Cast against the row of looming 18-wheelers, Sheila Stanford appeared a diminutive grandmother.

At 64 years old, her hair was gray and white. She wore a pressed polo shirt and the type of tinted rhinestone studded glasses that snowbirds don in Florida retirement communities.

As she walked into the truck stop, men and families stared.

“When a female steps out of the truck they say, ‘My God, I can’t believe she’s doing that,’” said Ms. Stanford, a driver for Chattanooga-based Covenant Transport.

Like many in the small sorority of female truckers, Ms. Stanford looked to find a new and independent life on the road. A truck-school teacher who often ate at a restaurant Ms. Stanford owned in Jacksonville, Fla., introduced her to the idea eight years ago. The teacher told her she was the type of woman who could make the most of life on the road.

A widow with a grown daughter, she liked the idea of making a hefty paycheck without the confines of an office.

Only 6 percent of drivers in the trucking industry nationwide are female, up nearly 1 percent from two years ago. But the share of female drivers for Chattanooga’s biggest trucking companies are triple the U.S. average.

Officials for Chattanooga-based U.S. Xpress Enterprises and Covenant Transport say they recruit female drivers with improved trucking technology, couple-friendly driving opportunities and shorter routes. Both companies believe women are a vital part of the industry’s future.

“There are more women in this world then men, and if you are going to grow a company then you got to tap into the female supply,” said Max Fuller, co-chairman of U.S. Xpress.

Of 6,800 drivers at U.S. Xpress, 17.5 percent are women, said Marian Brewer, vice president of human resources at U.S. Xpress. Similarly, 18 percent of Covenant Transports’ driving staff is female, said Joey Hogan, senior executive vice president at Covenant Transport.

U.S. Xpress and Covenant Transport, both founded in 1985, have maintained a large operation of team drivers which can drive nonstop, cross-country in 48 hours, Mr. Fuller said.

Teams driving is attractive to a lot of women because it allows husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, sisters and friends to work together. Managing the physical labor trucking requires is easier for women working on a team, Ms. Brewer said.

Sue Warriner, 54, who has driven for Covenant with her husband, Jerry, for five years, said the company actively recruits and encourages married drivers because, in her opinion, they have less conflict and can stay away from home longer.

Mr. Fuller said many women are more conscientious about their work than men. U.S. Xpress’s female drivers produce cleaner paperwork and keep company equipment in better condition, he said.

While both U.S. Xpress and Covenant have appealed to females with team opportunities, they have also sought to recruit women to drive shorter routes.

The trend toward shorter, regional routes allows drivers to come home more often. Company executives hope opportunities for time at home will help attract more women with families into the business.

Rhonda Haun, 42, who drives a regional route through Georgia for U.S. Xpress, said local driving allows her to come home to her family every night around 5 p.m.

Before she was offered a regional route from U.S. Xpress, she drove long distances for several years and said the time wore her down.

“There were nights I cried myself to sleep because I couldn’t be around anybody,” she said. “The biggest challenge was the sheer loneliness.”

FILLING RETIREE VACANCIES

Increasing the number of female drivers is essential as the industry prepares for a rash of baby boomer retirements. The average age of a truck driver, male or female, is 55. More than 500,000 drivers are expected to leave their companies in the next 10 years, said Ellen Voie, president and CEO of Women in Trucking, a national organization that promotes the issues of female drivers in the industry.

“Women don’t know they are welcome and that they are capable of doing the job,” said Ms. Voie. “When I ask women if they want to be a truck driver, they just look at me.”

Yet, as the opportunities for female drivers grow, hurdles still remain for a woman on a man’s highway.

Unlike some jobs, there is no gender inequity behind the wheel of a truck. Women and men start out making more than $30,000 a year and can earn more than $100,000 a year driving a truck, said Ms. Voie.

But, though paychecks are equal, the trucking culture is often not, she said.

Without the limitations of office space and bosses, dialogue between male and female truck drivers can easily escalate into inappropriate behavior, said Ms. Voie. Cat calls and teasing are a part of the job.

“(Female truckers) get harassed,” she said. “They get mistaken for prostitutes.”

Female prostitutes sometimes hang out at truck stops and rest areas, knocking on truckers’ doors to see if they want company. It happened to Ms. Stanford one night while she was sleeping at a truck stop. She told the prostitute “you’re not my type.”

If a woman attempts friendly banter with a male trucker, there’s a risk that seemingly innocent communication can go terribly wrong, Ms. Stanford said.

She remembers one day, while driving, she began a conversation with a male trucker over the CB. It was casual, friendly conversation and before she exited the interstate, the man asked her to pull up next to his truck on the road and wave good-bye. When she did, he had taken all his clothes off.

“I was disgusted,” she said.

Most women, without protection at rest areas or truck stops, don’t leave their truck cab after nightfall, not even to use the rest room, said Ms. Stanford.

Some of the poor treatment of female truckers can be attributed to a generational divide, said Ms. Boie.

“There is a generation that believes women are taking jobs away, but (jobs) aren’t going away,” she said. “They say, ‘Women shouldn’t be preying where men are trying to make a living.’”

After eight years of 10-hour-work days, looking out a truck window and sleeping in parking lots, Ms. Stanford is satisfied with her job, but admits it is hard to be a woman on the road.

There was a time when she envisioned turning casual truck-stop encounters into friendships or having lively conversation over a truck-stop country dinner, but reality is harsh.

Men eat together and women sit alone, she said.

“It is a lonely life,” she said. “You are a female in a man’s world.”

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