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10 • FEBRUARY 2023 PERSPECTIVE
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ARMY VET ASHLEY LEIVA
CLAIMS TRANSITION
TRUCKING’S ROOKIE
DRIVER HONORS
DWAIN HEBDA / SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Ashley Leiva knew early on that she would one day serve
her country. While growing up, the Texas native saw examples
of military service all around her. At 18, fresh out of high
school, she enlisted in the U.S. Army.
“My uncle was also an Army veteran, (and) a retired merchant
Marine,” Leiva said. “My mom, she also advocated for it.
I was from a small town, and she said, ‘Go. Get out of here and
do something. If you like it, stay. If you don’t, at least you got to
see something other than our small town.’ And I did.”
Coincidentally, both Leiva’s mother and uncle would inspire
her to later enter the trucking business. Her uncle was a
driver for 30 years, and her mother launched and ran her own
Courtesy: Ashley Leiva
Ashley Leiva and her family react to the announcement of the winner of the
Hiring Our Heroes Transition Trucking truck competition.
Ian Wagreich/U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Ashley Leiva, winner of the Hiring Our Heroes Transition Trucking truck competition, checks out the new Kenworth truck she received as part of the award.
trucking company, providing Leiva with a natural landing spot
when she left the service in 2021 after nearly 16 years.
She’s made the most of her short time in trucking, and was
recently named winner of the Transition Trucking: Driving for
Excellence award during a ceremony at the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce in Washington, D.C. Leiva topped a field of 11 finalists
from across the country to earn the honor.
“When they said my name, I’m just like, wow,” she said. “I
honestly didn’t even think that was possible that I could win.”
Each year, Kenworth teams with FASTPORT and the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes to find
America’s top rookie military veteran who made the successful
transition from active duty to driving for a commercial fleet.
To qualify for Transition Trucking: Driving for Excellence, the
veterans had to meet certain requirements, including having
been hired into a trucking position between Jan. 1, 2021, and
July 31, 2022.
Driver nominations come from for-hire carrier and private
fleet employers, training organizations, the general public, and
other interested parties. Leiva was the first driver to be nominated
by an educational facility within the National Association
of Publicly Funded Truck Driving Schools organization.
But before earning her CDL, becoming a truck driver and
all that … there was the Army.
Throughout her military career, which included major deployments
to Germany and Iraq, as well as several duty stations
in the continental U.S. and Hawaii, Leiva held roles that
served her fellow soldiers, such as working in food service and
as a drill sergeant. During one of her deployments to Iraq, she
was also on the female engagement team, which provided her
powerful encounters with local women who were trying to
survive with their families in the midst of conflict.
“I would actually go out on patrols with the infantrymen.
I would talk to the women of the village or the women of the
house, because the men weren’t allowed to talk to them,” she
said. “I would try to get intel or just have conversations with
them, let them know that we’re not there to hurt them.
“That was an experience for me,” she continued. “I wore a
turban on my head; I respected their culture. It doesn’t matter
who you are or where you’re from, women tend to see in each
other the pain that we all go through. I was a lot younger at the
time, probably 25 or 26, but you could just see the struggle in
their eyes. It was pretty intense.”
If Leiva’s original plan had played out, she wouldn’t have begun
her trucking career for a few more years, as she originally
intended to serve a few more years and retire from the military
with 20 years in. However, when her mother, Noemi, got sick in
late 2020, Leiva left the service to tend to her and take over the
family trucking company.
“She just worked so hard,” Leiva said of her mother. “She
worked up until Dec. 24, 2020. When she got home, everybody
saw how small and skinny she looked, and we made her go to
the doctor right after Christmas. We found out she had stage
IV stomach cancer.
“I got out to take care of her and I told her I’d get my CDL,”
she continued. “My brother and I would take everything on,
and she wouldn’t have to work anymore. She was making great
money. There was no reason for us to try to change it up. We
had her truck, (and it) was paid off.”
When Noemi died, Leiva and her brother, Johnny, a fellow
veteran, took stock of the situation and decided to carry on
their mother’s legacy. They changed the company name from
Leiva Trucking to Noemi Trucking in her honor, and picked up
where their matriarch had left off.
“We’re like, ‘You know what? We have everything here right
in front of us. There’s no reason for us to change it up right
now,’” Leiva said. “Not to mention, once I started doing it, I
could see why my mom liked it so much. She loved her job. She
had such a passion for it. She had a passion for her truck, and
she took care of it so well.”
SEE LEIVA ON PAGE 12