Profile For John M.

Thanks for your service. You are doing all the right things. However, unless a local company with some flexibility with their insurance provider its a steep climb. Keep your spirits up... Reminds me of when I started. 23 years military... change of career.. got CDL but everyone looking for experience.... I found a local trash company that was willing to hire started there. I had talked to a friend who happened to know someone that drove for an owner operator... I was able to find work there... I stayed there gained experienced and am now and owner operator. Best of luck to you.

Greetings all,

Mike here. First and foremost thank you to everyone here for your knowledge and sharing of knowledge. I really do appreciate how well organized and thought out this site is and I have finally registered. I appreciate the passion and dedication to this career as well as helping others. Helping others is a passion of mine and I enjoy seeing other people happy.

With that said I would like to humbly introduce myself.

I am a full time professional firefighter and I work 24 on 48 off. Example: start Monday 0800 live at work, get off Tuesday 0800, off until Thursday 0800. This is repeated continuously. There are often times when I get 5 days off, and 4 days off consecutive as well. Driving experience is the fire truck at work, although it doesn’t require Cdl. This will come in to play later in this post.

I served 9 years active, honorably, USMC, as a radio tech, combat deployment, served as a drill instructor (where I got to live and share my passion of the Corps to hungry recruits/new Marines). I am now out , and a FF, but I stay physically, mentally, and emotionally fit and honestly enjoy learning things thankfully to this awesome career and schedule. Whenever I dive into something I treat it like a culture / society and I want to be able to “speak the language” with the people in it.

So I decided with the time off I have to better myself and learn a trade. I found a school that is 7 day course 4 hours a day , pay the money you go there they train you they test you, done deal. There were the other 100+ Hour Big name schools but it just didn’t work with my schedule. I would have either take 1 month off for the m-f class and of course pay out of pocket or use my GI bill benefits, or do the 2 month part time course and figure out about a dozen shift trades with other people. I chose the 7 day course as taking the time off for that was more convenient and it costed $1600. They are approved through the state DMV as well as a authorized third party test site.

Anyways I passed the test and now have my CDL A unrestricted with Haz, Tank, Double/Triple endorsements. Just printed out my mvd record report the longest one I could find it is 100% clean. What have I been doing since then? I’ve applied to any and all jobs I could in my area, dump , mixer, septic/vacuum, to name a few. Whenever I see a company truck I write down the name get home look them up and find out if I can work there. If I see a driver I politely ask if he has a minute and I’ll respectfully ask him a question if he’s or she ok with it. Im hungry and eager.

Of course some companies want 3-6 months class a verifiable experience. I still apply or call. There are also many that don’t. Of course every time we talk I have to tell them the story, “I’m a full time FF my schedule is XYZ and I’m off two whole days even more” they may say do you have driving experience to which I will say “yes I drive a fire truck at work” , to which they say “well does it require Cdl? No? Then it is not verifiable. “

Am I at a stale mate until I retire? Any other suggestions to get some seat time? Either way I’m glad I got my cdl, if something works out where I can find a side gig and get some seat time that would be awesome. If not, I’ll keep my physical and haz up to date and keep it in my cdl in my back pocket.

Mike