A powerful reflection on how 25 years of trucking experience uniquely prepared the author for leadership, emphasizing that professional roots shouldn't be left behind but brought into decision-making spaces.
Her Story
About Jennifer
Jennifer Hartung is a transportation professional, entrepreneur, and advocate with more than 25 years of experience as a professional truck driver and former owner-operator. Coming from a family with a trucking background, Jennifer developed firsthand knowledge of the challenges drivers face on the road, from entering the industry to navigating long-term careers. Her experiences behind the wheel inspired her to create solutions that address the gap between trucking companies, leadership teams, and the realities drivers experience every day.
As the Founder of Your Co-Driver LLC, Jennifer focuses on driver retention, onboarding alignment, communication strategies, and improving the critical first 30–90 days of a driver’s career. She works with carriers, schools, technology companies, and industry leaders to strengthen driver experiences and create more supportive pathways for new and experienced drivers. Through consulting, mentoring, training, and advocacy, she emphasizes that retention is built through trust, preparation, respect, and meaningful human connection.
Jennifer is also the Founder of Hart-Driven Foundation, a nonprofit initiative dedicated to supporting truck drivers facing hardships caused by illness, injury, or unexpected life challenges. As an author and public speaker, she shares lessons from her own journey to encourage drivers and promote a more human-centered trucking industry. Her work is guided by values of integrity, compassion, perseverance, and the belief that the future of transportation depends not only on technology and operations, but on recognizing and supporting the people who keep the industry moving.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jennifer
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to having a sense of humor and always thinking about the golden rule, treating others like you want to be treated. I live my life by that.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Always walk in like you own the place. Don't walk in timid, just act like you're supposed to be there, because you are. In my book, I say, You belong here. You've already earned it, you belong here.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The trucking industry has spent decades trying to solve its biggest challenges from the top down. After 25 years as a professional driver, I believe lasting change begins from the driver's seat. I founded Your Co-Driver to bridge the gap between CDL training and long-term career success by helping drivers make better decisions, supporting them through their first 90 days, and partnering with schools and carriers to improve retention, safety, and professional development. When drivers are prepared, supported, and valued, everyone wins. My mission is simple: When you elevate the driver, you elevate the industry.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values that guide both my work and my personal life are integrity, compassion, service, perseverance, and trust. I believe in always doing what is right, even when it is difficult, and putting people before profit. My mission is to help others succeed, especially those who may not yet see their own potential. My daughters, Kia and Raven, have been my biggest cheerleaders and a constant source of inspiration throughout this journey. Their belief in me has given me the strength to keep building, even through the hardest moments. Everything I do is rooted in creating a lasting impact, serving others, and leaving the trucking industry better than I found it.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Jennifer
The Driver’s Seat Belongs in the Boardroom
From the Windshield to the Boardroom: Why Your Experience Belongs at Every Table
The Driver's Seat Belongs in the Boardroom
Building What I Wish I Had
I have spent more than 25 years behind the wheel of a truck.
I have been a company driver, a lease-purchase driver, and an owner-operator. I have pulled dry vans, reefers, flatbeds, doubles, containers, Conestogas, and specialized freight. I have hauled hazardous materials and explosives. I have driven through snow, mountains, heat, traffic, breakdowns, long nights, and some days that felt like they would never end.
And I love trucking.
I need to say that first because sometimes, when we talk about what needs to change in an industry, people assume we are criticizing it.
I am not.
Trucking gave me a life.
It gave me independence. It showed me this country. It introduced me to people I never would have met otherwise. It challenged me. It humbled me. It taught me how strong I could be.
I would not trade those years. But I would change one thing: I wish I had someone to help me understand the road ahead.
What I Didn't Have
When I entered trucking, I had to figure out a lot of it on my own.
I didn't have someone sitting beside me saying:
Ask this question before you sign that.
Make sure you understand how you're being paid.
This company may be great, but it may not be great for you.
Don't make that decision because you're tired, frustrated, or scared.
Here's what nobody explained to you in school.
Here's what that recruiter really means.
Here's what being an owner-operator actually looks like when the bills start arriving.
And sometimes:
You're going to be okay.
There were lessons I learned because someone taught me.
There were many more I learned because they cost me something.
Money.
Time.
Confidence.
Opportunities.
And sometimes, just peace of mind.
For years, I thought that was simply part of trucking.
You learn the hard way.
Then one day, I started asking myself a different question:
Why does the next driver have to learn everything the hard way just because I did?
That question changed everything.
I Decided to Build What I Didn't Have
That is where Your Co-Driver came from.
The name means exactly what it says.
I couldn't physically sit in the passenger seat of every driver's truck.
But maybe I could build something that felt like someone was there.
Someone who understood.
Someone who had already made some of the mistakes.
Someone who knew the questions they didn't even know they needed to ask yet.
Someone who could say:
I've been down this road. Watch this corner.
So I started building.
And the more I built, the more I saw.
There is a gap in trucking that we don't talk about enough.
We can teach someone how to obtain a CDL. We can put them through orientation. We can give them a truck, a dispatcher, and a load.
But there is a whole lot of life between knowing how to operate a truck and knowing how to survive and build a career in trucking.
I call that the missing mile.
It is especially visible in those first 30 to 90 days.
That's where fear shows up.
That's where expectations meet reality.
That's where communication breaks down.
That's where a driver who was excited three weeks ago starts wondering if they made the biggest mistake of their life.
And that's where I believe we have an opportunity to do better.
Then I Started Looking at the Other Side
Something interesting happened while I was trying to help drivers.
I started seeing the company's side differently, too.
Drivers don't like changing companies any more than companies like losing drivers.
Drivers want a home.
Most drivers don't wake up in the morning excited to clean out another truck, fill out another application, go through another orientation, and learn another company's system.
Something happened.
So instead of only asking, "Why did that driver quit?" I started asking:
What happened before they quit?
Where was the friction?
Was it orientation?
Was it communication?
Was it home time?
Was what recruiting promised different from what operations delivered?
Did the driver understand the expectations?
Did the company understand what the driver was experiencing?
Was there one conversation that could have changed the outcome?
That is the work I do today.
I move through the driver's path and look for the corners that are cutting them.
Then I try to help smooth those corners out.
Not because the driver is always right.
Not because the company is always wrong.
Because very often, they are seeing the same situation through two completely different windshields.
Somebody needs to understand both.
One Idea Became Many
Once I started building Your Co-Driver, I couldn't stop seeing places where drivers needed something that didn't exist.
So I wrote The First 90 Days: New Driver Survival Guide.
I created driver-support programs.
I created a post-crash response program because, after an accident, a driver's mind can be going a hundred different directions when what they need is a clear process telling them what to do next.
I began creating conversations and spaces where drivers could speak and actually be heard.
Then I realized there was another driver we weren't reaching.
What happens when a professional driver who has spent their life keeping America moving suddenly gets sick, gets hurt, or experiences something that takes them off the road?
The truck stops.
The paycheck can stop.
The bills don't.
That became part of the reason behind Hart-Driven Foundation.
And somewhere in the middle of building all of this, I finally understood what I was actually doing.
I was building what I wish somebody had built for me.
A guide.
A voice.
A connection.
A hand when things go wrong.
A place where a driver can ask a question without feeling stupid.
A bridge between drivers and the people making decisions that affect their lives.
Different organizations.
Different programs.
Different vehicles.
But the mission is the driver.
The vehicles may change, but the mission remains the same.
I Thought I Was Leaving the Driver's Seat
There was another lesson waiting for me.
As I started walking into business meetings, speaking with executives, building programs, and having conversations with industry leaders, I sometimes wondered where a truck driver fit in those rooms.
I didn't come through the traditional path.
I came through the windshield.
Then I realized that was not my weakness.
That was the reason I needed to be in the room.
Twenty-five years behind the wheel didn't happen before my leadership career.
Those 25 years built the leader.
Every dispatcher conversation taught me something.
Every company taught me something.
Every mistake taught me something.
Every driver I met taught me something.
Every time I had to make a decision alone at 2:00 in the morning taught me something.
Every time I had to decide whether conditions were safe enough to keep moving taught me something.
Every time I succeeded taught me something.
And every time I failed taught me something, too.
I don't need to leave any of that outside the boardroom door.
I need to bring it inside.
Because there are conversations happening in trucking about drivers every single day.
Recruiting.
Retention.
Safety.
Technology.
Training.
Insurance.
Operations.
Compliance.
But sometimes there is one perspective missing from those conversations:
The person sitting in the seat.
That is why one of my deepest leadership beliefs today is this:
Leadership is not leaving the driver's seat behind. Leadership is bringing the driver's seat into the boardroom.
Your Driver's Seat May Look Different
This is where my story stops being only about trucking.
Because every woman has had her own driver's seat.
Maybe yours was a classroom.
Maybe it was a hospital floor.
Maybe it was a factory.
Maybe it was a military uniform.
Maybe it was a small business.
Maybe it was raising children.
Maybe it was a job nobody around you considered important.
Maybe it was a season of your life you thought you needed to outgrow before anyone would see you as a leader.
Don't throw those years away.
Bring them with you.
The things you had to survive may become the things you teach.
The questions nobody answered for you may become the questions you answer for somebody else.
The support you didn't receive may become the support you create.
The problem that frustrated you for 20 years may be the very problem you were uniquely prepared to solve.
I didn't know that when I was sitting behind a steering wheel.
I know it now.
I thought I was spending 25 years driving a truck.
Turns out, I was also spending 25 years preparing for the work I'm doing today.
And now, when I walk into a room where decisions are being made, I don't try to hide where I came from.
I bring that driver with me.
Her mistakes.
Her victories.
Her scars.
Her experience.
Her questions.
And the thousands of miles that taught her things no boardroom ever could.
Because she belongs there, too.
I didn't leave the driver's seat behind.
I brought it with me.
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