Displaced Workers to Be Trained As Truck Drivers With Federal Grant

The U.S. Department of Labor will award a $1.2 million grant to the ATA Foundation to train workers who've lost their jobs in other industries to become long-haul truck drivers.

Susan M. Coughlin, director of the ATA Foundation, said the grant, which should be finalized over the next few weeks, is part of a project to address the nationwide driver shortage.

The project will be carried out with state trucking associations and job training agencies in Tennessee and Pennsylvania. Some 200 people who have lost their jobs will be identified as eligible for training professional truck drivers.

Participating driver training schools will have to be certified by the Professional Truck Driving Institute of America.

Joel Dandrea, director of driver training and development for American Trucking Associations, said those states were chosen because of the strong interest expressed by the state associations and their member trucking companies.

Eventually, he said, the project could be expanded to include other states.

"This is just a starting point. We would like it to serve as a model for the rest of the country," Mr. Dandrea said.

According to a recent Gallup study, the trucking industry will need to hire 80,000 new truck drivers each year through at least 2005.

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