Vettels expands scope of training beyond immigration
An Aurora business is expanding its mission to try and help fill the growing demand for over-the-road truck drivers by training women to get behind the wheel.
Launched in February 2022, International Workforce Services (IWS) has helped more than 100 drivers from 18 countries earn their Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), assisting immigrants as they prepare for and complete testing requirements from facilities in downtown Aurora, while also providing driver’s training in big rigs on the road. The owners have a created business model they believe is not only working, but can and will be expanded to help fill growing workforce needs.
“The gap is huge in the trucking industry,” explained Todd Vettel, who founded IWS along with his parents, David and Crystal Vettel, as well as brothers Trevor and Tim. “There are 100,000 job openings now and that gap is getting bigger every year. If you talk to Department of Labor people they explain that the strategy is to do things like ask retirees to come back to the workforce, immigration, or to find groups that aren’t commonly in your occupation and try to get them to come into it.”
With a solid year of growth and success training immigrants to get behind the wheel and fill truck-driving jobs for companies all over the United States, IWS is broadening its recruitment and marketing strategies. The company is now working to develop different websites and landing pages targeting specific demographics, including women and other native-born citizens who may have never considered truck driving as an occupation.
“We’re going to continue to do what we’re doing with immigration while adding a native-born service, specifically looking at speciality demographics like women in trucking,” Todd said. “The number of women in trucking is very limited right now, not even 10 percent, so if we’re going to fill that workforce gap in the transportation industry we’ll have to focus more on that.”
And then, he added, “Along comes Amanda.”
While IWS was just beginning to reach out toward female candidates, Amanda Senkbile of Central City contacted the company about its training services. A few weeks later, she completed her training, passed the required physical, written and driver’s testing and earned her CDL, landing a job immediately with Grand Island Express.
“I was just kind of looking for a program in my area,” Senkbile said. ‘I looked in Lincoln, Omaha and the surrounding area and then talked with IWS and they were very welcoming. Cost-wise, they were very affordable and it just sounded like they do whatever they could to help you get your CDL and get you on the right path kind of quickly. They’re great people to work with and it was just a really good experience for me.”
Asked why she decided to explore truck driving as a career, Senkbile said it was a gradual process.
“I have been working in a vet clinic and just got burned out on that so I was kind of looking for something a little better,” she said. “I’d always been interested in just being able to travel and so when I really started looking for a different job it just kind of seemed like a good career change. I decided to give it a shot.”
Senkbile began her new job in April and is nearly done with a preliminary training program, expecting to drive a route solo for the first time this week.
“The DMV in Grand Island will be the first ones to tell you that they love the women who come in there because they are good drivers, they are humble, they’re good learners, they apply themselves and they catch on quickly,” David said. “Amanda was very studious and went through the class as good as anybody.”
Women in Trucking Council
The Vettels attended a Nebraska Trucking Association meeting earlier this year where they learned that NTA has created a Women in Trucking Council to help address the workforce shortage. That, they agreed, was enlightening.
“That was around the same time Amanda came on the scene and it just became front and center that we need to focus on women in trucking,” Todd said.
One of the first steps was to have other IWS staff members, including Todd himself and administrative manager Celie Holliday, study entry level driving training videos, working toward their CDLs.
“It’s not like we’re going to put Celie in a truck or anything like that, but it’s more for context and relational aspects,” Todd explained. “I think it just shows that we support women in trucking to have our office people getting CDLs. Even if we don’t actively use the CDL, we want to be able to speak trucker language. It just helps us relate.”
As for the physical aspects of driving a truck, the Vettels say that can vary, depending on the job.
“There are some companies out there that your day job is going to be handling the goods in the trailer,” David said. “But over the road (truck drivers), all you’re really having to do is coupling and uncoupling, all your backing and that kind of stuff.”
The Department of Transportation requires all applicants to complete a physical, which covers eyesight, blood pressure, family history of heart disease and other factors involving safe driving. Some companies, the Vettels report, conduct their own physicals as well.
Asked if she felt intimidated by entering an industry some may consider to be a “man’s world,” Senkbile said no.
“I don’t think of it that way,” she said. “You just have to be confident in your abilities and realize that this is something you can do.”
Excited to see Senkbile complete the program, Todd said he hopes she is the first of many to come.
“The industry is trying to gain as much steam as possible with women in trucking, and that’s why they have the Women in Trucking Council,” he said. “We’re trying to get more involved in this because it’s just going to become a bigger part of the industry and we’re going to see more women driving trucks.
“The problem hasn’t gone away, in fact it continues to accelerate,” he continued. “The 18-to-35 white male workforce has evaporated in many ways. They are not fulfilling the workforce obligations so these retirees, immigrants and women are the future of almost all occupations, based off of the statistics I see from the Census Bureau. The only way to meet the demand is to get people into the workforce that haven’t typically been in it, so that’s what we’re trying to do. Our mission is basically fulfilling the needs of the American economy.”
For more information, log on to internationalworkforceservices.com.