Melissa Eauclaire is an Image Team member who loves to travel. She is a professional driver for Boyle Transportation, a specialized transportation logistics provider that delivers exceptional quality, safety, and security to select clients in the life sciences and government/defense sectors. Headquartered in Massachusetts, Boyle operates throughout the 48 contiguous United States and Canada.
Melissa Eauclaire, professional truck driver for Boyle Transportation, says her career is all about one important thing: adventure.
Eauclaire started her career as a school bus driver in 2003. She completed 14 years in school bus transportation, four years as a driver, four years as a dispatcher, and five years in safety. In the middle of all that, she met and married her husband in 2008. After relocating to Tennessee, she became a motorcoach operator, traveling the United States and Canada for three years. She loved driving for the charter bus company, but when the pandemic hit, people could no longer travel, she was laid off. When the pandemic shut down leisure travel, she decided to pursue a dream of obtaining her commercial driver’s license (CDL-A) to become a professional truck driver.
As a team driver with her husband, Eauclaire’s love for travel is at the heart of her career in trucking. “Traveling is what I like most about my career in trucking,” she says. This passion for exploration has led her and her husband to recently purchase a fifth-wheel camper they plan on living in while continuing to travel once they retire. She loves visiting new places and returning to places where she has already had adventures. From time to time, she has been fortunate enough to have layovers, which allows her to spend time exploring various destinations, history and new experiences.
Eauclaire enjoys trucking, but if there is one thing she likes the least, it is the fact that, as she says, “It is hard to try and fit everything into a small box. Because I am a team driver, there is little space. Of course, there would be more if I drove by myself.”
One of the biggest obstacles Eauclaire had to overcome when she started driving with her Class A CDL and was learning to back up. Initially, she had a Class B and had been driving Class B vehicles, school buses, charter buses, and large box trucks for seventeen years.
“I can parallel park a bus in downtown Washington DC, no problem, but learning how to back the trailers in certain spots was my nemesis, especially going to docks that don’t have lines and trying to line it up,” she mentions. Eauclaire is happy to say that she no longer has that issue. “I trained, practiced, watched, and observed other people and their actions. That, along with determination, took care of my biggest obstacle,” she says.
She feels that another of the biggest obstacles she hears about from other professional drivers is finding a safe place to park.
“It’s not safe to park on the shoulder of the road or a ramp, and especially if you are a woman, you want to find a place where you are safe and have a restroom that you can use,” she says.
Although Euclaire is a team driver with her husband, she also enjoys the companionship of her dog Rosie.
Eauclaire encourages women who are interested in the trucking industry to seek advice from experienced female truck drivers.
“Reach out to someone and ask questions, she advises. “Ask them about their job and how they do it.” She also feels that if you are the one answering questions from someone, answer them truthfully. You should tell them what you love about your job and what you don’t care about. It will help them to make an informed decision. Once they have decided and know this is the career choice for them, they should check out reputable truck driving schools. There are many questions to ask the schools as well. Private, college, and carrier schools have different options, lengths, costs, and ways to pay for the programs.
Eauclaire expands on her go-to advice:” When I start mentoring somebody, I try to give the woman that extra encouragement, especially if the woman is becoming an empty nester or a stay-at-home mom. Maybe this is a second career or a midlife change. It was for me. I want to advocate for women who are worried it will take them away from home. It’s time to do something for you.”
Eauclaire feels that traveling and seeing this country and its beauty makes truck driving a perfect job for her and others who may be drawn to adventure. She recalls being in school and teachers saying you won’t get paid for looking out the window: “Well, guess what? They were wrong. I do get paid to look out the window,” she laughs. “The things that I see amaze me all the time. Even if I have been on this road 50 times already, I always see something new that I didn’t see before. I love the opportunities that professional truck driving has to offer!”
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