This sound is generated automatically. Let us know if you have any feedback.
Editor’s Note: Filling the Driver’s Seat is a series that delves into fleet driver recruitment and retention strategies through the lens of the people leading the efforts. Know someone we should profile? e-mail [email protected].
Flatbed driver Marcus Yarbrough returned to the WorldLink Truck Driving Academy as a graduate last month and spoke for about an hour to students at the driving school in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
Yarbrough, who completed the four-week WorldLink program and earned his CDL this spring, has driven for Mississippi-based Jordan Carriers since April. He encouraged students to stay off their phones and listen to their instructor if they want to be part of the next generation of truck drivers.
“Pay attention,” Yarbrough urged. “He’s been driving a truck as long as some of you have been alive and he knows what he’s talking about.”
A new partnership between WorldLink and Arkansas Baptist College seeks to replicate Yarbrough’s successful entry into the industry—and diversify the truck driver pool by promoting the academy to students receiving assistance through the HBCU’s Adult Education Program.
Yarbroughwho previously spent 27 years building military-grade weapons for Lockheed Martin, is still getting used to his new life as a long-haul trucker.
He’s on the road all week and usually returns home to Camden, Arkansas, in time to spend the weekends with his wife, Demetria. daughter, Kyana; and 1-year-old granddaughter, Kyari.
“The longest I’m away from home is two weeks at a time,” Yarbrough said. “Adjusting to not being home every night, that’s the only hard part about it…not being able to touch them. We FaceTime and we talk, but it’s just different than touching your family. That’s the hardest part right now.”
Federal dollars supporting truck hiring
Yarbrough’s instruction was funded by a $5,250 federal Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act Title IB grant from the Southwest Arkansas Planning and Development District in Magnolia, Arkansas.
Arkansas Baptist College’s Adult Education Program connects low-income residents with paid employment opportunities federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families financing.
The adult education program is helping more than just CDL applicants: Other recipients are training to become physician assistants or welders, said Director of Adult Education Debra Baker.
A WorldLink student enrolled through the new partnership with the Adult Education Program has graduated and is looking for a job, Baker said. Another two are being considered for WorldLink registration.
Three more attended another academy, Pine Bluff Truck Driving School, funded by TANF through the adult education program.
“Our goal would be to complete the program of eight of them next year,” Baker said.
A business axis and a tip
Before the establishment WorldLinkGladys and Gary Godley, self-proclaimed entrepreneurs, tried their luck by starting a trucking business.
They faced the same driver retention challenges looking at the rest of the industry. So, they decided instead to help strengthen the driving pipeline. They opened the academy in 2021.
“We decided to pivot,” Gladys Godley said. “Instead of having a trucking company, we decided to go to a trucking school and train drivers.”
To encourage more people to take up truck driving, Yarbrough he said the industry should take a hard look at pay. An offer of $1,100 a week for an inexperienced intern made him “uninterested” in joining Jordan.
He stayed because he said the company kept its word to him as an employee.
“In my experience with Jordan, what they say is what they do,” he said.
Clarification: This article has been updated to reflect this Southwest Arkansas Planning and Development District’s role in funding Yarbrough’s directives.