eNewsletter Vol 10 No 3 June, 2022
By Ashley
77 year old comes out of retirement to earn his CDL A retired corporate pilot is proving that age is just a number by enrolling in a Georgia technical college to earn his commercial driver’s license (CDL). Bill Nichols, 77, recently enrolled in the CDL program at Southern Regional Technical College (SRTC) located in Bainbridge, Georgia. This marks his first time enrolling in college.
According to SRTC, Nichols spent 35 years as a corporate pilot before retiring. However, after seven years of retirement, Nichols decided he wanted to try his hand at driving trucks and is now on track to earn his CDL. Nichols says that he heard about trucking companies having a tough time hiring drivers on the local news and thought he could help out. “I think that older folks like me should consider coming to college and starting a new career. It is a challenge and it is interesting. This college has fine instructors, and CDL is an amazing course. I would highly recommend for anyone to look into this! The pay is good, you get to see the country, and a company pays you to do it!” Nichols said. “I have seen the United States from the air. Now I am going to go see it from the road,” Nichols said. 77-year-old Bainbridge native Bill Nichols is a college student for the first time in his life. 42 years ago, he studied under a flight instructor to earn his pilot’s license and went on to enjoy a 35-year career as a corporate pilot. Seven years after retirement, he decided to pursue his Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) because he heard about the 18,000-person driver shortage on the local news. He reasoned that he could help fill that gap and enrolled in the Commercial Truck Driving program at SRTC-Bainbridge. Mr. Nichols said that he likes to stay busy. Currently, he lives and works on the 122-acre farm that his father bought in 1949, trains new pilots as a flight instructor, and restores classic automobiles in his spare time. When he isn’t in class, Nichols lives on his family farm and keeps busy training new pilots as a flight instructor and restoring classic automobiles.