Team Member Spotlight: Angie Evangelista

September is Truck Driver Appreciation Month at RaceTrac, and we're honoring our dedicated Energy Dispatch team! As part of our celebration, we've been spotlighting some of the remarkable individuals driving RaceTrac's success. Dive into their backgrounds and stories with us!

Finding Family in Florida

While Angie Evangelista originally obtained her CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) at the age of 19, she didn’t do a lot of professional driving. She worked various jobs in manufacturing but ultimately found the work unreliable as she began to consider starting a family. With professional driving, she found the stability she needed and the means to do just that.??

“This is a good career for women, and I’ve been doing this for about 10 years now,” says Evangelista. “While we work with large equipment, it’s not the physically demanding job people might expect. And with professional driving, I’ve been able to own a home and raise a family.”?

At a time when the trucking industry is working hard to recruit drivers, the non-profit organization Women in Trucking says the percentage of professional drivers who are female has increased to 13.7 percent as of 2022 . That’s an increase of over 30 percent from 2018.?

Angela has hauled pharmaceuticals, aggregate, dry goods, refrigerated goods and all types of beverages. After joining the Energy Dispatch team in Tampa, Florida, in January of this year, she spent her first month on the job learning to safely handle and move fuel from terminal to store locations.?

“The training is rigorous,” adds Evangelista. “While the safety aspects of transporting fuel should be obvious, I don’t believe the average motorist realizes all of the little things that go in getting fuel safely into those vehicles.”?

Evangelista cites personal freedom as one of her main attractions to the profession. She works by herself most of the time but still has the opportunity to get out and meet new people and work with stores on a daily basis. In her view, driving for a company like Energy Dispatch is much more about awareness of surroundings, attention to detail and following the training than the misconceptions passenger motorists have about it being a laborious profession.?

“Professional drivers see a lot more than the average driver does,” says Evangelista. “We are always looking way ahead and anticipating what could happen next.”?

And as most of the 3.5 million truck drivers currently in the United States would likely agree, the job is not always easy when it comes to interactions with other motorists.

“Sometimes we get cut off, and sometimes other drivers can become impatient while we take our time to ensure we keep ourselves and all drivers around us safe,” adds Evangelista. “I wish everyone on the road could better understand that truck drivers are people too. Just like them, we are out here doing our best, making a living and trying to ensure we all get home safely to our families.”?

When she’s not on the road delivering to stores on her route, Evangelista loves to golf and watch college football. And as the season gets well underway this fall, she plans to do some outdoor grilling while she roots for the University of Georgia.?

She cites RaceTrac’s hot dogs and salt and vinegar chips as a favorite on-the-go snack. If she could pick one superpower, it would be to know the future. And the top item on her bucket list is to get out and do some traveling to Europe or Australia.?

As Truck Driver Appreciation Month wraps up, Evangelista is not only thankful for her family at home, but her Energy Dispatch and RaceTrac family as well.?

“I love the way all the drivers here look out for each other,” she says. “I just wish I had started driving earlier!”