Augusta Tech targets trucker shortage with new courses
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Augusta Tech is taking steps to reduce the truck driver shortage in our country.
Soon, it will start accepting students for its commercial driver’s license classes in Thomson.
We first learned about this project during August Tech’s State of the College Address in the fall.
It’ll be a hands-on experience that Augusta Tech says is needed in our area.
Augusta Tech president is sole finalist to lead Savannah State
Jermaine Whirl, the innovative president of Augusta Technical College who’s raised the institution’s profile and made it a destination school, is sole finalist to become president of Savannah State University.
It’s a program that’ll take millions of dollars to complete, but they expect will have a big wait when it’s all said and done – hoping to help with the shortage after already getting several phone calls to be a part of the program.
“When I went through school, they said you make almost 1,000 decisions in a day trying to watch out for people and everything like that,” said Gary Good, a truck driver.
Making 1,000 decisions a day in order to keep people safe and transport supplies, but happy they made the one decision to get their CDL.
“You get the experience to drive, you get to experience the miles and you get to experience the world really,” said Sean Moore, a truck driver.
A new opportunity coming to Augusta Tech that will offer classes during the day and at night, that can be done in just four weeks.
Looking to change careers? Check out these CSRA hiring events
If you’re looking for a new career, this month brings opportunities across the CSRA - check out who is hiring.
“A pretty large range that we can have two to three classes going on simultaneously,” said Jermaine Whirl, Augusta Tech president. “This will be for Class A truck drivers. Those who want to drive 18-wheelers and they can also of course qualify them to drive smaller vehicles like school buses.”
It’s a need we’ve seen for a while now.
“It’s extremely important when you think about truck driving logistics in this community,” said Whirl. “Being the second largest MSA in the state, we have a lot of truckers that get to the port of Savannah, so to not have a program in our region is troubling.”
Whirl says students could make between $60,000 to $70,000 thousand dollars with little to no debt out of school and he says they also plan to add another training facility for supply chain manufacturing and warehouse distribution.
Ga. lawmakers, families push to prevent another Apalachee
There's little question among Georgia lawmakers that they want to boost school safety. The differences arise over what approach to take.
Truck drivers now say real-life experience like that is vital.
“Get them out there driving. Learn how to back and just, pay attention to what they’ve got to do and get away from just having all these automatics,” said Good.
Because the learning never stops.
“You just gotta get out here and learn for yourself because it’s still stuff I need to learn,” said Moore.
This program will allow 200 students a year to graduate with their CDL and one of their partners, Amazon, will even pay for their employee’s expenses to get their CDL, creating even more of an incentive.
They plan on having the CDL course done and ready to go by January of 2026.
Copyright 2025 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.
