CFI Boot Camp

I am spending what is referred to here as boot camp. When you get to CFI/Con-Way (Joplin, MO) you will spend the first Monday at orientation at their headquarters. It is very impressive and intimidating. You get picked up at the bus station and taken to a hotel where you will stay two to a room. They pick you up Monday morning for your day at orientation. After a very busy day of filling out forms and signing you name you are taken to a different hotel at Neosho, MO near Crowder College where you will stay till the next Monday Morning. You get picked up at 0700 each morning on a bus and taken to the College that is only 5 minutes away except on Thursday they pick you up in trucks at 0330 at the hotel for a night drive down town Neosho on very sharp turns and country and interstate roads. You will be doing everything that you have already done at TTC@Nashville but at a full fast paced 10 hour days. You are expected to already know the basics so learn as much as you can but at the same time you will be with people that have gone to schools that aren’t as good as what you have. But the more you learn the less imitating this will be. We drive 15 speeds KenWorth T2000’s. Nice trucks all furnished by CFI. You will be driving T2000 or the T600 at CFI so you are being trained in the same truck that you will be driving for CFI. Crowder has a skid pad that was build at a cost of 1.3 million that we get to use to practice doing skid recoveries. Other drivers from police forces excreta also pay to use this for training (getting to play at tax payers’ expense). It is a training tool that you won’t get most places. They really take care of you here and you get invaluable training. After a week of boot camp you are taken back to Head Quarters where you meet your trainer for a 7500 mile training period. This takes about three weeks and you do all the driving. Then you get your own truck. They keep their trucks for 500,000 miles and then you get a new truck. They don’t go by seniority so you either will get a new truck or one that isn’t very old. If you get a truck that has 300 or 400,000 miles on it you will be getting a new one when it reaches the 500,000 mile mark. It takes about 4 years to get the 500,000 miles. The trucks have bunk heaters in them. This is a first class company but can be difficult to get accepted.