Vets Make Valuable Employees, Several Motor Carriers Report

By Stephenie Overman, Special to Transport Topics

This story appears in the March 21 print edition of Transport Topics.

Schneider National Inc., Ruan Transport Corp., Falcon Transport Co., and Werner Enterprises know from experience that military veterans make valuable employees. These firms actively recruit them to fill not only driver jobs but management posts as well.

Schneider National is a founding member of the U.S. Army Partnership for Youth Success program, an initiative developed to ensure that military recruits have a civilian job with a leading employer after completing their service.

The company works hard to reach out to veterans, said Schneider National’s vice president of driver recruiting Michael Hinz, who is a former Army officer.

Reaching out is necessary, he said, because from his own experience he knows that veterans often don’t recognize how much they are needed in the workforce.

“Military members are so focused on their military mission that they put themselves last,” Hinz said.

Ruan Transport also pursues many recruitment avenues. Ruan is a member of the Army PaYS program, but many veterans apply directly to the company, said Ron Hanson, vice president of human resources.

And Ruan — which employs Josh Goldman, a U.S. Marine Corps captain and veteran of the war in Iraq, as its director of operations — works with recruiting firms that specialize in helping match candidates to employers, Hanson said.

“We have had a close and effective relationship with a firm called Alliance, which specializes in the placement of Junior Military Officers (JMOs),” he said.

Falcon Transport, Youngstown, Ohio, also is a member of the Army PaYS program. The company — which has about 500 drivers, some of them owner-operators — hires veterans not only for driving positions but as mechanics, dispatchers and office and payroll workers, said Amber Lambach, a recruiter for the company.

Military experience in mechanics and driving can be easily transferable to the transport industry, Lambach said. He added that some people coming out of the military may already have the proper certification to meet Department of Transportation commercial-driving requirements.

Werner, No. 13 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada, said it has about 2,800 employees who are veterans, about 20% of its workforce. Werner’s primary focus has been on truck drivers, but the company hires veterans for many other positions, including mechanics and fleet managers.

Werner has a driver apprenticeship program that is approved by the U.S. Department of Labor and Department of Veterans Affairs, said Robert Synowicki Jr., executive vice president for driver resources.

“Through this program, eligible veterans may use their GI bill benefits,” Synowicki said. “These benefits normally amount to a substantial sum of money for the veterans.”

Schneider National’s website announces that “though we’re known for our orange trucks, we are also proud to support the red, white and blue.” The company, which ranks No. 9 on the for-hire TT 100 list, “is one of the nation’s largest employers of military personnel,” according to the website.

Schneider said that 6% of the company’s managers, 16% of the senior leaders, 35% of drivers and more than 25% of about 20,000 company employees have military backgrounds. In fact, Schneider National was the inaugural winner of the Department of Defense Freedom Award and ranks in the GI Jobs list of Top 50 Military Friendly Employers.

Ruan Transport, a unit of Ruan Transportation Management Systems, No. 30 on the for-hire TT 100 list, needs well-developed leadership skills, Hanson said, and “JMOs have the training and experience we are looking for. They also usually have strong academic achievement and a highly ethical self-code of conduct, so they are a complete package.”

Schneider National is not looking for just officers, said Hinz.

“These are some of the best human beings,” he said. “No matter what the rank, they have gotten training in leadership, to complete the mission, to be truthful, dependable. They are trainable, and they have many skills. Military members supply so much to the workforce.”

Hinz said that people outside the trucking industry tend to think the only jobs available are as truck drivers, and veterans may not be aware of the types of positions they can obtain.

“I was recruited out of the military. I was in the field artillery,” Hinz said. In the trucking industry, “I started in the operations group — managed a group of 40 drivers. I moved into logistics, IT, communications.”

Schneider prides itself on offering military veterans the opportunity to be small-business owners, Hinz said. The company aids ex-military who have been drivers for Schneider for six months with the training, mentoring, financial incentives and financing necessary to become owner-operator truck drivers, assistance provided in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“They can be their own boss, contracted to us,” Hinz said.

Ralph Arthur, Ruan Transport president of dedicated contract carriage, said his company is well known for hiring junior officers.

Junior officers today “are much better prepared to go into business than in my time,” said Arthur, a former Army officer and Vietnam-era veteran. “They’ve received much better training. The military has adopted a lot of business management skills in its training, particularly in the area of logistics. In the military you move stuff — people, equipment, supplies — and that education is very transferable to our industry.”

There may be a steep learning curve, but these former junior officers are fast trackers, Arthur said, so “keeping them challenged is a challenge. If you’re bringing them in at an entry-level position, you need to move them up” quickly.

Some transport company recruiters, however, said they have sought out veterans without success.

“We haven’t had much response . . . only a few” from the Army PaYS program, said Gene East, recruiter for Gully Transportation, Quincy, Ill.

Sheetz Convenience Stores, headquartered in Altoona, Pa., has hired veterans through Army PaYS. However, Carrie McMaster Brown, recruiter for CLI Transport LP, the dedicated petroleum carrier for Sheetz, said CLI hasn’t received applications or hired anyone through the program.

Foodliner Inc., based in Dubuque, Iowa, also is a member of Army PaYS, but spokesman Dave Gust said, “We haven’t seen much success. We haven’t had a lot of people sign up.”

That’s not surprising, said Emily King, president of mymilitarytransitions.com, Washington, D.C. Even though many veterans are unemployed, it can be difficult to connect with them.

“You have to really reach out,” said King, who is writing a book about employing and retaining veterans. “There’s a lot they don’t know” about civilian job-hunting practices.

Companies often assume that the military is providing adequate training for its members who are transitioning to civilian life. There is training, but it’s insufficient and fragmented, she said.

“There’s a tremendous amount of goodwill, but everything is completely decentralized. Veterans don’t know where to go for services,” King said. “They don’t know how to reach out, and [training] providers aren’t doing a good enough job shepherding veterans through the process.”

A particular problem is that civilians and members of the military speak different languages — at least on resumes. She advised companies to be as explicit as possible about the jobs they are seeking to fill and to get help translating military-speak into civilian language from organizations such as O*NetOnline.

Misunderstanding can undermine veterans’ confidence, King said, leading them to feel they don’t have transferable, marketable skills and deterring them from seeking jobs.

So, whatever recruiting model a company uses, “you have to be a little more engaged” with veterans, she said.

King advised companies to actively develop connections with organizations that work with veterans and to make full use of job boards and job fairs. She also suggested posting information for veterans on the company website.

After veterans are hired, the best way to retain them, King said, is a strong mentorship program. Don’t choose just anyone to mentor new employees from the military, but find “someone who came successfully from the military world. Someone who has made the transition to civilian life,” she said.

“One of the things I’ve always admired about former service members is that they generally have a desire to help. They get satisfaction from helping others. So asking them to mentor other people is easy. They’re going to be champions,” King said. “Pick the ones who best represent the company and can pass along the right lessons.”

Employers may have to meet the veterans more than half way, said Schneider’s Hinz.

“Put yourself into relationships [with them]. Make sure they understand that you want them,” he said.

“You have to do outreach,” Hinz added. “We go to lots of job fairs. We send people to large [military] bases and to Reserve drills. When the military is having a transition debriefing and brings in employers, we try to be one of them.”