SUCCESS STORY
Bayview Hope Transportation Academy: Edwin Yoc-Aguilar
January 21, 2009
Before enrolling at the Bayview Hope Transportation Academy (BHTA), Edwin Yoc-Aguilar was having trouble paying his bills. He was working long hours as a cook in a restaurant, but wasn’t making enough to support his family, given the Bay Area’s high cost of living.
A Mexican immigrant with limited English and few employment skills, Edwin was finding the pathway out of poverty elusive, despite a desire to learn and a strong work ethic. Most job training programs he looked into, for example, were out of his price range. “I wanted the training, but just couldn’t afford it,” he said.
Then Edwin heard about Goodwill’s Bayview Hope Transportation Academy, where participants are given training -- free of charge -- that qualifies them to drive trucks and other commercial vehicles. BHTA represents Goodwill’s commitment to job training programs that earn participants a sustainable wage and potential for advancement.
BHTA currently trains 80 low-income people per year for their Class A commercial driver’s license, a requirement to drive 18 wheeler trucks. Recently, the program expanded to include training for the Class B commercial driver’s license, a prerequisite for transit bus operator positions at San Francisco MUNI, among other tranportation agencies. Since its inception in May 2004, the program has enrolled 214 participants, most of them individuals with significant barriers to employment.
“A commercial driver’s license can cost $5,000 or more, and is out of reach for many of the people who could really benefit from it,” explains BHTA Director Tania Alexander. “But we’ve seen that, when people are given the opportunity and training, they do a great job -- and they earn a livable wage, sometimes for the first time in their lives.”
Says Edwin, “Goodwill taught me everything about truck driving in eight weeks. Now I own a truck and run my own business.”
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