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David Thompson, Horn Lake, MI
TCA Scholarship ($2,500)

According to the American Trucking Associations, there are 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States, with total industry employment at over 8.7 million. That means that one out of every 15 people working in the United States is employed in the trucking industry. The average person in America does not realize that the trucking industry is the backbone of the American economy. The trucking industry has affected my family in the following ways: my father’s career and livelihood was directly related to the trucking industry and now my career is leading in the same direction. At the age of eighteen, my father, David Thompson, began working on the assembly line at the Carrier Corporation, an air conditioner factory, in Collierville, TN screwing screws. With the help of his employer offering him tuition reimbursement, he began his education by completing his Associates degree and went on to eventually receive his MBA at the University of Tennessee. My dad has worked in a factory his entire life and without the trucks there would be no way to receive the raw material or ship the finished goods to the customer. He has now worked his way up to the title of plant manager at the Beverage Air plant in Spartanburg, SC. Following in my father’s footsteps, I am now working as an intern at Cummins Inc. at the Master Distribution Center in Memphis, TN. The trucking industry has directly contributed to my father’s career and will be the same for my career in the future. With my dad’s work in a factory and my work in a distribution center, I realize all of this is possible with the truckers. The founder of Forbes magazine, B.C. Forbes, once said, “There is more credit and satisfaction in being a first-rate truck driver than a tenth-rate executive.”