Ellen Voie (Voy-a) is an internationally recognized speaker and authority on gender diversity and inclusion for women working in non-traditional careers in transportation. She has been invited to speak to audiences in Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, France, Mexico, and Canada, in addition to being a popular speaker at conferences throughout the United States. Voie founded the Women In Trucking Association in 2007, and currently serves as the nonprofit organization’s President & CEO. The Women In Trucking Association was formed to promote the employment of women in the trucking industry, to remove obstacles that might keep them from succeeding, and to celebrate the successes of its members. Voie also currently serves on the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) to provide recommendations and advice to the FMCSA on motor carrier safety programs and motor carrier safety regulations. Voie’s background in the trucking industry began as the assistant and later Traffic Manager for a steel fabricating plant in the upper Midwest. She then worked as a dispatcher for a grain hauling carrier before becoming co-owner of a small fleet. After starting a family, she used her background to become a freelance transportation consultant to carriers in Wisconsin, licensing and permitting trucks for more than 16 years. Voie also served as the Executive Director of Trucker Buddy International, Inc., a pen pal program between professional drivers and elementary students. Voie holds a Master’s in Communication degree from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, where she completed her Thesis research on the complex identities of women married to professional drivers. She also hold a degree in Traffic and Transportation Management from LaSalle Extension University. Voie has earned the Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential from the American Society of Association Executives, the leading authority in association management.

Columnists,Education,Uncategorized |
December 14, 2014

In the 1993 children’s novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, all children are assigned to a career or job at the age of twelve. The community leaders determine who will be engineers, legislators, shopkeepers, and even surrogate mothers. Although the author doesn’t address the role of professional driver, this is an assumption made based on the society’s effort to control the community by “assigning” a job according to the child’s skills and aptitude.

For those of us in the United States and Canada, we have the option to choose our life aspirations and to change those goals as we mature. In fact, many of us made career choices in high school, but changed those ideals based on our experiences and circumstances. Even those of us who entered college with a specific course of education in mind probably changed our major more often than we had anticipated. When addressing groups at a conference I often ask whether they had CHOSEN a career in transportation when they were younger. For most of them, the answer is “no.”

Ellen Voie
Ellen Voie

The common perception by the general public is that truck drivers often pursue the career as a last resort. Maybe they were laid off from a construction or factory job and they responded to a recruiting ad to obtain a CDL and become a professional driver. This perception isn’t entirely misleading. The problem we have in the United States and Canada is that we are limited in focusing on teenagers as drivers because of the interstate restrictions that require a driver to be at least 21 years old to transport loads across state lines. Add to that a two-year experience requirement for many insurance providers and you’ve got a work force that starts at the age of 23.

While we don’t want to assign twelve-year-old children to the role of professional driver as depicted in The Giver, it would be difficult to make a prospective driver wait another nine years to earn a living in the trucking industry. There are ways to encourage children to consider a career in the trucking industry, especially as professional drivers. Other countries are ahead of us in this effort.

In Sweden, education is mandatory for children ages seven to sixteen. Although there are classes for younger children, compulsory comprehensive school, named “Grundskola,” begins at the age of six or seven. While most schools are publicly funded, there are a few independent schools in Sweden that might have a different orientation than their government counterparts.

Once the student has completed nine years of primary school, they can elect to enter secondary school, named “Gymnasieskola.” In this environment, they are given the option to prepare for higher education or to receive a vocation education. During this three-year education, the students are further divided into programs, or different educational pursuits. Those who choose vocational courses will receive at least fifteen weeks of workplace training over the three years. While core courses are taught to all students in “Gymnasieskola,” the student is guided into program specific classes. One of those vocational training options is in “automotive and transportation.” Sweden, like most of the transportation industries, was experiencing a need for professional drivers. The percentage of females was very low; estimated at about two percent. With smaller trucks, shorter routes, and more home time, the job should have been more attractive to both men and women.

However, efforts to address this need through secondary education have been successful, especially in northern Sweden at the Lapland Gymnasieskola. Here, girls are guided into traditionally male careers at a rate that exceeds the boys, with forty to sixty percent of them preparing for jobs such as mining and transportation. Female drivers are valued for their aversion to risk and their exceptional treatment of the vehicles, where, according to a TV Gallivere article, “they treat the large vehicles better than male colleagues, they force them not as hard and take [fewer] chances.”

Bill Rehn, of TYA Sweden, the Vocational Training and Working Environment Council, is excited about the efforts to encourage girls to consider careers in trucking. “We now have eighteen percent of women in the secondary school for transport truck driving and that is very good.” He added, “Twelve percent of the employment of new truck drivers in Sweden [are] women.”

Although the Elders in The Giver didn’t give children the option to choose, they did make their determinations based on talents and skills. Perhaps we should look at the Swedish model. With a projected 100,000 new drivers needed annually, we must reconsider the way we recruit and train the next generation of drivers. Encouraging the next generation to look at careers as professional drivers by prompting them into vocational programs during their high school years instead seems to be working.

Maybe Sweden’s model provides a needed solution to the future driver shortage.
Ellen Voie CAE,  President/CEO
Women In Trucking, Inc.
P O Box 400  Plover,  WI 54467-0400
Ellen@WomenInTrucking.org
888-464-9482     920-312-1350 Direct
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Ellen Voie (Voy-a) is an internationally recognized speaker and authority on gender diversity and inclusion for women working in non-traditional careers in transportation. She has been invited to speak to audiences in Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, France, Mexico, and Canada, in addition to being a popular speaker at conferences throughout the United States. Voie founded the Women In Trucking Association in 2007, and currently serves as the nonprofit organization’s President & CEO. The Women In Trucking Association was formed to promote the employment of women in the trucking industry, to remove obstacles that might keep them from succeeding, and to celebrate the successes of its members. Voie also currently serves on the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) to provide recommendations and advice to the FMCSA on motor carrier safety programs and motor carrier safety regulations. Voie’s background in the trucking industry began as the assistant and later Traffic Manager for a steel fabricating plant in the upper Midwest. She then worked as a dispatcher for a grain hauling carrier before becoming co-owner of a small fleet. After starting a family, she used her background to become a freelance transportation consultant to carriers in Wisconsin, licensing and permitting trucks for more than 16 years. Voie also served as the Executive Director of Trucker Buddy International, Inc., a pen pal program between professional drivers and elementary students. Voie holds a Master’s in Communication degree from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, where she completed her Thesis research on the complex identities of women married to professional drivers. She also hold a degree in Traffic and Transportation Management from LaSalle Extension University. Voie has earned the Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential from the American Society of Association Executives, the leading authority in association management.