Built in the Midwest

We took the podcast out of the studio and into the woods, where heavy equipment students were cutting roads, digging a water hole and hauling sand with their own dump truck at a hunting camp in the U.P. Donnie, the lead heavy equipment instructor at North Country, explains why every class ends on a real job like this one, what happens when a student buries a truck or pops a track, and what a boss actually wants from a new operator on day one.

WHAT WE GET INTO

• Why every class leaves the training yard for a real project, and what changes when students realize they'll be doing more than going back and forth in one spot

• The playground groundwork students did for two local townships, starting with reading the blueprints

• Why Donnie wants students to meet the customer on the first day

• Backing a dump truck down a narrow road with ditches on both sides

• A dump truck buried 30 yards into the woods, a backhoe sunk to the cab, and what it took to get them out

• The question students ask after they pop a track, and the answer they don't expect

• What a boss does when the dozer operator calls in sick, and what the new hire does next

• How many buckets go into a truck that can haul 50,000 pounds

• The one thing Donnie says no program can give you, and what he's trying to give you instead

LINKS

• Heavy Equipment Operations Certificate, Level I: https://ncheschool.com/heavy-equipment-operations-certificate-level-i/

• NCCER: https://www.nccer.org/

• OSHA trenching and excavation safety: https://www.osha.gov/etools/construction/trenching

• Upper Peninsula Michigan Works!: https://upmichiganworks.org/

CONNECT

Listen on your favorite podcast app, or share the show with someone figuring out their next move: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Ready to find out what it takes to get started? Visit midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

Josh recently asked a group of high school seniors what they wanted to do after graduation, and very few of them had an answer. So we spent a day at Michigan Tech's Mind Trekkers STEM festival at the U.P. State Fairgrounds in Escanaba, where seventh graders from Delta and Schoolcraft counties get their hands on science, engineering, and the trades years before anyone asks them that question. Between demos, we pulled aside the people who make it happen, including a CTE leader whose own sixth grader has already been through four dream jobs.

WHAT WE GET INTO

- What a Mind Trekker actually is, and why a banana and a lime can teach a kid how a circuit works

- The weeklong Michigan Tech camps for kids who leave wanting more, and who helps cover the cost

- Why Jackie Dohm says a few minutes at a company's table can do what no brochure can

- Her advice for anyone at 30, 40, or 50 who still feels that spark and wonders if it's too late

- A sixth grader's four dream jobs, and the money conversation Trent Bellingar thinks every parent should have

- Three months of sweeping a shop floor, and the teenager who walked away with a different plan

- The four-question framework Trent first brought to the show in Episode 18, and why he says the end result will change a hundred times

- The bet that put a math teacher up a utility pole, and her answer to "when am I ever going to need this?"

- What it takes to move roughly 450 students and 17 companies through one building in a day, by Tanya's count

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Brad Wells directs the Center for Educational Outreach at Michigan Tech, the office that puts Mind Trekkers on the road. He grew up just southwest of D.C., and he says U.P. summers are what pulled him north.

Jackie Dohm is assistant director of the Center for Educational Outreach and the Mind Trekkers coordinator, which makes her the one handling the details nobody sees. Her degree is in business and her passion is people, and she never had an event like this growing up.

Trent Bellinger leads career and technical education at Delta-Schoolcraft ISD and is back for his second conversation on the show. He's a teacher by background, and he spent part of the day watching his own kids work through the demos.

Katie Pomo teaches math at Gladstone and used to teach science. She was the only teacher who climbed the pole that day. Well done, Katie!

Tonya Heikkenen, Business Services Manager at Michigan Works!, helped coordinate all the moving pieces after months of planning to help put on this incredible event.

THANK YOU

To the Michigan Tech students in the yellow and gray jerseys who gave up two days of midterm week, and to the sponsors and exhibitors who showed up for these kids.

SPONSORS

- Domtar

- Advanced Blending Solutions

- OSF St. Francis Hospital

- Daniel J. Kobasic Foundation

- Bay College Foundation

- VanAire

- Midwest Truck Driving School

- Delta-Schoolcraft ISD

- Pike Distributors

- UP Michigan Works!

- Iron Workers Local 8

EXHIBITORS

- Domino's

- Billerud

- Alger Delta Electric

- Midwest Truck Driving School

- OSF St. Francis

- UP Michigan Works!

- VanAire

- Independent Machine Company

- Bacco Construction

- Junior Achievement

- UP AHEC

- L.E. Jones

- Advanced Blending Solutions

- Northern Michigan University

- Delta-Schoolcraft CTE

- MEERA (Manufacturing and Engineering Education Reimagined for All)

- UP Michigan Works! Registered Apprenticeships

LINKS

- Trent's first conversation, Episode 18: https://youtu.be/6KbbtDpsKIE?si=3hPsJ1W1Nuftc3tA

- Michigan Tech Mind Trekkers: https://www.mtu.edu/mindtrekkers/

- Michigan Tech Summer Youth Programs: https://www.mtu.edu/syp/

- Upper Peninsula Michigan Works!: https://upmichiganworks.org/

- Delta-Schoolcraft ISD: https://www.dsisd.net/

CONNECT

Listen on your favorite podcast app, or share the show with someone figuring out their next move: https://built-in-the-midwest.captivate.fm/listen

Ready to find out what it takes to get started? Visit midwesttruckdrivingschool.com

Part 2 of our CDL Q&A picks up right where we left off, and Josh still hasn't seen a single question before RJ reads it. The first one sounds simple: if you want to be home every night, which license should you get? Josh's answer might not be the one you expect, and from there we get into the training argument that keeps showing up in our comments, what changes the first winter you drive a semi, and the conversation you need to have with your family before you go on the road.

WHAT WE GET INTO

- Why the "smaller" license might not be the safer bet for local work, and the trailer road commissions only pull out a few times a year

- The training debate that fills our comment section, and the 1986 pickup Josh learned to drive on

- What changes the first time you drive a semi on snow, and why Josh says students have come from as far as Virginia to learn it here

- What car drivers keep doing around semis, from camping in blind spots to squeezing into roundabouts

- Whether trucking companies care what you did before, and whether 44 is too old to start

- Where a veteran who drove trucks in the Army should actually begin, and the one person to ask for when you call a school

- How to talk to your spouse about a career change, and the question Josh asked a student with a baby on the way

- A harder conversation about what happens when the sacrifice never ends

- Why a job you hated might be the best thing that happened to you, and the professor who threw everyone's papers in the trash

IF YOU NEED SOMEONE TO TALK TO

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Veterans can dial 988 and press 1.

LINKS

- VA GI Bill Comparison Tool (check whether a school is VA-approved): https://www.va.gov/education/gi-bill-comparison-tool/

- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: https://988lifeline.org

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

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