Work-force training
In Hampton Roads, the pressure is on to train more truck drivers for the area’s thriving port

by Garry Kranz
for Virginia Business
March 2007

Maritime trucking companies in Hampton Roads have an enviable problem: Business is booming. By 2020, the Virginia Port Authority (VPA) expects volume at the state’s largest port to approach 4 million cargo containers — more than twice its current load of 1.6 million units. What’s more, West Coast ports are expected to hit full capacity this year, boosting shipping activity at Hampton Roads and other East Coast ports.

In the port’s food chain, truck carriers deliver cargo to its ultimate destination, so they’re seeing a bump in business. Yet trucking firms that serve the Port of Virginia are under the gun. About 400 new drivers will be needed this year in Hampton Roads alone just to keep pace with current demand, officials say, and that estimate may be too conservative. The problem is two-fold: too many retiring truckers and an insufficient supply of new ones. According to the Virginia Maritime Association (VMA), 35 percent of area drivers will be eligible for retirement within the next decade.

“Every trucking company [in Hampton Roads] is having trouble not only retaining experienced drivers, but also recruiting new drivers. We don’t see a lot of younger folks going into trucking, especially the container-dredge part,” says Kip Hinkle, manager, marine operations for Maersk Line in Portsmouth. It’s part of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Sealand Group, a Danish shipping conglomerate whose Virginia subsidiary, APM Terminals, is constructing a massive $450 million terminal in Portsmouth.

To address the scarcity, industry leaders are beginning an aggressive work-force initia­tive to scour the state for potential recruits. The VMA, thanks to a $320,000 grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, is developing a training program to attract potential drivers — reportedly the first work-force program in the nation devoted to trucking.

The association has hired a full-time recruiter to visit area chambers of commerce and other business groups to promote trucking as a career alternative. In particular, the effort is focusing on rural regions that have suffered from job losses in textiles, tobacco and manufacturing.

“We are the economic engine for Hampton Roads,” says Charles “Chick” Rose­mond, chairman of VMA’s Inland Transportation Com­mittee, which spearheads the work-force initiative. “For the port to continue to be successful, we have to have a base of drivers. If we don’t there’ll be slippage in business.”

Details on training and how it would be provided are still being worked out. The idea is to stimulate interest in trucking and to direct recruits into applied course work at Virginia community colleges. Aside from truck-driver certification, the curriculum will include courses in finances, business management and computer skills. “The long-term payoff in recruiting people is that they can make a good living in this industry,” says Rosemond, noting that new drivers can earn about $34,000 annually after just two years.

That’s about $1,800 higher than the average regional wage for Hampton Roads. Truckers can earn even more if they apply themselves. Rosemond says many truckers can evolve into owner/operators in about eight years. In fact, about 80 percent of the truckers who serve the port are in business for themselves, hiring out as independent contractors to trucking companies that serve the state’s three maritime terminals in Hampton Roads. “The ultimate American dream can be met by becoming a truck driver,” says Rosemond.

Unlike “highway cowboys” who drive coast to coast and are on the road for weeks, trucking for the port offers stability and a more predictable schedule. Drivers are usually home each night because their routes involve short distances.

Work-force training for truck drivers is not entirely new to Virginia. Tidewater Community College (TCC) has provided a trucking curriculum for about 20 years. It produces about 100 graduates a year, says Terry Jones, provost of the school’s Portsmouth campus. But surging demand at Virginia’s maritime ports and this year’s opening of the first phase of Maersk’s new 295-acre terminal have taken it to a new level. Where once three faculty members were devoted to truck-driver training, the college now has six, says Jones.

The problem facing Virginia’s trucking industry is a microcosm. According to the American Trucking Association, a trade group in Arlington, the national shortage of drivers is about 20,000, and as many as 111,000 long-haul truckers will be needed by 2014. As the problem intensifies, don’t be surprised if the rest of the nation follows Virginia’s lead in cultivating a labor pool of new drivers.