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Queen of the road

Carrier takes career turn with rig gig

Smiling woman sits in driver's seat of big rig truck
Tracy Lawrence joined the Postal Service in 2015 as a city carrier assistant but became a tractor-trailer operator a year later.

Tracy Lawrence — a female tractor-trailer operator in Minnesota-North Dakota District — is called “The Queen” for good reason.

“Tracy is a great operator and has an excellent safety record,” said Dondi Winkelmann, a transportation operations supervisor at the St. Paul, MN, Processing and Distribution Center.

“She’s conscientious and takes care of her customers. Not just her postal customers, but the businesses she collects from, too. I’m proud to have her on our team.”

The fact that she’s on the team at all is a bit of a fluke.

Lawrence was hired as a city carrier assistant in 2015, but a conversation with a transportation manager, who found out she had a Class A commercial driver’s license, set her on a different route.

A year later, she was driving semis and hauling mail.

Lawrence is the daughter of a postal worker, but she credits a television show with inspiring her interest in USPS.

“I first got interested in the Postal Service while watching ‘Sesame Street,’” she said, fascinated by “how a letter moves from the carrier to its destination.”

Lawrence brought that enthusiasm — and a big rig — to a recent job fair in Minnesota in the hopes she might inspire others to follow down her satisfying career path.

“There are so many opportunities at the Postal Service and I love helping others learn about them,” she said.

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