A private equity-backed Virginia company has acquired the United States Truck Driving School, which operates campuses in Fountain and Wheat Ridge, with plans to expand its veteran work placement program.

TransForce Group, based in Alexandria, Va., and majority owned by Palladium Equity Partners, bought the school Oct. 18 for an undisclosed price and will operate it under its current name as part of its CDL School subsidiary, according to a Transforce news release.

The deal helps expand TransForce’s national footprint of 67 locations in 26 states and Ontario that offer training, recruiting, staffing and other services to the commercial trucking industry.

“USTDS (United States Truck Driving School) has been a leader in Colorado for more than five decades, and we look forward to combining and leveraging the great strides both companies have made in educating and training the next generation of professional truck drivers,” said Al Hanley III, CDL School’s division president, said in the release.

TransForce began discussing the acquisition with the school’s owner, Richard Lammers, in August 2019, and the deal was close to being finalized in March 2020 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Katherine MacLane, the company’s vice president of strategic marketing and communications, said in an email. The deal was signed in May.

The company plans to retain the school’s management and all 40 employees with plans to add staff to increase “the number of graduations weekly and monthly to fill the driver shortage crisis in Colorado and the U.S.,” MacLane TransForce also plans improvements in “the customer experience, the quality of equipment (the school has a fleet of 40 tractor-trailers), staff development and a robust job offering that matches student objectives for employment.”

The acquisition comes amid a nationwide shortage of truck drivers, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, that has helped to trigger supply chain issues slowing delivery of everything from food and other merchandise to gasoline and jet fuel. The American Trucking Associations, an industry trade group, estimates that the truck driver shortage will hit a record in more than 80,000 drivers.

U.S. Truck Driving School was started by Denver native John Mauro, a former Formula One race car driver, in 1958 in response to the rising demand for truck drivers. The school opened the Wheat Ridge campus, which became the company’s headquarters, in 1959. Mauro’s daughter Arlene and Lammers took over the school after Mauro’s death at age 92 in a 2003 auto accident.

TransForce was started in 1991 with three offices. Palladium, a New York-based private-equity investment firm with nearly $3 billion in assets under management, bought a controlling interest in the company in 2015 and has since financed 11 acquisitions that added 20 locations in North America, including offices in Georgia, Indiana and North Carolina and a company that manages employment websites for truck driver recruiting.