More Women Make Inroads Into Top Trucking Posts

December 14, 1999 11:24 AM, EST

Rona Bruneau has logged hundreds of thousands of miles behind the wheel of a big rig, spent countless hours on the telephone as a dispatcher and slogged through the mind-numbing mounds of paperwork required of truckers and their companies.

	B&B Trucking
	"Just like wives help out on the farm, they do the same in trucking.” — Rona Bruneau, B&B Trucking

She’s a trucker’s trucker — all the more so, perhaps, because she began her career in 1979 when there were few other women in the industry.

But Bruneau is no longer alone. More and more women are choosing careers in freight transportation and finding themselves in jobs ranging from the driver’s seat to the executive’s chair.

The co-owner and vice president of B&B Trucking, a flatbed operation in Orleans, Vt., Bruneau got into the business because her husband was a truck driver. She earned her commercial driver license so they could be together on the road.

They bought their operating rights in 1985, hauling building materials, machinery and lumber with a three-truck fleet that has since expanded into a 16-truck operation.

For the full story, see the Dec. 13 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.