David,
You need some driving experience. Don't come up here with a CDL in hand and no experience, odds are you will not get hired. Get some driving time under your belt somewhere, Texas would be great, may have better odds landing a job down there.
As far as career path, I was doing good until 2007, small trucking company. Like most guys up here, we are just trying to stay above water, get out of debt and bank some money. We have everyone from stock brokers, executives to stock boys driving up here. My path up here was simple, get a job and start networking. Talk to people, do a good job and people do notice. I try to stay clean cut, hard to get a haircut up here at times. I also try to dress the part, look professional, again, people notice. So far so good, my story is pretty much all here starting on page one of this thread. Water, rigs, propane... Its here, you just need to be here and be able to roll with it...