FASTPORT’s Trucking Track focuses on helping female Veterans find great jobs in trucking this week with CEO Bill McLennan educating Marines at Camp Pendleton about “unconventional” career opportunities in trucking at the Military Women in Transition Career Symposium on Thursday, October 8, 2015.

While unemployment rates for Veterans in general has steadily decreased over the last few years, Camp Pendleton leadership has seen a disparity between the genders: female Veterans have a much higher unemployment rate than their male counterparts. To bridge this gap, they have united industry leaders from around the country in an effort to educate women Marines about careers they may not have considered before that could help dramatically increase employment rates. Bill represented the trucking industry as a way to accomplish that goal.

Trucking is an industry that wants—and needs—women. Women make up an estimated 14% of the entire industry and only 6% of the driver population. While that percentage is steadily growing, the profession demands more because women are consistently outperforming male drivers in many categories once they enter the industry, whether it’s accident prevention, inspection, or compliance issues, according to Werner Enterprises Inc. Chief Operating Officer Derek Leathers. 

In a recent series dedicated to busting myths about trucking, TruckertoTrucker.com highlighted just some of these categories. You can see the entire infographic here. Statistics like these are beginning to open people’s eyes to how essential it is to encourage women into trucking careers:

One of the Trucking Track’s mentors Cheryl Freauff is the Supervisor of Driver Recruiting at TMC Transportation and a Marine Corps Veteran who served in Desert Storm/Desert Shield.  In a recent interview with Hiring America, Cheryl encourages Veterans, both men and women, to start their career path in the trucking industry, whether that’s as a professional driver, manager, or mechanic.

Bill McLennan continued this discussion in his panel discussion “Opportunities for Women Veterans in Nontraditional Careers” at Camp Pendleton. In the presentation, he provided education on the different types of careers available and why Veteran women are hardwired to succeed in them. Many pioneering women have already seen just how successful they can become within the last decade. In fact, their numbers have grown in the profession 50% just in those 10 years. That kind of growth is incredible, and it’s only the beginning.

During the symposium, Bill met Shannon Griego who has risen in the ranks of trucking since she exited the U.S. Army as a Transportation Manager in 1995. In less than a decade, Shannon founded and is President of Global Transloading, which started with one truck and now boasts 250. Importantly, Shannon remains committed to hiring Veterans, women, minorities and disadvantaged. With her example in mind, the trucking industry is an excellent avenue for Veterans, regardless of gender, to find professional success.

To learn more about how you can hire female Veterans and make that number climb even higher, visit http://fastport.com/veterans.html or call 978-877-4300. To learn more about how to support Veterans as they enter the trucking industry, visit http://fastport.com/veterans.html or call 978-877-4300.