When Tammy Deschler drives her big rig into a warehouse or plant yard, a lot of eyes are on her as bystanders wonder if she’ll be able to navigate the vehicle into its assigned spot at the dock without too much maneuvering around or backing in and out. Much to their surprise, she pulls into the dock in one shot, drops the load, and hops down from the driver’s seat feeling pretty good about the performance.
“It’s very fulfilling because you can sense the doubt on their faces, but it goes away when I nail docking perfectly and efficiently,” says Deschler, Trainer & Field Operations at YMX Logistics. “There’s a quiet satisfaction in proving their assumptions wrong with skill and precision.”
It is also a reminder that ability isn’t defined by appearance or gender, but rather by expertise and experience behind the wheel, both of which Deschler has plenty of. She got her CDL in 2014 and started long-haul driving with her son, who was already a truck driver.
She gives him credit for getting her hooked on the career.
“I did a ride-along with him to Madison, WI and then signed up to get my CDL the next day,” says Deschler, who rode for six weeks with a trainer and then started traveling the country with her son, picking up and delivering cargo for a wide variety of companies. She’s since been to all 48 contiguous states and truly enjoys the freedom of the road.
When Deschler’s son decided to park his truck for good in exchange for more time at home, she kept driving for a couple more years. “I went home and applied at Kutzler Express, which was acquired by YMX Logistics last year, and was hired immediately,” she explains. She rode with a trainer the following day, when she was introduced to the company’s dispatcher, who would become her husband.
“My husband has 40 years of driving, dispatching, and spotting experience,” says Deschler. “He’s a great resource for me to tap into and my biggest motivator.”
Deschler has served as lead spotter in many capacities at YMX and has been to most of the company’s Wisconsin sites. She moved into her current role in early 2025 and says the responsibilities mirror what she was doing as a lead. “I'm now able to bring my eight and a half years of experience to new spotters and my coworkers in the field,” says Deschler. “I ride with them and show them new ways of doing things. I just love it.”
On the technology side, Deschler calls the YMX's operating software the “best thing since sliced bread” for its ease of use and simplicity. In fact, she’s become somewhat of a cheerleader for the technology, which is being rolled out across YMX’s many locations. “People don’t really like change, but I tell them that they’re going to love this system,” she says. “When I revisit the same site a couple of weeks later, sure enough, they tell me that they just love it.”
She also likes the way the software transforms highly manual yards into streamlined operations. "It's making our lives so much easier,” says Deschler. “At the last site where I spotted, I had two radios to listen to and couldn't hold them and hook my lines up at the same time. Now all you need is one tablet.”
There’s also no more “hunting” for trailers in the yard; the operating software tracks all of the assets and lets spotters know their exact locations. “Now I can drive right there and grab it, whereas I used to have to drive along a row of trailers and search for what I was looking for,” says Deschler, who also likes the system’s efficiency and how quickly people warm up to it and start using it.
“I like seeing the looks on people's faces when they log into the software and see how much easier it is compared to what they were using before,” she adds.
With over a decade of driving and spotting under her belt, Deschler is ready to sink her teeth into a new challenge: training drivers and spotters who have had accidents or incidents. “I really want to nail this new job role,” she says. “Everyone has confidence in me, and I’m looking to be the best at it.”
There’s little doubt that Deschler will do just that and more. She’ll spend much of her time working with drivers on site, talking to them about the incident and providing strategies and advice for how to avoid such issues in the future. For instance, because they operate at such fast speeds, yard spotters may set a trailer down, get distracted, and then accidentally pull away without removing their lines from the trailer.
“This can damage the trailer, the truck, and the line,” says Deschler, who talks to drivers about getting into the habit of “turning around and looking behind them” before jumping back into the vehicle and trying to drive away. And while this sounds simple enough in theory, drivers who are working under pressure may not always take that final, critical step.
“I share my expertise with them and answer any questions they may have — even things like whether they can take a 30-minute break during the day,” says Deschler. She also does random training sessions with drivers, just to see how they’re doing and to offer safety and productivity tips that she’s learned along the way.
“I also travel to the new site and train the drivers in our new technology systems,” says Deschler. “Overall, I basically cover anything they want to learn or that they feel like they’re missing.”
Deschler knows her experience and skillset speak for themselves, even when it comes time to back a big rig into a small space, but she also understands that she’s in a field that’s dominated by men. This doesn’t stop her, of course, but it does give her pause every once in a while.
“I’ll occasionally meet someone who may not listen to me because I’m a woman, but it just takes some patience and perseverance to work through that,” Deschler says. “Once I earn their respect, they start to open up. The fact is, I've been in their shoes, spotting trailers and driving trucks. And I just tell them that the more they do it, the better they’ll get at it.”
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