By Sandy Long

As an old hand lady driver, myself and other sister drivers back in the day broke the path for other women to enter the trucking industry. While we made a dent in hidebound traditional thinking towards women as truck drivers, those thoughts remained within the board rooms, shops, and dispatch offices throughout the industry. To name a few of these thoughts: Women should be at home cooking supper and raising babies. Women were too weak to hold up to the rigors of the job. Women were too emotional to handle the stress of the job. Women would cause trouble amongst the male drivers. If we changed companies, no matter how many years we had been driving, or how clean our records, we continuingly had to keep proving ourselves. We lady drivers did our best, but we hit a wall at some point. We could not reach the boardrooms where further change needed to start.

A woman, Ellen Voie, was paying her dues. Working on getting her education, assisting her then husband to run an owner-operator truck business, and working nontraditional jobs herself, she went to work with Schneider. There and in other areas, talking to women drivers, Ellen saw the need for change to make trucking a more viable career for women in all positions, but especially as drivers. In 2007, she founded the Women In Trucking Association. The Association mission statement states, “Women In Trucking was established to encourage the employment of women in the trucking industry, promote their accomplishments and minimize obstacles faced by women working in the trucking industry.”

From Ellen’s experience, she realized from the start that change needed to occur from the top. If the executives of a company did not see the value of women, then no one in the company would. Utilizing her skills at public speaking, writing, and communication, Ellen started contacting companies about hiring more women. To make sure she understood for herself, at least a modicum of what a driver faces in doing the job, she went through truck driving school and earned her CDL, then wrote a book about her experiences to assist other students.

As is said elsewhere, if you do not have a seat at the table, you are lunch, so Ellen worked hard to get that seat at the table. She wrote white papers, available to corporate members, the Anti-Harassment Employment Guide and Recruiting Guide. Seeing blatant sex being used to recruit male drivers by some carriers, Ellen took them on face to face. Ellen was called to Washington, DC to represent women in the trucking industry on a women in nontraditional jobs panel. She also was invited to participate on the training regulation development panel by the FMCSA, again representing women drivers.

Listening to the concerns of women drivers about the ergonomics of trucks, Ellen works closely with some truck manufacturers to make trucks more user friendly for both genders of smaller stature. Also, again, listening to drivers, Ellen works closely with truck stops to provide safer parking, more lighting, and more amenities while geared towards women, benefit both genders.

To further assist drivers, WIT runs a Facebook Group, where drivers can help other drivers. At over 10,500 members, it is strictly moderated so is as safe as social media can be. Education is foremost there, professionalism is expected, and yes, socializing goes on, removing the obstacle of isolation many women drivers feel.

WIT is present at every major truck show, but MATS in Louisville, KY in the spring is the big one. The Salute to the Women Behind the Wheel event is held there yearly and celebrates the successes of women drivers. Every driver there is made to feel special, but that is true of any WIT event. Ellen often conducts educational panels at truck shows to benefit all drivers.

Ellen travels a lot through the year, speaking with different organizations promoting the hiring of women in the trucking industry. It does not stop there though. WIT and Ellen worked with the Girl Scouts to start a transportation patch to start girls looking at trucking careers at an early age. Ellen has worked with carriers to provide ride-alongs for politicians and FMCSA officials so they can experience real-world trucking with professional truck drivers.

Personally, I am a charter member of WIT and have known and worked closely with Ellen Voie for over ten years. I admire her for her vision, her professionalism, and her abilities to get beyond the boardroom doors to effect change for we women drivers where it needs to start, from the top.