OOIDA’s Truck to Success course open for registration

If you want to learn about becoming an owner-operator, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association wants to make it easy for you.

For the first time, OOIDA is offering its three-day Truck to Success course in person as well as online. The course is designed to arm professional truck drivers considering whether to make the jump to being an owner-operator with the information they need to made the decision and to be successful if they chose to go ahead.

OOIDA’s Truck to Success course will be Oct. 26-28 at the Courtyard Marriot in Blue Springs, Mo. For those unable to attend in person, OOIDA offers an option to attend the classes via Zoom web conferencing.

“If you are thinking about taking the next big step in your career to become an owner-operator, it is important that you put yourself on the path to success,” OOIDA wrote on its website. “We offer you OOIDA’s Truck to Success, a three-day in-depth training curriculum that offers step-by-step guidance from the industry’s leading experts since 1973.”

The cost of the course for those attending in person will be $495. Guests of attendees will be charged $125 to cover the cost of food. Attending the course online will cost $250.

As an added bonus, truckers who register for the course before Oct. 1 will receive a free year’s membership to OOIDA.

For more information or to register for Truck to Success, click here.

Truck to Success features trainers, both from OOIDA and other trusted experts, who are in contact with owner-operators on a daily basis to provide course participants the most up-to-date information possible.

“If you are serious about your choice to become an owner-operator, then allow OOIDA’s expert staff, as well as their partners, to guide you from a company driver to a leased-on owner-operator, and/or to an owner-operator under their own authority.”

OOIDA’s most recent Truck to Success course was in October 2020 but was offered online only because of coronavirus restrictions. For this October, OOIDA plans to offer the course in person and online to give truckers the opportunity to participate even if they can’t make it to the Kansas City area for three days this fall.

The course is presented by the OOIDA Foundation, the research and education arm of the Association. The OOIDA Foundation’s mission statement is to fight for the rights of all truckers through education and research.

“Let us assist you on the road to success,” the OOIDA Foundation said. “Whether you are a company driver or an owner-operator who is struggling to make ends meet and looking for a refresher program, come join us.”

The extensive training curriculum will include:

• Developing a business plan that works for you.
• Equipment. You’re going to need a truck. New vs. used?
• Equipment financing.
• Insurance.
• The big decision to be an owner-operator under your own authority or lease on to a carrier.
• New entrant safety audit and a compliance review.
• Drug and alcohol consortium and requirements.
• Permits and licensing.
• Taxes and business structures.
• Brokers and factoring.
• Finish with current issues that are affecting the industry and what they can do to respond to those issues.

Lewie Pugh, executive vice president of OOIDA, said the Association’s goal in this and all of its endeavors is to help professional commercial truck drivers be successful. The stakes are higher when a driver becomes an owner-operator.

“Trucking is a tough thing, as all of you out there that drive now know. It’s even tougher when you own the truck,” Pugh said at the outset of last year’s course.

Andrew King, OOIDA research analyst, stressed the importance of acquiring all of the facts and creating a business plan before making a transition to becoming an owner-operator. During last year’s course, he provided participants with an example of a member calling in for advice on what to do as an owner-operator after already purchasing a truck.

King used the story as a way to emphasize the importance of creating a business plan before taking the plunge and buying a truck. LL