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Ramon Calanza, CHRL, is an HR leader, recruiter, and educator with over two decades of experience in talent acquisition and retention across the transportation and healthcare industries. He is the Principal and Founder of MERE HR & Consulting, a professor at Centennial College, and a business consultant to Help Now Healthcare, with earlier senior roles as VP of HR at Bedard Resources and Director of Driver Recruitment and Retention at Challenger Motor Freight.
His work spans recruitment strategy, workforce planning, and driver acquisition, including a Temporary Foreign Worker Program that brought international drivers into Canada during the industry's shortage.
Chapters
0:00 Why Canada is heading into another driver shortage
0:49 Intro
1:45 How Ramon fell into trucking by accident
4:11 The stigma that keeps newcomers away
6:35 What truck drivers actually earn
10:27 From driver's seat to VP: how far the career goes
13:04 How to spot a fraudulent truck driving school
19:55 The lifestyle tradeoff: home nightly vs long haul
23:17 A day in the life: city driver vs highway driver
26:15 Where a newcomer should start in trucking
30:51 What Canadian experience really means for drivers
38:07 Outro
Takeaways
In trucking, a license doesn't mean you can do the job. For any newcomer considering trucking, that's one way to spot the truck driver mills. You need to be competent at the wheel, know how to run your vehicle inspection,, including the pre-trip inspection. Then there's regulatory fundamentals, defensive driving, documentation, and more. So, ignore anyone promising to get you on the road once you get the license.
The two-year Canadian driving history isn't the barrier it used to be. Insurers, who we all know see everything in black and white, now work with carriers on training programs that satisfy the coverage requirements, so a newcomer driver can move up one stage at a time until they can drive on their own. And there's a reason it works this way. Insurers don't want carriers handing a brand-new driver the keys and sending them off on a cross-border trip on day one.
Links
Where to find Ramon:
The Newcomers resources
Good finds
To help break the stigma surrounding autism in some immigrant communities and encourage other families to support their children to their fullest potential, Immigrant Outreach Society (IOS) and Alex Ghebreyouhans, a talented non-verbal Calgary-based artist, are co-hosting an exhibition to showcase his collection to the public.
Venue is Marlborough Park Community Association (6021 Madigan Dr NE, Calgary, AB T2A 5G9).
The schedule is as follows:
Saturday, July 11: 3:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Sunday, July 12: 11:00 AM – 8:00 PM
See you there.
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