By Susan C. Moeller / Senior Reporter
RUTHERFORD (Dec. 3, 2009) — In today’s economy, with the state’s unemployment rate hovering near 10 percent, Jersey Tractor Trailer Training makes an astounding promise: Anyone who completes the program will get a job.
Jersey Tractor Trailer Training has been in business for more than 25 years; its green and white emblazoned trucks are a common sight on Route 17 near the Highland Cross interchange. The school prepares people to get a commercial driver’s license, preferably Class A — the most difficult to attain.
Bill Oliver, who founded the company, estimates that 7,000 people owe their trucking careers to Jersey Tractor Trailer Training. He’s obviously proud of their success. Jersey has trained drivers for UPS, Coca-Cola, the United States Border Patrol and other organizations, he pointed out.
“Even in the way the economy is, we’re putting people to work,” Oliver said during an interview in his office at the Meadowlands Office Complex.
The program offered by Oliver and his staff includes classroom instruction and lots of supervised, hands-on experience driving combination trucks — big rigs with separate cabs.
There are two different types of students at Jersey — those sponsored by various government agencies as part of job retraining efforts, and those who pay for the program privately.
The government track takes approximately six weeks; those paying privately can complete their training in as little as three, explained Howard Pierson, who traded his driving career to work with Oliver at Jersey Tractor Trailer Training.
Students pay $2,800, and their investment comes with a guarantee of work when they are finished with the program. In the case of those being trained as part of government programs, Jersey doesn’t get fully paid until its students are employed. Approximately six or seven new students start the program each week, Pierson said.
Oliver estimates that 70 to 80 percent of his students currently attending are part of job-training programs.
Trucking is in Oliver’s blood. “My dad was a milkman in Newark,” he said of his beginnings in the industry. And after spending some time as a driver himself, he decided to start a school for a simple reason: “There wasn’t one.”
One of Jersey’s former students, Giorgia Goljevscek, is glad that he did.
Goljevscek, 38, who lives in Carlstadt, went through the program in 1992. She got her first job the same day she interviewed for the position.
Then, the school alerted her that UPS was hiring. She received a job there, and has been with the delivery company for 16 years. She drives a tractor-trailer to Burtonsville, Md., every weekday, covering the 420 miles between midnight and 1:30 p.m.
“I think it was the best thing that I ever could have done for my own future, for my own benefit,” Goljevscek said of becoming a driver. Before training, Goljevscek said that she had three jobs and made $30,000 per year. With the CDL, she made $50,000 with just one job. And, she likes the work.
“I don’t want to be locked up in one place,” Goljevscek continued. “Being out on the road, I feel like I am basically my own boss.”
One lesson Goljevscek remembers from her time in driver training came from an instructor who told her that every second behind the wheel counts. “You always have to keep your mind on your driving,” she said. “Anything could happen in the flick of a second.”
Back at the school, Robert Brauer, an ex-Marine, cancer survivor and retired tractor-trailer driver, explained his philosophy as an instructor at Jersey Tractor Trailer Training.
“I won’t accept mediocre,” he said while simulating a lesson in the school’s truck number 12. The dashboard is different than that of a passenger car, more rudimentary, with an air of import.
The seat is different, too — utilitarian, functional, with no hint of luxury. But, the way the chair is suspended allows it to move with the driver. It’s surprisingly comfortable.
Brauer explains the bounciness — if you bottom out while driving, the shock could be hard on your tailbone and spine. The seat acts as a shock absorber.
His lesson continues. The school uses orange traffic cones to challenge the students. Hitting one of them on a practice run might not seem like a big deal, Brauer continued. But, “that cone represents something important.”
Trucks are a ubiquitous part of the highway landscape. But, Brauer’s respect for the challenge of handling them safely is clear. “I really love the job,” Brauer said. “A part of me goes with everyone I teach.”
Goljevscek credits Jersey with helping her onto a better path in life. With her increased earnings, she was able to buy a home.
“My life since I got the CDL ... really turned around and changed for the better.”
