In 1973, 14-year-old Steve Brosnan climbed inside a 1968 Freightliner cabover and was mesmerized.He had run away from home in Longview, Wash., to escape a father who, in alcoholic rages, often beat him until he bled. Brosnan ended up at Burns Brothers Truck Stop in Wilsonville, Ore., with 25 cents and a sleeping bag. His family upheaval dimmed the first time he persuaded Larry Gubocki to let him see inside his cabover and hear the 8V-71 Detroit Diesel roar. “I sat on the dog house and said, ‘This is it,’ ” recalls Brosnan, 51. “I’m going to do this.”
The teen-ager who joined the work force by polishing truck wheels went on to net more than $80,000 last year hauling oversized loads. The runaway who once slept under bridges recently bought a five-acre homestead in Middleton, Idaho, that he enjoys with his family. The one-time high school dropout last year provided book reviews to National Public Radio.
Along the way, Brosnan enriched his life and that of others with his enthusiasm for trucking. He’s also enriched his life by pursuing hobbies, including racing and flying.
“I like myself and who I’ve become,” he says. “I probably wouldn’t have lived if I hadn’t run away all those years ago.”
Brosnan’s arrival at the Wilsonville Burns Brothers became a turning point. He boarded in a camper owned by a local trucker and went on to graduate from Parkrose High School in nearby Portland. Before and after school every day, he polished wheels and serviced trucks at Burns Brothers, where he also tore engines apart.
“I was hot-wiring cars even before then,” he says, recalling his use of a family car, at age 13, to drive to the grocery to provide food for him and his sister in their parents’ absence. “I have to know how something works.”
He also listened to the advice of trucking mentors like Lonnie Bryant, now deceased.
“He used to tell me, ‘You’ve got to know the parts of the girl you’re playing,'” Brosnan says, chuckling at the old-school truck talk. “I think the older guys saw a deep, sincere passion for trucks and what I call a God-given talent to drive.”
After graduation, he got to prove that talent. In 1977, he hauled hay for Gubocki in the same truck he fell in love with at 14. Brosnan coped with the challenge of shifting the Freightliner’s 5- and 4-speed twin sticks on his first long haul to Brownsville, Texas and later on descents such as California’s infamous Grapevine.
