GULFPORT, Miss. – While corporate America is outsourcing more and more jobs, the trucking industry is suffering from a severe shortage of truck drivers. It’s a shortage that some estimate will exceed 200,000 by mid 2013. Unlike so many other manufacturing, customer service or telemarketing jobs, a truck driver job cannot be outsourced.

Retail consumption has been rising since the financial crisis and as a result there are more trucks moving more goods. Yet independent truck drivers and trucking companies are having a tough time accessing loans to buy their own trucks, creating a Catch 22.

Twelve years ago, American Truck Group CEO Louis Normand, then one of Mississippi’s larger big truck dealers, set out to deal with this problem. He said, "I decided if I couldn’t sell them a truck, I would rent them one." Twelve years later, Normand operates the largest rent-to-buy trucking fleet in the country.

Many trucking companies would like to add additional trucks to their fleet in order to meet this demand. However, banks are not an option for many of the trucking companies or owner-operators, he says. They are under tougher regulations, more scrutiny and often not willing to loan on trucks, Normand points out.

With numbers approaching 500 strong and a newly expanded infrastructure that can accommodate 700 more trucks, Normand said the rent-to-buy model could easily expand. He says he relies on "cash-flow starved" private lenders to grow his fleet. In this case, the truck becomes collateral against the loan. It’s insured against loss and in the unlikely event a driver cannot get work, the truck is returned and put into service with another driver.

In the future, Normand said he expects private lending to play an increasing role in economic recovery. In the case of American Truck Group, 700 new drivers will be put on the road. More mechanics will be put in the shop and more freight will move more efficiently across the country.