In The News

Driver believes a safe trucker has a recession-proof job

It takes all kinds to make up the pool of drivers needed for the trucking industry, those who are highly educated and those who aren’t. Marcia Underhill tips the scale on the side for the highly educated.

Underhill, who lives in Jonesboro, Ga., has a master’s degree in public health and used to work for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She graduated from East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania and also has a B.A. in social work.

While working at CDC — where she did data collecting — she was introduced to trucking by her friend and mentor, Calvin Smith, who is a truck driver in New Jersey.

“I was getting a divorce and he told me to try it,” Underhill said. “He tells me not to let people get under my skin.”

She enrolled at the Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania, where she took a six-week driver training program at Poconos.  She was trained in the classroom and in a truck, which included day and night driving.

Underhill has been a truck driver for more than three years now and presently works for Tyson Foods.

“They have an open door policy,” she said. “You don’t feel like a number … you can always walk in and talk to whoever you want to and you don’t get shuffled around on the phone.”

She worked for another large company before Tyson Foods where she was a driver trainer, but found it to be too fast-paced and got tired of training others.

“People say I’m passive aggressive,” Underhill said. “I did well with driver training; I’d just rather have more personal time.

“Tyson doesn’t push,” she continued. “They have a more relaxing environment.”

Underhill has three children back home, the youngest of which is 12. They stay with her mother and fiancé while she’s on the road. She stays out two weeks at a time and is home two to three days in between.

The Trucker asked when she might be married and she said: “I asked him that yesterday. But I’m taking it slow. I got married young, at age 20, and I’m just not in a hurry.”

Underhill says if she drives 11 hours in a day it’s not all at one time.

“You have to stop to stretch your legs and get a break,” she said.

Underhill drives a southeast route and said there no really a place she won’t drive, but she does take the more scenic routes since her company doesn’t push her.

“I’m a back roader,” she said. “I’m a good map reader. If it’s not [U.S. Highway] 60 in Virginia it’s not bad. I like sightseeing. I normally take U.S. roads. You can relax and there’s not a lot of traffic and as long as you’re on time there’s no rush. When I used to drive out West in Utah I wondered why people live in California because Utah is so beautiful”

When she gets home she likes to catch up on her sleep and take her children to the mall and do chores and other things around the house. But there’s another thing she likes about being off the road: “I get out of my pants and dress like a lady when I get home,” she said.

Underhill is not sure if she’ll keep trucking forever, but if she does leave she’ll return to the public health field.

“Sometimes when I get home I want to stay at home,” she explained. “I don’t get to enjoy things my children are doing.”

But Underhill isn’t looking to change jobs in the current environment, saying she didn’t realize the economy was “this bad” until after the election.

“I don’t get to watch television. It’s going to take a lot of work [to turn the economy around]. If anybody thinks he’s [President-elect Obama] going to get in there and do magic they need to be patient. It’s going to take some time.”

She said trucking is a steady, reliable job if you do it right.

“I think if you’re safe it’s recession-proof and you will have a job.”

Barb Kampbell of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at [email protected].