus on women and diversity as a whole. 

“We have got to work to ensure that we can get young people and people of all nations, colors, and creeds to be truck drivers because guess what? We’ve got to have our products,” Pamela Day, owner of Trucking Trainer, Inc. DBA Crosscountry Truck Driving School, said.

“A truck delivers everything. What if you can’t get your meat, your cheese, your milk, just the regular staples of life, bread? So, this is why,” she continued. 

“There’s an extreme deficit of truck drivers right now, not just in North Carolina, I think there’s probably over 60,000 needed here in North Carolina, but if we’re looking at the lower 48 states, those numbers are ever-increasing. They’re almost up at 200,000 drivers that are needed,” Day said.

“It’s sad to say but we should have figured [the driver shortage] out long before now.”

While Day, who is a former trucker herself, and the Crosscounty Truck Driving School welcome anyone who is willing to work, Day says she is especially passionate about reaching women and opening their eyes to the importance and benefits of being a part of such an essential industry. 

“If we can get women into the industry, that’s gonna help close that gap and that is my goal,” she said.

“So this facility right across the road. There’s this huge field that I would like to make all about women. We’ll grate that field down and we’ll get a whole training area for women,” Day continued. 

Day also points out that truckers are making great money these days due to the dire need for drivers.