Bette S. Garber (1943–2008)

Bette S. Garber was born in Chicago and earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Illinois. After college, she worked as a copywriter in the fashion industry. In 1970, she and her husband Charles Garber founded Structure Probe, an electron microscopy company. While working for their company, she was often on the road, and bought a CB radio, which she used to speak to truck drivers to get traffic reports. The CB radio also picked up other trucker conversations, and Bette became intrigued with the trucker lifestyle. She began taking photos of trucks she encountered, and writing stories about their drivers, which she submitted to trucking magazines. Eventually, she left Structure Probe, and for 30 years devoted herself full-time to her work as a pioneering photojournalist. She became a staff writer for American Trucker News and later editor-at-large for Heavy Duty Trucking magazine, and also ran a stock-photo agency. She published four books on custom semi-trucks in the 2000s, including

Ultra-Custom Semi Trucks (2008).