TTCS truck driving program driven to succeed

Although it has been around since 1996, the Tennessee Technology Center at Shelbyville's truck driving curriculum may be the best-kept secret in Shelbyville, according to instructor David Hart.

"A lot of people don't even know we're here," he said.

Hart said he's amazed that some local and area residents pay anywhere from $4,000 to $6,000 for a three-week training program at privately-owned trucking schools, when TTCS's 7 1/2-week program costs in the neighborhood of $1,250 -- and a lottery-funded scholarship can knock $500 off even that amount.

Tennessee Technology Centers are state-owned and governed by the Tennessee Board of Regents, the same organization that operates community colleges and state universities other than the University of Tennessee system.

Hart said the demand for truck drivers is high, and a number of trucking companies regularly recruit from TTCS classes. For the 2007-2008 fiscal year, the school had an 85 percent placement rate, and 100 percent of its students passed the Commercial Drivers License test.

"You've got your CDL, you've got a job," Hart tells students.

The school went through one five-year period with no failures whatsoever, said Hart.

"I'm proud of our success rate," he said.

TTCS runs six of the classes each year; the next one will start on Sept. 2. The class runs each day from 7:45 to 2:15. No night or weekend classes are offered. A typical class has 8-10 students, although the class which will finish up this week has only six.

The students are men and women from all walks of life and experience levels.

"We'll get a man here who's never seen a clutch in his life," said Hart.

One husband-and-wife team took the course together, Hart recalled.

"She could drive circles around him," he said.

Not everyone is cut out for the trucking business, he admitted. A long-haul trucking career affects not only the driver but the spouse or children as well.

"It's a family affair," said Hart, who missed his own grandmother's funeral when he was a driver because he was stuck in California and couldn't get back in time.

The course covers the practical aspects of driving a tractor-trailer, as well as mechanical issues, regulatory and licensing requirements. On one recent afternoon, students were parallel parking trucks between orange cones at the trucking school's lot on Eagle Boulevard.

The school has two new Kenworth tractors, and a new trailer will soon be dedicated to the late Brent Cromwell, who served on the school's advisory board.

Hart and Clyde Bomar are now certified to give on-site tests themselves; in the past, they had to send students to Columbia to take the on-site test.

FIND OUT MORE

More information is available at http://www.ttcshelbyville.edu or by calling Hart at 685-2180.