David spent ten years recruiting for the U.S. Army before he ever recruited a single truck driver. Now he travels the Midwest sitting down with CDL students and soldiers transitioning out — and he's blunt about what most of them get wrong before they ever sign an application.

WHAT WE GET INTO

• The thing every new driver assumes about hiring that's costing them offers
• Why Roehl swapped side mirrors for cameras on their 2026 trucks — and what it actually changes about the job
• The "reality check" that hits every new driver around day 19, and the small group who don't make it past it
• What David tells students who've got a speeding ticket or a DUI in their past
• The question David says separates the drivers who succeed from the ones who wash out
• Why the worst thing a new driver can do is walk in thinking they already know

ABOUT DAVID

David spent five years with the 82nd Airborne — three deployments, two to Iraq, one to Afghanistan — before transitioning into Army recruiting for a decade. He retired from the military in 2017 and has been recruiting drivers ever since. Today he's the military field recruiter for Roehl Transport, covering CDL schools and military bases across the Midwest. Roehl has been family-owned since 1962 and runs roughly 1,900 trucks across all 48 states.

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