As National Truck Driver Appreciation Week is celebrated across the country, the Embark team wanted to take a moment to acknowledge how important our safety drivers and right-seat operators (RSOs) are to Embark’s success. Embark isn’t a typical trucking company, and it’s not a typical tech company. We like to think we draw from the best of both worlds, combining the innovative spirit of our engineers with the experienced pragmatism of our drivers.
Embark is fortunate to have an elite group of professional drivers with millions of safe miles and decades of experience under their belts. On top of that, our drivers are put through rigorous theoretical, closed-course, and supervised public road training specific to the Embark system before being certified to drive for Embark. Embark drivers use their deep experience and skill to ensure the safe operation of every truck, every day, rain or shine. Together with RSOs, who accompany safety drivers and manage the Embark system during testing, Embark’s drivers provide critical feedback to our engineers on system performance.
Meet Jeff, Leo, Ron & Sean
In honor of National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, Embark held a company-wide “fireside chat” with four of our safety drivers — Jeff, Leo, Ron, and Sean — to hear about their experiences as professional drivers, how they got into the business, and how they ended up at Embark.
These four drivers have over 12 million miles of safe driving between them —that would get you to the moon and back at least 24 times. It‘s hard to get an exact count, as a couple of them stopped keeping track after the first few million.
Each driver had a different route to the trucking industry. Jeff grew up in a trucking family, and by age 18 had bought his own truck and was hauling hay around California. Sean and Ron both came to trucking through other jobs — for Sean it was his brother’s landscaping company, for Ron an evening job at a winery while in college. Leo decided to be a truck driver after leaving the military and, in his words, figuring he wasn’t cut out to be a cop or a priest!
All the drivers noted how important it was early on in their careers to have experienced, veteran truckers take the time to show them how to do things “the right way.” Just as those old-school drivers passed down their knowledge to these four, Jeff, Leo, Ron, and Sean are now sharing their experiences to help develop a self-driving truck that does things “the right way” on the road.
The Road to Embark
Jeff, Leo, Ron, and Sean spent time as owner-operators, major fleet drivers, and even safety trainers at other trucking companies before finding their way to Embark.
Before becoming Embark’s first driver, Jeff had sold off his trucks and a small fleet business he was running to take some well-deserved time off with his family. When he started to look for something new, he stumbled across an ad for a “truck test driver” that caught his attention. Before he knew it, he found himself with Embark’s founding team in the small garage that doubled as our first office. Jeff quickly became a full-time Embark driver and an indispensable source of trucking knowledge on the Embark team.
Sean was a safety trainer at a major national fleet and ended up getting assigned to work with Embark on a pilot project. After going for a ride in the truck, he was convinced joining Embark was the best way to help make the trucking industry safer. Ron had a job driving for one of the country’s premier private fleets, but was drawn to the challenge of helping Embark build a “perfect” driver. Leo joined after being recommended by another Embark driver he knew. While many think of truck driving as a solitary job, each of these drivers had stories about how they look out for each other, and how important fellowship among drivers has been in their careers.
Drivers tend to have two things in common that draw them to Embark. First, every Embark driver has a little bit of that outlaw spirit — a love for challenge and adventure that initially led them to the open road, and ended up leading them to a self-driving truck startup. And second, each driver has a serious commitment to safety. Our drivers have seen enough in their careers and in their personal lives to know how dangerous driving can be, and how important it is to improve safety on the roads. At Embark, they have found a place where they can combine these two things, helping pioneer new technology to make serious improvements in trucking safety.
Dedication and Sacrifice
Talk to a veteran driver and you start to get a sense of the immense dedication they have to their craft. Embark’s safety drivers all share what some would consider an “old-school” commitment to being true professionals and doing things the right way. Unfortunately, in an industry where it’s common for drivers to be squeezed between fleet or shipper demands, tough road conditions, and strict regulations, being a professional often meant making personal sacrifices to get the job done. Whether it’s missing a meal or missing a loved one’s birthday, every driver has plenty of stories of times before they joined Embark when they’ve sacrificed their own needs for the needs of the job. The decades these four have put in as professional drivers before Embark have not been an easy road for any of them, but they all rightly proud of the careers they have built.
The Embark team considers ourselves incredibly lucky to be able to learn from the hard-earned experiences of Jeff, Leo, Ron, and Sean, who represent just four of Embark’s 30 talented safety drivers and RSOs. Each one of Embark’s drivers and RSOs has a unique story and journey that brought them to Embark, but all provide an invaluable perspective to our company. We are wishing them, as well as the rest of the professional drivers around the country, a happy and safe National Truck Driver Appreciation Week.
Embark’s drivers and operators are key to our success was originally published in Embark Trucks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.