Northeast JobSight Puts Former Coal Miner John Stapleton Back on Road to Employment as CDL Truck Driver

John Stapleton worked most of his life as a coal miner, but when work got too slow for him to support his family, he turned to the Northeast Kentucky Career Center for assistance in retraining for a new career—at no cost to him.

Being pursued for a job was a foreign concept to Lawrence Countian John Stapleton after working in the coal industry for more than a decade—especially when multiple employers at once were calling him to come work for them.

“I had people calling me before I even graduated, and I had three or four different people call. I’ve not ever had that happen,” Stapleton says over the static of his phone, talking during a social distanced phone interview on his lunch.

Stapleton is a Class A CDL (commercial driver’s license) driver for Burke Trucking out of Louisa, Ky., where he started working in January 2020 after graduating from Ashland Community and Technical College’s CDL program. He explains that had he not reached out for help from the Northeast Kentucky Career Center he wouldn’t have been able to turn his career prospects around.

A partner in the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, Northeast Kentucky Career Center JobSight provides Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) services in Carter, Elliott, and Lawrence counties under contract with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP). Those services include programs for adults, dislocated workers, and for in-school and out-of-school youth who may need assistance honing skills such as résumé building or networking with local employers, or who need assistance being retrained or going to school.

The coal mines were Stapleton’s workplace off and on for most of his adult life.

“You know how coal has always been,” he says, alluding to Eastern Kentucky’s decade-long history of a struggling coal economy.

In 2014, Stapleton says he suffered a coal layoff that sent him to a different job at a landfill, however, two years later when his job was eliminated from the operation he had no other choice but to return to coal. Then, in October 2019, another layoff appeared imminent.

“The guy I was working for. . . it was getting pretty slow and he told me that if I could find something else to go ahead and find something else,” Stapleton remembers.

Stapleton was already familiar with the Northeast JobSight after speaking with Workforce Services Director Bonnie Conn around 2009, so he knew to come back to the JobSight to speak with an expert career advisor about his options.  

“I knew they had a lot of different services,” he says, adding that his expert career advisor was extremely helpful. “She went over the programs that they had available that I could take classes for and get training for and I picked CDL.”

The JobSight’s Community Impact program, funded by a National Emergency Grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, assists workers and their spouses whose careers were impacted by the coal industry decline but who didn’t work directly in coal-related careers.

“She got me set up to go take my CDL permit test and I had to get a DOT (Department of Transportation) physical and all that,” he explains. “Any certification that I wanted, they paid for those. They make sure if you need any special clothing or anything like that, they offer to help with the costs of that or even gas.”

Class started December 14, and before his four weeks were up Stapleton was receiving calls left and right from local and out of area trucking companies asking him to come work for them once he had gotten his CDL license.

“I kind of weighed my options on which would fit me best because I’m a single dad and I’ve got both my girls all the time and I had to go with what fit best for having them,” he says. “I wanted this one (with Burke) because of how close to home it is. I’m home every day and on weekends, if my girls want to come with me, they can.”

The working hours as a CDL driver are similar to those he worked in the mines when the industry was growing, but the physical demand is much less, Stapleton admits. 

“I always made decent pay in the mines, but, honestly, it’s actually some of the best money I’ve made here driving a truck. I’d have never thought that or I’d have done it a long time ago,” he adds, chuckling.

Stapleton urges anyone who is struggling to find work or is unable to pay for further career training to look into going to their local Kentucky Career Center JobSight.

“The best thing I can tell you is talk to them and see what they say and what kind of things they have available,” he says. “They’re easy to work with up there and they make sure to help you out to the best of their ability.”

EKCEP, a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky., serves the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. The agency provides an array of workforce development services and operates the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, which provide access to more than a dozen state and federal programs that offer employment and training assistance for jobseekers and employers all under one roof. Learn more about us at http://www.ekcep.org, http://www.jobsight.org and http://www.facebook.com/ekcep.