STEPPING INTO THE SPOTLIGHT

Emily Plummer won one of trucking’s most prestigious awards, and she almost didn’t apply.

BY ETTIE BERNEKING

When Emily Plummer took a call from Mitch Coiner, recruitment and marketing manager at Prime, he told her she should apply for the Truckload Carriers Association’s Professional Driver of the Year Award, which comes with a $20,000 prize. At first, she laughed… But then she won.

Even with more than two decades driving for Prime, Emily didn’t think she had enough years behind the wheel to really be a contender. “I asked him why he would waste a nomination,” she says. Each year, hundreds of drivers toss their names into the running. Emily knew Prime had had two other drivers win the award— Glenn Horack and Thomas Miller—but she didn’t think she stood a chance. “I have a lot of friends at Prime who have been up for this award,” she says. “I’m always able to cheer them on, and I watched Glenn and Thomas win, but that’s also why I was thinking there is no way I could win this.”

Emily has been with Prime since she was 21. Her career stretches 24 years and includes a safety record of more than 3.25 million miles. But Emily knows there are drivers with longer careers and more safe miles. But that wasn’t the only reason she doubted her odds.

“My other thought was, is the industry ready for women to win these kinds of awards?” It was a serious question. No other solo female driver had won the coveted Driver of the Year award, so Emily knew if her name was called, it would be a first. Nerves aside, Emily listened to Mitch and applied.

Part of her motivation was simply seeing more women join the industry. When Emily started out, the only other women she saw behind the wheel drove team. “There weren’t other women solo drivers out here or women trainers,” she says. “That’s changing, and if we want to encourage more women to start driving, we need to change the face of the industry.”

Sharing her story and her experience as a driver is a big part of what Emily does these days. She likes to say she has a voice and a story to share, but it wasn’t always that way. For a long time, Emily says she preferred to be in the background. She was intimidated by the spotlight and liked flying under the radar. It wasn’t until she realized that sharing stories like her own could be part of what encourages other women to join the industry that she started sharing her own story more.

So when she was in Florida for the Driver of the Year ceremony, her story suddenly felt a little more important, and the people she wanted to share the experience with most were her Prime family. Her fleet manager actually tricked her just a little bit—and in the best way—on the night of the awards.

Up until the awards ceremony, Emily had been told that her fleet manager and Robert Low and Prime Vice President of Sales Steve Wutke wouldn’t be able to attend the event. She was understanding but really disappointed. “I knew the support I had at Prime, but I was feeling a little down,” she says. “I wanted to share this with them because they’ve all been there cheering me on.” It wasn’t until she was gathered with the other Prime team members at the event that she felt a tap on her shoulder. When she turned around, there stood Robert, Steve and her fleet manager. “I just started crying,” Emily says.

To cap off the night, Emily ended up winning one of the five Professional Driver of the Year awards and stood on stage alongside Rose Rojo from John Christner Trucking. Emily and Rose were the first two women to accept the award as solo drivers.

For Emily, that means showcasing long-running careers of women like herself and seasoned Prime driver Mavis Bobbitt (who you can read all about on p. 20). As Emily sees it, if women see examples of other women who have built successful careers as drivers, they’ll be able to see themselves doing the same thing.

Do your best work every single day. People are watching and paying attention even when you don’t realize it.

Don’t expect to be treated differently as a woman. I get asked this all the time, but Prime has never treated me differently. That’s good. If I mess up, my fleet manager corrects me.

Set goals for yourself. They can be weekly, monthly or yearly. It keeps you going even when things get hard.

Find your mentor or inspiration.

To say the event was a big moment for Emily would be an understatement. It was a career highlight. “I feel like as women we need to do more and we almost have to be perfect,” she says. “And then in moments like this, you realize your work is being watched and people are paying attention. After all these years, our hard work is paying off.” 1 2 3 4 5