Kristin McCallum from Edmonton, Alberta is our May 2009 Rig of the Month Driver. This is her story:

I was born in Penticton, BC in 1978 and my parents divorced when I was young.

I was pretty sick as a youngster and I had closed heart surgery in Vancouver Children’s Hospital when I was five. After that operation I developed asthma and up until I was eleven years old it seemed like I had spent half my life in the Penticton General Hospital.

I used to live in a trailer park on the west side of Penticton’s airport and in the mornings, while waiting for the school bus, I and the other kids would stand beside Hwy 97 and try to get the truck drivers to blow their horns. My mom and I moved to Edmonton, Alberta in 1989. I was big into horses and competing, which led me to trucks. (But don’t tell anyone... when people ask I always say it was temporary insanity that led me to them.) I figured the best way for me to get in with some of the high level riders and trainers was to get my foot in the door by hauling their horses. As it turns out I never have had the chance to haul horses – yet...

The very first time I even sat in a truck was January 2, 1998. It was at Cameron Driver Education in Edmonton and the truck was a 1989 Western Star day cab. By January 14, 1998, a short 12 days later, I was officially a class 1 driver but I continued on taking highway training with Cameron. They had a pretty good thing going at that time. The student would pay for highway training with an instructor and the company would get paid to deliver a load.

My first week of highway driving was a night shift hauling rocky mountain doubles to Whitecourt, Alberta. It was January so we were in snow storms every night and back then highway 43 was still two lanes. Thankfully I had an excellent trainer, Kevin Wilson, who has a very calm nature and a great sense of humor. This was good because I don’t think I would have survived those trips with anyone else.

I continued on with various highway runs and various instructors, who all taught me a lot, until the end of March when Cameron hired me. It was grunt work, washing trucks and trailers and moving equipment around for the mechanics, but I got in the occasional trip and I learned a lot. I worked there until December 1998. My next job was my first ‘real’ driving job. It was hauling fuel for Parkland Fuel Distributors out of Spruce Grove, Alberta. Right up until the exact moment that I was hired, I always said I would never haul fuel. I guess it is like they say, never say never.

I drove a Cummins powered 1990-something Kenworth T-600, pulling A-trains. 99% of the time I was taking dyed diesel out to the Sundance and Keephills coal mines. But this was only part time work and by mid 2000 I decided it was time to move on. I went to work for Goliath Tractor Service on the graveyard shift hauling intermodal containers for CP Rail from their yard to Western Grocers driving a Volvo day cab. After almost three months the night shift was killing me so I asked for days but they didn’t have anyone to replace me so they refused and I ‘turned in my keys’.

They lost 2 drivers that day. We both left to drive team for Concord Transportation running Canada and US. During my time there I drove 3 trucks, all Kenworth T-2000s, of course. The first one had an auto shift in it and this is when I learned that I hate auto shifts. I got in lots of miles and saw many different things - like the signs for many of the big tourist attractions. My standing joke is that I’ve seen the signs for everything. I also learned a lot of things...not the least of which was that running team was definitely not for me.

I had a few short city P&D jobs in Edmonton trying to find a place I liked when I finally landed at Interline Tractor Service in January 2002. I will never forget my test drive that day. The owner, Rob, walked me out to a Ford L-9000, handed me the keys and told me to drive from Interlines yard near Yellowhead and 66th Street, down Yellowhead to 50th Street and come back. He said he would be in his office when I got back. I did as I was told, laughing all they way. His thinking was if I made it back with out crashing I was good enough.

This was supposed to be a part time job to start but I put in about 50 hours my first week. I started off there pulling for Northern Cartage, who was hauling for HBC (Zellers, The Bay and Home Outfitters). This involved lots of hand bombing. One day while doing this (I was driving a Freightliner FL 120 day cab by then) I got sent downtown to the Bay store that was moving from one center to another. To get to the trailer I was picking up I had to drive underground down a ramp that was only slightly wider than my mirrors into a small area slightly smaller than necessary to maneuver a tractor trailer. I hooked onto the 48’ van and took it the 2 blocks to the new store. Here I had to blind side back off a busy downtown street into a dark, busy parkade then immediately drivers side back into the dock. Of course the manager of the Bay was standing on the dock watching but, lucky for me, this was one of those times (we have all done it) when you make a very difficult place to back into look like you are backing in a straight line out of a 40 acre field. And guess who got requested to do the rest of the move for the next 7 weeks? Yep, me. Fortunately, the manager wasn’t around the times that I made it look as hard as it was. In the middle of the job I switched trucks to a 1998 International day cab which made working in the small spaces a bit more difficult as I had got quite used to my old truck. I had one or two “OOPS’s” to prove it too.

In 2003, Rob was getting frustrated with everything and sent out letters laying everyone off. He was only keeping his lease ops and a few company trucks. I asked him if I bought a truck could I stay. He said yes. My first thought was to buy the International day cab that I was driving from him. The truck was for sale and in good condition but my eye got wandering and I found my 2000 Kenworth T-800 Detroit 60 series.

The truck gave me some trouble at first and at one point I was just about to get rid of it. There were many trips to the shop and many new parts installed. It was mostly done in a process of elimination - with a few sessions on the dyno. When it was scheduled to go on the dyno for the third time I said I wanted to be in the cab with them. They said it was not necessary but I said it really was because I had to tell them how to drive it in order to make it do what it was doing. Sure enough it quit right there on the dyno. The shop foreman said they were going to pull the injectors and that was when they found that the #5 injector had been coming unseated. I was told at the time that the injector itself was fine and all it needed was to be cleaned, get a new o-ring and be re-set. I had just spent $6000 to find a $200 problem.

I kept the truck on with Interline for a bit, but pretty soon big dreams and dollar signs in my eyes had me headed back to the highway. In April 2004 I went to work for a Canada/US company in their van division. In November 2004, just outside Casper, Wyoming, I blew my motor. The culprit...the tip came off the #5 injector. Lesson learned; replace the injector as soon as it has a problem - no matter what anyone says.

I called my company to see if they would help me out. They told me they wouldn’t help me because they were thinking of letting me go. They said I was too young and they didn’t have confidence in my abilities to drive in the winter. This company normally had a policy of not hiring anyone under 30 and I was 26 at the time.

After a long drawn out process I got the truck back on the road mainly because of my Mom who, right from the get go, helped me out when I was in a bind and the banks were unkind.

The company kindly ‘let’ me stay on with them until I found another job. During this time I got my only tickets. I got them while traveling south bound on the I-25 between Casper, WY and Wheatland, WY. It was snowing and there was a bit of light, dusty snow on the road and I was only doing 50-55 mph on a 75 mph stretch of road. I was having no problem with traction at all and was quite confident I was driving more than appropriately for the conditions. Unfortunately an officer in the county disagreed. He was trying to pull me over, but was ‘afraid for his life’ trying to keep up with me. I saw him about half a mile behind me with his lights on, but did not know he was trying to pull me over. Most cops get right up behind you. I slowed down a bit figuring if he wanted me he’d catch up. Otherwise I figured he was on his way somewhere else. This kept up for a few miles. Then I saw another SUV cruiser in the median who immediately pulled up behind me with his lights on. I knew this one was pulling me over, so I threw on my four ways and pulled over on the next off ramp.

Needless to say the first officer was very unhappy. After a few minutes on the off ramp I was asked by the second officer to move to the truck stop on the other side of the highway. While I was parking five cruisers pulled in around my truck. One was there to do a level 3 inspection on me. Two were the ones that pulled me over and the other two were just there to watch, I guess. While I was getting my level three the first officer was writing me two tickets. One for going too fast for conditions and the other one was for willful refusal to obey a police officer. I told the officer who was doing my level three what happened and he just laughed and shook his head. He didn’t think I should be there. When I received my tickets I was told I would have to pay them on the spot. $50.00 each. I went inside and withdrew the money. When I gave it to the officer I told him this was just like prostitution. He asked why and I said I just paid to get $#%%^. He was pissed. The other officers were stifling laughs.

When I got home I made some calls to lawyers in Wheatland County. When they heard the story they automatically knew which officer it was and they all called him names like dweeb and idiot. I ended up fighting the charges, which I won after a bit of work.

I went back to Interline briefly from April 2005 to September 2005. But due to some personal issues I decided not to stay working in the city. In October 2005 I started on with Continental Cartage which was my first real flatdeck job. It was here I found the next thing, after diesel, to get in my blood. Ice, or more specifically, the ice roads. In 2006 I ventured to Yellowknife to drive the Tibbitt to Conwoyto Winter Road. It was a horrible season. But I was addicted.

 I stayed on with Continental until the summer of 2006. I went to TLI Flatdecks from there for a bit, running Canada and US again. Then decided that long haul wasn’t for me anymore. I was 27 and realized I had no life outside the truck and was never going to unless I stuck a bit closer to home.

After leaving TLI I got my own authorities. I worked for a local outfit for a bit mostly hauling super B’s and a bit of tridem work. One day I was bobtailing to the Devon Jackfish site near Conklin, Alberta to pick up a load. I was on Hwy 831 just south of Hwy 45 when I looked away from the road for a second. When I looked up I saw that the truck in front of me had pulled over (well, more like skidded over). I was just about to go around him when he jumped out of his cab waving his arms. It was then that I saw the wreck in front of him. A kid driving a four wheeler had somehow rolled and debris was strewn across the whole highway.

The other driver stayed to direct traffic while I tended to the kid. For the most part he seemed alright but it soon became apparent that he had hit his head quite hard as he started asking over and over if we saw what happened and if we knew where his ipod was. (I can only guess what caused that accident...)

I didn’t stay with that company long as there were way too many issues there. I did my own thing for a bit. I had a decent customer, but it was seasonal and when it ended I went looking for something else to do. A friend referred me to Tom at Go-To Freight Group. I started getting my loads through him in October of 2007 and have been doing so ever since. I do very well there and having my own authorities is right up my alley. I mostly stay in Alberta so I get home almost every weekend. I leave in the winter to go back north to the ice roads so I don’t have to go through the hassles that you normally do when running on someone else’s plates.

In February of 2008 I went back to Yellowknife to run the ice for Tli Cho Landtran. On my second trip of the season, at the DeBeers Snap Lake Diamond Mine, I met my fiancé. I had been asked to hook on to a van to take back to Yellowknife but of course it was frozen solid. After I tried every trick in the book I knew to get it moving I finally radioed dispatch to see if I could get some help. Callon had been sitting in the driver’s room and volunteered to come out to help. We introduced ourselves underneath the trailer and haven’t stopped talking since.

We are getting married May 31, 2009. This year, besides getting married, I am working on getting my instructors license and I am organizing the 1st Annual Alberta Convoy for a Cure which will be held in Edmonton on October 3rd.

I am following the lead of an amazing lady, Rachele Chamagne, who held the first Convoy for a Cure in Ontario last year. Her idea was to celebrate women in the trucking industry and do it by raising money for a predominately women’s cause. Convoy For A Cure is an all female driver truck convoy to raise money for breast cancer research. Rachele’s first convoy held in October of 2008 was a huge success raising over $15,000.

The Alberta convoy will be held on October 3rd and it will start at the Husky Truck Stop in Acheson, Alberta (Hwy. 60 & 16) and travel around Edmonton to the Roadking Travel Centre in Sherwood Park, which is approximately a 65 km route. 2009 will see 3 convoys. Ours in Alberta, one in Ontario from Cornwall to Cardinal also on Oct. 3rd and one in Carl’s Corner, Texas on Oct. 24th. You can find out more about the Alberta convoy by going to convoyforacure.com. (do not use www.)

So far I have driven approximately 1 million miles as a truck driver with no at fault accidents and no tickets of any kind (that stuck) and I plan to keep it that way. I’m still driving my 2000 Kenworth T-800 and at this point I have no plans to get rid of it. I have about a million kilometres on it and it’s been a good dependable truck for me. I have always done my own upkeep like oil changes and minor repairs but my fiancé is a 5th year heavy duty mechanic apprentice out of Ontario – turned truck driver. He is more than qualified to do any other repairs necessary to keep the old girl (the truck!) running smoothly. Once we are married his “honey do” list will be a little different than most husbands. Instead of mow the lawn and paint the fence it will be do a brake job and rebuild the tranny…