What’s happening: Lorenzo Sampson and Joachim Wangui are proof that little people can achieve big things in trucking and beyond. Joachim completed his driver training with guidance from Lorenzo, who has driven for Variant since 2021. Joachim also recently became a U.S. citizen, a huge milestone that takes years of hard work.

Why it matters: Stature is no barrier to a career as a professional driver, as long as candidates can pass the physical, written, and on-the-road driving tests required for a commercial driver license.

The bottom line: We’re proud to have these professional drivers representing Variant across America, and excited to give them the opportunity to show the world what they can do.

Lorenzo Sampson and Joachim Wangui know that it might surprise some people to see them driving big rigs, but they also know that there’s plenty of room on the road for all kinds of people.

“I simply want to have a good job, and Variant and trucking is the best job that I’ve ever had, it’s the best opportunity I’ve ever had to earn a really good living,” Lorenzo said. “I can do it, and I can do it well, so it’s a fantastic opportunity, but I’m just a guy trying to make a living. I don’t feel special because I’m short-statured.”

Lorenzo has been driving for Variant since 2021, and he sponsored Joachim, who joined Variant in November 2022.

“I’m so proud that I’m doing this and seeing so many places in America,” Joachim said. “I’ve gone all the way to California, to Arizona, the country is so beautiful, and to see it while driving, just for me to tell people, ‘Yes, I’m a truck driver,’ makes me so proud.”

Joachim shares his story on TikTok, where he has more than 53,000 followers and nearly 300,000 likes as ‘Katuosis the truck guy.’

“I started this account to tell people what I do every day and the challenges and success stories in trucking as a little person,” he said.  

Stature is no barrier to a career as a professional driver, as long as candidates can pass the physical, written, and on-the-road driving tests required for a commercial driver license. In addition, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers or potential employers of qualified individuals with known disabilities to make reasonable accommodations that would allow those individuals to perform their jobs. Joachim uses pedal extenders in his truck, and both men have catwalk steps on the back of their cabs that allow them to easily reach the connections between the cab and the trailer.

Khristyal Bradford, a program manager for Variant, worked with the men while Lorenzo was training Joachim, and she was consistently impressed, she said.  

“They’ve been a pleasure to work with, and they really show that if you can see someone doing something you didn’t know was possible, it opens up a new world,” she said. Khristyal worked as a professional driver for seven years herself, and she knows how tough the job can be.

“They both just show up and work hard and give it all they have,” she said.

The road to trucking

Lorenzo had worked for years in retail, in restaurants, and as a chess instructor, but he was always in search of a career that could help him build a stable financial foundation and the freedom to define his own success. When his best friend announced he was going to pursue his commercial driver license, Lorenzo initially thought his short stature would make it impossible for him to work in trucking.

“I had some self-imposed limiting beliefs,” Lorenzo said. “Me drive a semi-truck? How would that even work?”

But then he began to wonder: Is there really any reason I can’t do it? When he had the opportunity one day to climb into a cab, Lorenzo’s perspective changed.

“I climbed up there and sat down, and I could see the mirrors, I had a good vantage point out of the windshield, I could see everything, I could reach everything,” he said. “I felt empowered.”

Lorenzo began studying for his CDL in every spare moment, and then joined a training program where he practiced constantly to pass all his written, physical, and driving tests. At the end of the program, he was one of just 13 to graduate from a class that started with 53 students.

“That made me proud, it made my trainer proud,” Lorenzo said. “That was four years ago, so now I feel like I have a degree in trucking.”

Joachim arrived in the United States six years ago from Kenya, determined to find a way to work hard and build a good life. As a little person, he didn’t drive in his home country because modifications to cars were expensive and hard to access. In the United States he was able to get a car and outfit it with pedal extenders, and he began working every day doing food delivery.

“I would drive the whole day, I’m having my own freedom, I’m working on my own time, and I’m interacting with so many people, which I love,” Joachim said. “I would see people with trucks, and I wanted to try trucking, but I wasn’t sure I would qualify.”

Joachim had been working for three years as a delivery driver when he spotted Lorenzo’s story on the Facebook page for Little People of America, a nonprofit community and advocacy group for people of short stature. He asked Lorenzo how he might earn his commercial driver license, and Lorenzo offered to help him navigate the process.

“I took a leap of faith and did it, so if I can extend my hand and lend support, that was an easy call for me,” Lorenzo said.

Joachim earned his CDL through a state-sponsored program offered in Ohio, where he is based, and he joined Variant with Lorenzo as his sponsor and trainer in November 2022. That same month, after six years of working through the immigration process, Joachim also became a U.S. citizen.

He occasionally encounters people who are surprised that a little person can drive a big truck, and he always takes the opportunity to encourage them to imagine what they might be capable of that they haven’t considered.

“They say, ‘You drive that big truck? I tell them yes, and they usually get encouraged and feel challenged that they also can do things they didn’t know they can do.”

The work is demanding, Joachim said, but it’s allowing him to build a prosperous life.

“It’s a hard job, you need to be dedicated to do it, you have to have passion to do it,” he said.

Lorenzo has been pleasantly surprised by the acceptance and even the respect he has felt in the trucking industry, he said.

“I’m seen as a person just doing his job, and sometimes I might even be a bit more respected because they can see, that job might be more difficult for you to do, but you still do it, and kudos to you. I feel that vibe.”  

Professional driving has given him the ability to build the career he always imagined for himself, Lorenzo said. He has seen places all over the country that he never had the chance to visit, and he has even been able to travel internationally for vacation for the first time in his life.

“I used my passport for the first time last year when I went to Nairobi,” Lorenzo said. “Trucking has afforded me this — financial freedom, self-sustainability, autonomy, the confidence boost, control over my finances, independence, a positive future. Retirement is a possibility for me someday for the first time, I feel like I’m breaking into the middle class for the first time.”

What’s happening: In observation of February’s Black History Month, we’re highlighting Black groundbreakers in our industry, and celebrating the benefits of inclusion and diversity across our business and beyond.

Why it matters: Despite unjust racial barriers that made their journeys extraordinarily challenging, these transportation pioneers persisted in imagining and creating some of the most essential inventions in our industry.

The bottom line: Inclusive business practices build cultures where every great idea can shine, and talent can thrive. The stories of these determined and gifted inventors and engineers are an important reminder that diversity delivers better ideas, better results, and a better world for everyone.

The inventor of the Thermo King refrigerated truck system. The visionary who developed the modern stoplight. The first Black woman (and only the second woman) to pass the Professional Engineers licensing exam in California. The mind behind the catalytic converter. As we kick off Black History Month in February, we’re highlighting some brilliant inventors and engineers who broke entrenched, unjust racial barriers and set new standards for our industry and the wider world of transportation.

Frederick McKinley Jones

In the mid-1930s, inventor and engineer Frederick McKinley Jones started working on the mobile refrigeration technology that would ultimately form the basis of the Thermo King Corporation. A largely self-taught engineer who left school after sixth grade, Jones was working as an auto mechanic by age 14. He served in World War I as part of an all-Black unit and was promoted to sergeant because of his mechanical skills. During the war, he equipped his camp with electricity, telephone, and telegraph services.

After his military service, Jones went to work with an entrepreneur who asked him to design mobile refrigeration technology. By 1949, Jones had patented his invention, and Thermo King had grown to a $3 million business. During his lifetime, Jones was awarded 61 patents, 40 of them for refrigeration equipment.  

Garrett Morgan

Repairing sewing machines for a clothing manufacturer first sparked Garrett Morgan’s career as an inventor, and he created a host of devices and products throughout his career, including a safety hood that became the precursor to the modern gas mask.

Starting around 1913, as cars began to share the roads with horses and pedestrians, the first traffic signals began appearing. In 1922, after witnessing an accident between a car and a carriage at a dangerous intersection, Morgan innovated the two-position traffic lights to add a third position — the yellow warning light we’re all familiar with. He was granted a patent for the invention in 1923.

Morgan, who was the son of people who had been enslaved, also co-founded the Cleveland Association of Colored Men in Ohio. The organization later merged with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Morgan served as the organization’s treasurer.

Lois Cooper

In 1953, Lois Cooper became the first Black woman to work as a transportation engineer for the California Division of Highways. An astonishingly talented mathematician, Cooper was known among her fellow engineers as the person they could go to for solutions to the most difficult problems — and to spot any errors in their work.

Cooper worked on major transportation projects including the I-105 Century Freeway, the San Diego Freeway, the Long Beach Freeway, and the Riverside Freeway. She designed the first bike path off the 91 Freeway, and was a leader in the effort to establish carpool lanes.

Later in life, she became involved in the Los Angeles Council of Black Professional Engineers and spent much of her time advocating for math and engineering education, while also teaching classes herself. Cooper became the first woman president of the Los Angeles Council of Black Professional Engineers in 1971.

Meredith Gourdine 

Meredith Gourdine was a prolific inventor who was awarded more than 30 patents in his lifetime. He was also an accomplished athlete who was selected to represent the United States in the long jump at the 1952 Summer Olympics, where he won a silver medal.

Among Gourdine’s best-known inventions is the Electrogasdynamic Precipitator with Catalytic Reaction (also known as the catalytic convertor), which is used to clean exhaust fumes of gases and particles that are harmful to the environment.

Gourdine held a bachelor of science degree in engineering physics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in engineering physics from The California Institute of Technology.

In 1964, Gourdine borrowed $200,000 from his family and friends so he could open the Gourdine Laboratory in Livingston, N.J. He is also known for the Incineraid System, which was used to disperse smoke from burning buildings and for diffusing fog at airports.

Every year, Black History Month is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of Black Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month.

What’s happening: From driving big rigs to working in operations roles, the ranks of women in trucking continue to grow. The 2022 Women in Trucking Index reports that more than 13% of professional drivers across the industry are women — up from about 10% in 2019 — and nearly 45% of dispatchers are female.

Why it matters: Inclusive cultures drive better results. For five years in a row, U.S. Xpress has been among the “Top Companies for Women to Work For in Transportation” in Redefining the Road magazine, the official magazine of the Women in Trucking Association.

The bottom line: We talked with a few of the women who drive U.S. Xpress forward, from our operations teams to a woman who has been at the wheel for more than three decades, to get their perspectives on building great careers as women in trucking.

Phyllis Overla started working for U.S. Xpress 25 years ago as a night fleet manager, back when she was the only female dispatcher on the job. These days, she’s a senior operations specialist who handles planning for more than 140 trucks, which means sorting out everything from basic preventive maintenance schedules to getting drivers home on time to load planning.

“I love my job – it’s like a big puzzle,” Phyllis said. “Every morning you start with all new pieces and put them all together.” 

In the early days of her career, Phyllis had some work to do to prove herself, but being a consistent and effective advocate for drivers has served her well through the years, she said.

“Once the drivers realize that what she says, you can take it to the bank, it’s a different ballgame,” Phyllis said. “It’s transportation – everything won’t go smooth, but you can’t be intimidated. You just have to make sure you’re doing what you say you’ll do.”

From driving big rigs to working in operations roles, the ranks of women in trucking have grown steadily. The 2022 Women in Trucking Index reports that more than 13% of professional drivers across the industry are women, and nearly 45% of dispatchers are female.

Among the professional drivers at U.S. Xpress and Variant, about 665, or nearly 12%, are women. About 286 operations team members are women, or 47% of U.S. Xpress operations professionals.

For five years in a row, U.S. Xpress has been among the “Top Companies for Women to Work For in Transportation” in Redefining the Road magazine, the official magazine of the Women in Trucking Association.

Ashley Ellison, a senior director of operations for the grocery business at U.S. Xpress, has seen the industry change for the better since 2005, when she first jumped into transportation.

“What I’ve seen in my 17 years is really big growth in female leadership,” Ashley said.  “Back when I started it was male-dominated, but we just gave out five awards in our Dedicated division, and four of five were female transportation managers.” 

Ashley began her career at U.S. Xpress tracking FEMA freight in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. From there, she moved into a role as a freight coordinator, then into brokerage as a customer service manager, and then became a liaison between the brokerage and asset-based sides of the business.

After several other roles, Ashley took on her job as senior director in early 2022. Her best advice for women in transportation is to lean into what you want, she said.

“Having the confidence, reaching out to others for support, and not being afraid to go for that promotion or to go for that next chapter in your career,” she said. “When you’re coming into a male-dominated industry, you can’t let anyone’s conscious or unconscious bias affect your sense of worth. Believe in your worth.”

For Cindy Pappas, a career as a professional driver was something she always wanted. Her grandfather was a professional driver who taught Cindy to drive on his old truck, Maggie, and two of her uncles drove, as well — one of them as a team driver who criss-crossed the country with his wife.

“That was how I knew that was the direction I wanted to go, to run teams with a spouse,” said Cindy, who has been driving with her husband, Mark Pappas, for the last 20 years of her 35-year career. 

“I have learned a lot from her,” said Mark, who had worked for decades in a machine shop when Cindy suggested they hit the road together.

Cindy drove trucks for the U.S. Army for eight years before she went looking for a civilian job as a truck driver in 1994. At one of the first places she applied, the man in charge made one thing clear.

“I had a guy tell me to my face that he would not hire me because I was a woman,” said Cindy, who has been driving trucks for U.S. Xpress for 22 years. “I told him he was going to regret saying that.”

In her time with U.S. Xpress, Cindy has logged more than 2 million safe miles, building a career she loves along the way.

“The advice I would give to women is go for it,” she said. “Since I started so many years ago, we were few and far between and now it’s awesome to see so many women getting involved in the trucking industry.”

When Nallely Mendez joined U.S. Xpress three years ago in a customer service role, she never expected to lead an operations community tasked with supporting professional drivers all over the country.

“I have learned so much about the industry and myself and what I’m capable of,” said Nallely, who leads a team that supports bilingual drivers. “It has been all about gaining their trust, showing them that I know what I’m doing, and  that if I don’t know an answer, I’m going to figure it out.” 

After a career in customer service, Nallely initially had trouble imagining herself in an operations role, but she has grown her expertise and has become a coach and leader for others on her team.

“Learn what you’re doing and learn it well, and definitely network and reach out to other leaders and get mentorship from them,” she said. “If you want to try something new, go ahead and do it. If you don’t, you’ll never know if it’s for you or not.”

We believe the safety of our country, our family, our friends, and our neighbors relies on herd immunity, only reachable if 70%+ of people get vaccinated. We’re ready to see our friends and families again, to be able to collaborate with our colleagues in person, and to gather with our customers and vendors. And we hope each and every vaccinated person will help us get there.

Hear what President & CEO Eric Fuller had to say about it in this quick video.

It’s been a long road for everyone, but with the increased availability of vaccines, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. We’re looking forward to the day our team members and customers can all gather in person once again.

If you’re eligible in your state and have not already received the vaccine, signing up is easy. To find a convenient location administering the shot just visit www.vaccinefinder.org.

Hear more from her and her goals as she talks with Total CEO John Stomps in this month’s Diversity & Inclusion spotlight.

Though the divide is shrinking, there’s still a long way to go. And the women on the teams of the U.S. Xpress family of businesses are helping pave the way. Whether in a truck, office, or shop, their diligence and dedication are apparent every day. We’re proud to have so many relentless women on our team and can’t think of a better day to celebrate them.

Happy International Women’s Day to the women at U.S. Xpress, and to the women in other organizations who are paving the way for gender equality in the trucking industry.
 

While Aven says he was really nervous about sharing his story, he’s felt nothing but support from his colleagues and customers throughout his journey.

Check out Aven & Danna’s discussion in this month’s D&I spotlight!