Lankin, N.D., woman earns “Driver of the Year” award, has been driving for 29 years

LANKIN, N.D. — Julie Hjelle was on the road when she answered the Herald’s phone call. A company driver for Altendorf Trucking, she spends a lot of time behind the wheel.

Hjelle loves the job, and has been interested in trucks since she was small.

“The first book I learned to read was Big Joe’s Trailer Truck,” she said. “And I remember my mom would always have to help me with the word ‘dispatcher’ because that was the hardest word in the book.”

The time she’s spent on the road has taken her across the country and, more recently, to Bismarck to accept an award.

Hjelle was presented with the 2022 Driver of the Year award on Wednesday, Sept. 6, at the annual North Dakota Motor Carrier Association (NDMCA) convention in Bismarck. The award was presented both by the NDMCA and the North Dakota Highway Patrol.

The award signifies the appreciation of a driver’s “outstanding dedication to safety, and their support and cooperation to the highway patrol,” a press release from the North Dakota Highway Patrol said.

“I was awfully excited,” Hjelle said. “It’s really an honor.”

This isn’t the first award Hjelle has won. In 2019 she won the 5-axle sleeper berth class in the NDMCA Truck Driving Competition, and was also the first woman in North Dakota to be named Rookie of the Year. She went on to the national competition in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and presented a perfect score on the written exam, higher than her other competitors.

Hjelle’s epiphany about wanting to be a driver came when she was 23, when she took a trip with a friend. That friend let her sit behind the wheel of his tractor trailer.

“I sat in the seat and looked out the windshield and I looked out the side mirrors and I knew I was going trucking,” she said. “And I came home and registered for truck driving school. And the rest is history.”

After school, Hjelle had a harder time than her male classmates in finding a job. One possible employer told her, “I won’t put a woman in a truck.”

Hjelle began driving as a leased-on driver for Altendorf Trucking in 1994. She moved onto being a company driver in 2010, then became the safety director in 2011. She resigned from that position in 2015 to continue as a company driver, which is her current position. Hjelle has never had an accident in her 3 million miles driven, the press release said.

The downside of the job, Hjelle said, was missing out on being with her kids as they grew up. But she still loves it.

“I really loved the early years,” she said. “I would’ve trucked without being paid. It was like being on vacation.”

While the industry has changed, and she’s nearing retirement, Hjelle is still going and loves what she does after 29 years.

“It’s been an awesome ride,” she said.

Otto is a recent University of North Dakota graduate and reporter at the Herald.