FMCSA Gives Nearly $1 Mln. to Colleges to Train Veterans as Commercial Drivers
This story appears in the July 15 print edition of Transport Topics.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it has given almost $1 million to six community colleges to train military veterans to drive commercial vehicles.
The funding, part of the Commercial Motor Vehicle Operator Safety Training program, could provide training for up to 300 veterans or their spouses, FMCSA announced in a July 3 statement.
“The least we can do for the men and women who put their lives on the line for our country is to help ensure they can find good jobs when they leave the service,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in the statement.
“The transportation industry provides a unique opportunity for military families and veterans to utilize skills they developed in the service, and we hope these grants will lead to more veterans joining the ranks of our country’s commercial vehicle drivers,” he added.
Long Beach City College, in Long Beach, Calif., received a grant worth $211,733 to train at least 100 truck drivers. It will partner with local carriers to place the drivers in jobs serving drayage at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, said Lou Anne Bynum, executive vice president of college advancement at the school.
“Los Angeles County has about 324,000 veterans, and we’re expecting to have another 25,000 in the next year or two return,” Bynum said. “There is a huge need for truck drivers. The industry has experienced a drop of about 7,000 qualified drivers in 2012 alone.”
Long Beach’s trucking program trains drivers on the specific conditions in the drayage industry in southern California, including special emissions regulations, safety on the local freeways and the business of being an owner-operator, Bynum said.
“We’re going to focus on the shortage of shorthaul truck drivers,” she said of the FMCSA grant.
She said the school also received a $53,000 match for the grant from the California Community Colleges System.
The other grants, ranging from $120,000 to $184,260, went to Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College in Orangeburg, S.C.; Lone Star College in Woodlands, Texas; Century College in White Bear Lake, Minn.; Grays Harbor College, in Aberdeen, Wash., and Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Ill.
FMCSA distributes grants under the program every year.
“From allowing states to consider military experience in their licensing tests to supporting industry job fairs, we are committed to helping our veterans transition into quality jobs,” FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said in the statement.
Mike Kelly, dean for workforce education at Grays Harbor College, said his school’s $131,041 grant will pay the tuition expenses for about 40 veterans.
“I think it’s a great thing,” he said of the grant program.
Washington, in addition to 40 other states and the District of Columbia, allows military veterans to skip the driving portion of the test to receive a commercial driver license if they have at least two years of experience driving military vehicles similar to commercial trucks. FMCSA allowed states to waive the driving test in May 2011 in an effort to encourage veterans to join the trucking industry.
Veterans typically need a shorter course than the usual one because of their military training, Kelly said.
“The odds of the person passing that test at the first go-around are pretty slim, because the state’s really prescriptive on exactly what they want,” he said. “So part of this is for the person who’s done that, to give them a quick course, and them being able to pass the test.”
Grays Harbor College has one full-time and one part-time instructor for its truck driving program, Kelly said. It usually trains 27 drivers a year, but the college will create a separate program for veteran training with the grant.
