Diesel is breaking records, and the headlines make trucking look like the last industry anyone should walk into right now. Josh just got back from a trucking conference in Dallas, and what he heard from the carriers doing the hiring doesn't line up with what you're reading. RJ brought questions from people who are on the fence about getting a CDL, and Josh hadn't seen a single one of them before we hit record.

WHAT WE GET INTO

- Who actually feels it when diesel spikes, and who mostly doesn't

- Why there are more loads than drivers right now, and the rule enforcement that's quietly shrinking the driver pool

- Why "everyone's hiring" doesn't always mean they're hiring you, and how an old DUI can undo a job offer after HR already said yes

- How to size up a CDL school in about an hour of research, and what a suspiciously cheap price might be telling you

- What you can do with a CDL at 18, and the rule that could change soon

- Why legal weed and a CDL still don't mix, and the student who wanted to start on Monday

- The lease-purchase question Josh called "loaded," plus a roadside breakdown with a five-figure bill

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Josh Barron is the School Director at Midwest Truck Driving School. He got his own CDL there close to 20 years ago, then drove, worked in safety and maintenance, and taught full-time before running the school. RJ Parrish produces Built in the Midwest and asks the questions people are actually typing into search bars.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Cold open

00:58 — Why Josh doesn't see the questions ahead of time

02:40 — Is now a bad time to get into trucking?

03:58 — OTR, regional, or local: picking your lane

05:52 — What the rate sheets say about diesel

06:36 — Who high fuel prices hit hardest

08:04 — Why there are more loads than drivers

13:01 — "Everyone's hiring, so why can't I get hired?"

14:58 — Driving records, DUIs, and the insurance company

19:44 — How to vet a CDL school before you pay

23:15 — The real cost of a cheap school

29:57 — Can you get a CDL at 18?

35:35 — Legal marijuana and the DOT drug test

42:03 — Is a lease-purchase a good deal right now?

48:12 — The owner-operator learning curve

49:48 — Running the numbers on a new truck

53:40 — Where owner-operators actually make it work

54:26 — Part 2 is coming next week

LINKS

• FMCSA Training Provider Registry: https://tpr.fmcsa.dot.gov/
• FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse: https://clearinghouse.fmcsa.dot.gov/
• Future Trucker's Playbook: https://www.midwesttruckdrivingschool.com/before-the-wheel-future-truck-drivers-playbook/

CONNECT

Got a question you want us to tackle in Part 2? Know someone who should be on the show? Reach out at midwesttruckdrivingschool.com/podcast

Get trained at midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

Emil LaFave has taught heavy equipment at North Country for 23 years. He ran his first machine at about 15, a backhoe hooked onto the back of a front-end loader on his family's farm, and he's been moving dirt and fixing whatever broke ever since.

Before he taught, he spent 43 years in trucking. Before that, he hauled logs out of the woods with a team of horses and prayed for cold nights so the swamp roads would freeze.

We got into what makes a good operator, why every exercise he runs is built off a real job, and the kind of mistakes you only have to make once.

WHAT WE GET INTO

• The first thing he notices about a student, before they ever touch a lever
• Why he sometimes lets students dig it their way, even when he knows where the dirt pile is going to end up
• The blueberry farmer who was about to buy a bigger tractor, and what Emil told him to do with a backhoe instead
• A tractor rattle the owner was ready to haul 50 miles to the dealer, and what was actually wrong
• The hill, the power divider, and the gear a driver kept breaking, and why that driver asked to help fix it
• The dragline bucket he built out of an old iron tractor wheel, and the boom he never could afford to patent

ABOUT EMIL

Emil grew up on a farm with nine brothers and sisters, putting in septic tanks and drain fields for the neighbors and logging with horses and sleighs. He and his wife Linda ran a trucking business for 43 years. Linda drove for 15 of them. They hauled pulpwood and saw logs to mills across the region, and they overhauled their own engines, rear ends, and transmissions because that's how you kept trucks running.

He took drafting in school, and he still draws a plan before he cuts any steel. He's spent 23 years teaching at North Country Electrical and Heavy Equipment School in Escanaba, Michigan. He spends his winters in Florida, where he still ends up fixing the neighbors' tractors.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Who we're talking to

01:52 — His first machine, around age 15

02:28 — 43 years in trucking

03:37 — Horses, sleighs, and a homemade log jammer

04:56 — Praying for a cold night

06:13 — Hauling for the paper mills

09:17 — Iron mules and winter logging

11:33 — When a U.P. winter shuts everything down

16:35 — What's changed in 20 years, and what hasn't

19:50 — What makes a good operator

20:10 — Why the paperwork comes first

22:15 — Why every exercise is a real job

23:07 — Letting students do it their way

24:46 — Why one machine isn't enough

25:11 — The six-inch trench

25:36 — A blueberry farm in Florida

29:20 — The rattle that didn't need a dealer

32:37 — The hill, the power divider, and the broken gear

34:42 — "It's life, and you don't forget it"

36:24 — A squeak that wasn't about grease

37:24 — Loading trucks in third gear

38:27 — Why patience is the job

39:23 — Bringing home a cable machine on a semi

41:58 — Crosscut saws and chest-high stumps

44:21 — What he's proudest of

46:39 — Farm life and the heel of the bread

49:50 — The dragline bucket he built from a tractor wheel

52:28 — Draw the plan first

53:05 — The boom he couldn't afford to patent

Listen wherever your get your podcasts: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Midwest Truck Driving School: midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

North Country Heavy Equipment & Electrical Line School: https://ncheschool.com/

Submit your Questions: https://webforms.pipedrive.com/f/6WfGT9X1zlYC6WvssJqfWxOOkvVa1AjzqgnAIIHOq70WWiNo5czEWXpBMqxVTW7UST

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CDLMidwest

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwesttruckdrivingschool/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@midwesttruckdrivingskool

Kyle Montgomery spent about ten years as a contract lineman. Now he's the lead line instructor at North Country Electrical Line School in Escanaba.

He got into the trade almost by accident. He'd done five years in the Coast Guard, come home, and watched the paper mill he was working at close with a chain across the fence. A while later a line crew pulled into his parents' yard to change out a pole, he stood there and watched them work, and his dad mentioned afterward that his grandfather had been a lineman.

We got into what the work actually pays, what it takes out of you, and why he walked away from the best money in the trade.

WHAT WE GET INTO

What a union journeyman makes, and what the benefits are actually worth on top of the wage

What storm work pays — and the reason Kyle doesn't go anymore, which comes down to breakfast

Why the guys driving beat-up trucks in the yard are the ones with money in the bank

The suspension list that follows a journeyman's name around the country, and what Kyle thinks should happen to the people on it

The argument he had with a safety inspector about rubber cover-up that he still isn't sorry about

What he's trying to put into a new hand in twelve weeks, and what gets somebody sent home

ABOUT KYLE

Five years in the Coast Guard, then two mills back home — the first one closed, the second one taught him he didn't want to be there. Nine months of line school out of Sawyer, an apprenticeship, and about a decade of contract and storm work up and down the country.

He's now the lead line instructor at North Country Electrical and Heavy Equipment School in Escanaba, Michigan. He keeps a master list of every student who's come through, and a group chat with every class. They call him in the middle of the night and he answers.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Who we're talking to

00:19 — The Coast Guard, the paper mill, and a chain across the gate

02:14 — A line crew pulls into his parents' yard

03:06 — Line school, and the apprenticeship he picked

04:36 — What this job used to cost the men who did it

05:58 — Union vs. nonunion, and who he'd want on a crew

08:29 — What a journeyman actually makes

09:33 — Storm work and the real money

11:26 — "There's nothing comfortable with this trade"

12:47 — The worst conditions he ever worked in

13:32 — Why he stopped going on storm

14:25 — Walk the parking lot and you'll know who's doing well

18:03 — The journeymen who make it hard, and why

21:11 — The list

22:25 — His favorite place he ever worked

23:35 — He came in asking for sponsorship money

24:31 — He keeps track of every student

26:32 — The safety argument he still isn't sorry about

29:41 — What a quality hand looks like

32:11 — Six feet off the ground

34:43 — A million ways to build a power line

36:46 — What he tells everyone before they go

DISCLAIMER: Kyle's figures on pay, benefits, and storm rates come from his own time in the field and aren't published rates. He notes on the episode that he hasn't worked a contract in about two years.

Listen wherever your get your podcasts: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Midwest Truck Driving School: midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

North Country Heavy Equipment & Electrical Line School: https://ncheschool.com/

Submit your Questions: https://webforms.pipedrive.com/f/6WfGT9X1zlYC6WvssJqfWxOOkvVa1AjzqgnAIIHOq70WWiNo5czEWXpBMqxVTW7UST

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CDLMidwest

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwesttruckdrivingschool/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@midwesttruckdrivingskool

Kat's daughter took a career quiz at school, and the top answer came back as magician. Kat's first reaction was a question: where are the trades? She's usually the first face students see when they walk into Midwest Truck Driving School, so she hears the questions people bring in with them, from DOT physicals to whether it's all going to be okay.

WHAT WE GET INTO

• What Kat tells students who show up nervous and a long way from home, in a town where they don't know anybody
• Who actually signs up: kids fresh out of high school, semi-retirees, moms, business owners, and people just out of prison trying to get back on their feet
• How a 47-year-old and a 21-year-old end up staying late together to go over pre-trips
• The mistake Kat and Josh see new graduates make when they pick a first job
• What an employer is thinking when they see a gap in your work history

ABOUT KAT

Kat works in the front office at Midwest Truck Driving School. Students bring her everything: physical questions, how to get endorsements added to a CDL, where their instructor went, and where to get food in a town they just moved to. When she doesn't know the answer, she knows who does. She's a mom of four, so being somebody's go-to person comes naturally.

Listen wherever your get your podcasts: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Midwest Truck Driving School: midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

North Country Heavy Equipment & Electrical Line School: https://ncheschool.com/

Submit your Questions: https://webforms.pipedrive.com/f/6WfGT9X1zlYC6WvssJqfWxOOkvVa1AjzqgnAIIHOq70WWiNo5czEWXpBMqxVTW7UST

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CDLMidwest

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwesttruckdrivingschool/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@midwesttruckdrivingskool

Mac has taught people to drive trucks for 26 years. He kept paper logs before regulators replaced them with electronic devices, he watched the pre-trip exam turn into a test you can fail on the spot, and he watched schools get held to standards nobody enforced when he started.

He noticed something else along the way. The more the industry says it needs drivers, the harder it makes getting licensed.

Mac spends most of this episode working through why he thinks that happens, and what it means for someone deciding whether to start.

WHAT WE GET INTO

• Why regulators killed the paper logbook, and what Mac watched drivers doing before they did
• How the pre-trip exam changed three separate times, and what an automatic fail means now
• What separates a trainer from someone who has a CDL and a passenger seat
• How many times Mac grabbed the emergency valve in 26 years, and what the driver was doing both times
• The one thing Mac sees in students who end up loving this work

ABOUT MAC

Mac teaches CDL at Midwest Truck Driving School. He drove during the paper logbook era and started teaching around the time federal rules began reshaping how schools operate, so he has watched most of the big changes land from both seats. He says he still picks up something new in every class he teaches, which is also the advice he gives students on their way out the door.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 More demand, harder test

00:53 26 years in, and some changes still puzzle him

01:55 What everybody wants first, and why it comes last

03:10 An ELD explained by someone who kept paper logs

04:09 Why the paper logbook had to go

05:08 The standards used to be relaxed

06:05 Checklist, then pointing, then automatic fails

07:38 Not everyone is ready to be a trainer

09:43 One bad apple, and the schools shutting down over it

11:34 Two pulls of the emergency valve in 26 years

13:02 Students are harder on themselves than he is

14:05 What the ones who thrive had in common

16:05 Why he tells every class about icebergs

16:56 The morning you should get off the road

18:08 You're about to meet law enforcement a lot more

19:56 What a school up here can't teach you

21:23 The window young people don't know they're in

23:57 Where this work took him that he didn't expect

25:19 "Never think that you cannot do it"

Listen wherever your get your podcasts: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Midwest Truck Driving School: midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

North Country Heavy Equipment & Electrical Line School: https://ncheschool.com/

Submit your Questions: https://webforms.pipedrive.com/f/6WfGT9X1zlYC6WvssJqfWxOOkvVa1AjzqgnAIIHOq70WWiNo5czEWXpBMqxVTW7UST

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CDLMidwest

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwesttruckdrivingschool/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@midwesttruckdrivingskool

Nyeannie Reeves came to line school straight out of the Army Reserves, with zero climbing experience and a fear of falling he didn't know he had until he was about six feet off the ground. Four months later he's running pole top rescue against a four-minute clock.

Near the end of the conversation he shares something almost nobody in his class knows, and why he thinks it might matter to somebody who's still deciding whether a trade is for them.

• The nursing plan that turned into an Army cargo specialist job, which turned into a phlebotomy program, which somehow turned into climbing poles in the U.P.
• Why the alley arm is the thing that scares almost everybody, told by somebody who watched the first few guys do it and decided there was no way
• The fall on the center pole that fixed his fear instead of confirming it
• What it's like being the guy asking the eighteen-year-olds for help with the math
• Nyeannie is a trans man, and he wanted to talk about it for one specific reason: the stigma that blue collar work isn't a place for people who are different kept him nervous going in, and he doesn't think it should keep anybody out
• The advice he'd give somebody looking at this trade, including the part most recruiters skip

Born in Clare, Michigan and living in Farwell. He did a semester at Northern Michigan University, enlisted in the Army Reserves, and spent about three years as a cargo specialist running forklifts, container handlers, and ship cranes, plus enough truck driving that his unit called them "motels."

He worked as a phlebotomist for a while, decided a hospital wasn't where he wanted to spend his days, and started looking at trades with his grandmother, a college professor who told him to look up line work. He's finishing the Electrical Line Technician program and heading toward an apprenticeship.

Listen wherever your get your podcasts: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Midwest Truck Driving School: midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

North Country Heavy Equipment & Electrical Line School: https://ncheschool.com/

Submit your Questions: https://webforms.pipedrive.com/f/6WfGT9X1zlYC6WvssJqfWxOOkvVa1AjzqgnAIIHOq70WWiNo5czEWXpBMqxVTW7UST

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CDLMidwest

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwesttruckdrivingschool/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@midwesttruckdrivingskool

He turned 18 a few weeks before the course started, then drove three hours to a school he'd only ever seen in videos. An hour before we recorded this, he passed his final test.

But the part that stuck with us happened years earlier — back when most of his classmates hadn't worked a day in their lives.

Blake sat down with us the same afternoon he earned his Class A. We talked about the four jobs he worked before graduating high school, the conversation with his school counselor that redirected his whole plan, and the moment on the skills pad when he was convinced he'd blown it. He also walks through the part of the course that surprised him most, which wasn't the part anyone expects.

If you're weighing the trades against a four-year degree, or you've got a kid who is, this is a look at what that decision actually looks like from the inside — from someone who just made it.

Listen wherever your get your podcasts: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Midwest Truck Driving School: midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

North Country Heavy Equipment & Electrical Line School: https://ncheschool.com/

Submit your Questions: https://webforms.pipedrive.com/f/6WfGT9X1zlYC6WvssJqfWxOOkvVa1AjzqgnAIIHOq70WWiNo5czEWXpBMqxVTW7UST

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CDLMidwest

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwesttruckdrivingschool/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@midwesttruckdrivingskool

Most CDL endorsements come down to a written test at the Secretary of State. Thirty questions, a small fee, and a new letter on your license. This episode breaks down how that little letter actually changes what the job looks like.

Josh sits down with Bill Oglesby to walk through all six endorsements — what each one lets you do, what it takes to get, and what changes about your day once you have it. The surge that hits like a two by four when you brake a half-full tanker. The background check that has to clear before you can touch a placarded load. The reason backing a set of doubles means throwing out everything you already know about backing.

• Why passing the test and being ready for the job are two different things, and where that gap is widest
• What rearward amplification actually does to a set of doubles, and the deer story that taught one student the hard way
• Why a tanker that's three-quarters full is more dangerous than one that's completely full
• What a hazmat endorsement really lets you haul, and why that's the reason for the fingerprints
• How hazmat changes where you can drive, where you can park, and where you have to stop
• Why the passenger and school bus endorsements are the only two that make you test in the actual vehicle
• The endorsement Bill says to get regardless of where you think you're headed

Bill is the lead CDL instructor at Midwest Truck Driving School, and he spent years behind the wheel — including a good stretch in tankers — before he ever stood in front of a classroom. He's the guy students go to when the answer they found online doesn't match what they're seeing in the yard.

This is his second time on the show, you can also hear from him in episode 4.

The endorsement rules themselves 49 CFR 383.93 — the federal regulation covering all six endorsements https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-III/subchapter-B/part-383/subpart-F/section-383.93

Hazmat background check TSA Hazmat Endorsement — current fee, process, and disqualifying offenses https://www.tsa.gov/for-industry/hazmat-endorsement

Finding a training provider FMCSA Training Provider Registry — the official list of approved ELDT providers. If a provider isn't on it, your state won't accept the completion. https://tpr.fmcsa.dot.gov

Entry-Level Driver Training overview https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/registration/commercial-drivers-license/entry-level-driver-training-eldt

Our online endorsement courses Hazmat, tanker, doubles and triples, passenger and school bus — all registered with the Training Provider Registry, so completions report automatically. One option among many. Verify any provider you're considering at the link above. Join 20,000+ happy students: https://courses.midwesttruckdrivingschool.com/

A note from the episode: Josh and Bill talk through the order of the hazmat steps and have some back and forth about where the fingerprints fall. Here's what's settled — your ELDT training has to be submitted to the Training Provider Registry before your state will let you take the hazmat knowledge test. The rest of the sequence varies by state, so check with your own licensing agency.

Listen wherever your get your podcasts: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Midwest Truck Driving School: midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

North Country Heavy Equipment & Electrical Line School: https://ncheschool.com/

Submit your Questions: https://webforms.pipedrive.com/f/6WfGT9X1zlYC6WvssJqfWxOOkvVa1AjzqgnAIIHOq70WWiNo5czEWXpBMqxVTW7UST

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CDLMidwest

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwesttruckdrivingschool/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@midwesttruckdrivingskool

If you have a record and you've wondered whether a CDL is worth trying for, watch this one. Matt carries a long list of felony convictions. He says so around forty minutes in, and he says it so you don't decide your own situation puts you out of reach.

He earned the CDL. Then roughly a hundred companies turned him down. Matt spent months acing interviews and driving home without a job before he worked out what the companies were weighing when they read his application. Once he saw it, he changed how he approached them. You can start on that change now, before you set foot in a school.

He also tells you who this path is wrong for. He names the guys who get hired and then burn the company that took a chance on them. He doesn't excuse them and he doesn't pretend the odds are better than they are. We can't tell you what your record means for your CDL. That depends on the offense, when it happened, and your state. Call a school and ask. Call a recruiter and ask. Matt assumed the answer was no and spent months proving himself wrong.

Listen wherever your get your podcasts: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Midwest Truck Driving School: midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

North Country Heavy Equipment & Electrical Line School: https://ncheschool.com/

Submit your Questions: https://webforms.pipedrive.com/f/6WfGT9X1zlYC6WvssJqfWxOOkvVa1AjzqgnAIIHOq70WWiNo5czEWXpBMqxVTW7UST

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CDLMidwest

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwesttruckdrivingschool/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@midwesttruckdrivingskool

This is a Q&A episode about the questions people getting into trucking don't think to ask. Not what it pays or how long training takes, but the ones that actually decide whether this works out over a full career: what automation is really doing, which kinds of trucking are most exposed, and who to trust when everyone talking to you has something to gain.

Josh has held a CDL for about sixteen years and now teaches CDL students. RJ works in marketing for the school and spent time in the AI industry before this. Neither of them thinks you should take their word for it — the whole point of this one is to give you better questions to go research on your own.

ABOUT THE SHOW

Built in the Midwest features conversations with the people who build, move, and power this region — truck drivers, linemen, heavy equipment operators, and the employers and recruiters who hire them. New episodes every Friday. Hosted from Escanaba, Michigan by Midwest Truck Driving School.

🔗 LINKS

Listen wherever your get your podcasts: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen Midwest Truck Driving School: midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

North Country Heavy Equipment & Electrical Line School: https://ncheschool.com/

Submit your Questions: https://webforms.pipedrive.com/f/6WfGT9X1zlYC6WvssJqfWxOOkvVa1AjzqgnAIIHOq70WWiNo5czEWXpBMqxVTW7UST

💬 CONNECT

Email: [email protected] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CDLMidwest Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwesttruckdrivingschool/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@midwesttruckdrivingskool