The American Trucking Associations says it and its members are committed to hiring 100,000 military veterans as part of the Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring Our Heroes campaign to see 500,000 vets receive a job.
“There’s no higher calling for an American than to serve in our armed forces, and I’d like to think that driving a truck – delivering America’s most essential goods safely and efficiently is also a high calling,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “That’s why we’re so proud to be partnering with Hiring Our Heroes and committing on behalf of the trucking industry to hire 100,000 veterans over the next two years.”
Hiring Our Heroes launched in March 2011 as a nationwide initiative to help veterans and military spouses find meaningful employment. Working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vast network of state and local chambers and other strategic partners from the public, private and non-profit sectors, the goal is to create a movement across America in hundreds of communities where veterans and military families return every day.
Since its inception, about 370,000 veterans have been hired.
ATA and Hiring Our Heroes will use FASTPORT’s trucking track system as a single portal to help match veterans with fleets with openings.
“It is rare in business and in life to find an opportunity that is a win-win for all involved, but that’s what Hiring Our Heroes is – a win for those veterans returning from service looking to transition to civilian life and a win for the trucking industry which is desperate to find dedicated, hard-working and safety-minded people to fill many thousands of open positions as drivers or technicians,” said ATA Chairman Duane Long, chairman of Longistics, Raleigh, N.C.