A little over two years ago, Charles Redgrave went to truck driving school.
“I used to work in warehouses” he says, but trucking is “what I grew up in and what I’ve always known.” His father, though a driver for about 35 years, didn’t want him to get into trucking. “He didn’t want me to live the lifestyle and go through the stress of doing it,” Redgrave says, so he waited until his father passed to start driving for a living.
Redgrave of Davenport, Fla., hauls “pretty much anything” on a flatbed across the 48 states and into some of Canada for Melton Truck Lines and is gone for three to four weeks at a time.
His fiancée, Michelle, has been a supporter of him in good times and in bad, and he says it’s heartwarming to see what she wrote about him (see below). “Nobody’s ever stood beside me and what I want to do for a living,” he says, but he’s glad to now have “someone that will stand behind me no matter what.”
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Charles Redgrave, company driver
Nominated by Michelle Beckum, fiancée