Why did a Patterson High School teacher spend his summer vacation driving trucks?
Dave Dein starts his truck driving classes at Patterson High School with an industry update.
One day this spring, an article he shared about the trucking industry’s driver shortage stood out to him.
“You know what, guys?” he recalled telling his students, “I should go back and drive this summer to be a part of the solution.”
Dein spent his summer vacation driving part time, on call for Morning Star Trucking, a tomato processing company. He’s donating his earnings to a nonprofit he started this summer to help underserved recent high school graduates attend truck driving school. Morning Star is matching his donations, he said.
Dein has taught in Patterson for 22 years. Though he’s technically working during his summer vacation time, he said he loves being on the road so much that it doesn’t really feel like a job.
“I’m not giving up anything,” he said. “This is a joy.”
Dein grew up listening to bedtime stories that chronicled his father’s truck-driving days in the South Pacific during World War II. The adventurous stories captured his imagination, he said.
He has been driving trucks since 1988 and drove for Morning Star Trucking for seven summers in the ’90s to pay for college, he said.
“I’ve had a lot of hard, hard days in a truck, but I’ve never had a bad day,” he said. “And there’s a huge difference.”
Dein has worked throughout his career to help address the trucking industry’s driver shortage. He founded a truck-driving school in 2006 that trained recently incarcerated individuals to drive trucks and acquire jobs.
That nonprofit, called Faith Logistics, dissolved 10 years later because the trucks it used didn’t meet California’s emission standards, he said.
Soon after, Dein founded a truck-driving program at Patterson High School as a Career and Technical Education pathway. In 2017, it was the first such program in the U.S. at a general education high school. The three other programs at the time were run at vocational schools, Dein said.
About 27 to 29 students enroll in the yearlong course each year, Patterson Joint Unified School District spokesman Johnny Padilla said.
Dein developed a diverse curriculum that involves field trips, guest speakers, hands-on activities and digital tools like driving simulators, he said.
“I want them to connect to the industry,” Dein said. “It’s not just learning how to shift gears. That’s only part of trucking.”
Superintendent Phil Alfano said Dein is an inspiration for students. “He leads by example and is passionate about the profession,” Alfano said in a statement. “He has helped many students find their calling and turn their lives around.”
Earlier this summer, Dein founded the Next Generation in Trucking Association and Foundation. Its goals are to promote a positive image of trucking for young people, bridge the gap between schools and industry and help high schools across the country start truck-driving programs modeled after Patterson’s, he said.
“We know the industry is fully supportive of this, but they don’t know how to connect to the schools,” Dein said. “There’s a huge disconnect between schools and trucking.”
Dein will return to teaching when Patterson Unified starts Aug. 19. Still, he’ll continue driving part-time through the end of the season in mid-October.
“The reason I decided to do this in the first place was to be a part of the solution,” he said. “So, I made that commitment.”
People can donate to the Next Generation in Trucking Foundation through its website.
This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
