In the grand scheme of things, Jacqueline Rocha is a rarity in the American trucking industry.
First, she’s a woman, and women make up about 6 percent of driver workforce. Second, she’s a young woman; just 23 years old and one of the so called millennials, folks many recruiters say are not taking up the trade.
Still, she has as much love of the road and passion for her job as women and men twice her age who have hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of miles behind them.
Rocha’s outlook and her desire to help others get started as drivers was obvious to the judges in the recent Road Warrior contest sponsored by Pilot Flying J. Rocha is the first woman to win the contest, and she says she wants to use part of the $10,000 top prize to help other truckers, especially women.
This episode of the She Drives podcast features Rocha talking about how she got started driving, how she handles life on the road and the importance of paying it forward.