From highways to back-roads and everything in between, Dennis Mitchell has seen plenty through the windshield of a Peterbilt, and since July 2018, he has brought our readers \u201cThe Veteran\u2019s View\u201d perspective of life in trucking.\u00a0 Dennis grew up on a farm and learned to drive everything farm related at an early age.\u00a0 Forever proud of his time, Dennis was an active-duty marine from 1975-1981, and then he started trucking two weeks after getting home.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t go to school to learn how to be a mechanic, he learned in his back yard, out of necessity, to be able to work on his older trucks himself.\u00a0 Something most don\u2019t know is that Dennis spent about six years studying business, religion, and marketing at Sienna Heights College, all the while working for a construction company during the week and driving on the weekends for a local family farm.\u00a0 At 67 years old, along with his wife Barb, they have been married for just over 45 years, and together they own D.D. Mitchell Enterprises LTD out of Blissfield, MI.\u00a0 Having a supportive spouse in this business isn\u2019t just appreciated but is also a necessity.\u00a0 Dennis said he couldn\u2019t function without her, and they work together almost as one instead of two separate people.\u00a0 Barb wasn\u2019t just the caretaker on the home front, she also stepped right in to help with wrenching, and even drove team with Dennis for a few years.\u00a0 Together, they have their son Steve who now resides in Arizona and works for Pickett Custom Trucks.\u00a0 They may have only had one biological son, but many \u201ckids\u201d have come into and through their lives \u2013 and they were taught the same as Steve about bikes, motorcycles, four-wheelers, and big trucks.\u00a0 Running his 2000 Peterbilt 379 powered by a Caterpillar 6NZ, he enjoys running regional with occasional OTR runs.\u00a0 His newest truck is 24 years old, while his oldest truck is 50 years old.\u00a0 Windshield time gives him inspiration for his monthly contributions to our beloved magazine.\u00a0 Like myself, being in the Midwest, Dennis feels like time together with the 10-4 family is limited since everyone is all over the country and the \u201cheadquarters\u201d are in California.\u00a0 For the past six years, he has continued to bring our readers a realistic understanding of life in trucking to avoid the potential pitfalls one has or could experience.\u00a0 Dennis stated that 10-4 Magazine is a nice organization to be a part of, and he hopes readers are taking in his words and finding the information useful.\u00a0 He said he has seen enough mistakes made on the road by people who just don\u2019t know any better and wanted to do his part in helping any way that he can for an industry he is proud to be a part of.\u00a0 Dennis speaks of the experiences he\u2019s had and the wisdom he has gained from the successes, as well as the mistakes, and after all these years of driving a truck, he couldn\u2019t imagine doing anything else.\u00a0 Thank you, Dennis, for sharing your \u201cview\u201d every month \u2013 we love having you in our 10-4 family!<\/p>ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From highways to back-roads and everything in between, Dennis Mitchell has seen plenty through the windshield of a Peterbilt, and since July 2018, he has brought our readers \u201cThe Veteran\u2019s View\u201d perspective of life in trucking.\u00a0 Dennis grew up on a farm and learned to drive everything farm related at an early age.\u00a0 Forever proud<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":44204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-whos-who-in-10-4"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44074"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44206,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44074\/revisions\/44206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}