Behind the Wheel with Navistar’s Truck Drivers

More than 5 million truck drivers take to the roads every day in North America to move about 14 billion tons of freight per year. And some of those professional drivers rely on International Trucks to get the job done.

Kim Bernacki, commercial driver’s license (CDL) instructor, works at the Navistar Proving Grounds in New Carlisle, Indiana, but is rarely sitting at a desk. Before deciding on the trucking industry, Kim was a sergeant at a local prison, spent four and a half years as a school bus driver, drove a city bus in Michigan City for four years, and drove a furniture delivery truck. It was only after she decided to immerse herself in heavy-duty trucks that she truly found her passion.

“Getting my CDL was the best decision I have ever made and my favorite career adventure,” Kim said.?

Kim has driven Internationals all around the country, from testing buses at the proving grounds to assisting with cold testing on the S13 Integrated Powertrain in Alaska. She is often at the offroad testing site at the proving grounds, her favorite portion of Navistar vehicle testing that consists of driving vehicles through various difficult terrain to see how they handle and if any improvements can be made.

Currently, Kim and her team are ramping up to begin Navistar’s own CDL course and licensing process at the proving grounds. The goal of this new program is to make the process easier for Navistar drivers to obtain their training.

When asked about her favorite part of the job, Kim’s answer was simple: driving.

“I love going from place to place, seeing different people and being behind the wheel of various International Trucks and IC Buses,” said Kim. “I am also looking forward to seeing where Navistar’s future is going!”

Clear across the country, Navistar truck transporter Héctor Ramirez spends up to eight hours per day transporting International trucks from the Escobedo Assembly Plant (EAP) in Mexico to Laredo, Texas, to be distributed to dealers and customers. Héctor began working at Navistar in 2011, checking units and moving them to designated yards. Before Navistar, Héctor had driven stake bed trucks and jumped at the opportunity to drive a bigger vehicle.

“Many people may think ‘it's easy, just get in and drive the truck,’ but it is not that simple,” said Héctor. “You have to be very focused on the road, be attentive and not get distracted. The process of taking the trucks across the border can also get complicated at times.”

On a day-to-day basis, you can find Héctor and his other driver colleagues gearing up early to beat traffic. It takes around three hours to drive from EAP to the border, plus the time it takes the authorities to let the inventory and drivers cross. Héctor also must review all paperwork with border authorities before crossing. After Héctor and his colleagues have offloaded the vehicles to be distributed to dealerships around the U.S., they take a van back to EAP.

“The best part of my job is when we have delivered a unit safely across the border and are heading home,” said Héctor. “I always think of it as one more day of work that was well done and, above all, we arrived safely, and no incidents happened along the way.”

Héctor Ramirez’s portion of this article was translated from Spanish.