First, let's consider your resume to be a company driver and then we'll look at your desire to open a trucking business.
Without being a recent graduate of a truck driving school and having no tractor-trailer driving experience, you may find it difficult to find employment with most carriers. Their insurance policy usually requires that the driver have at least 2 years OTR experience in several states. You may have to drive for one of the big companies that pay the extra to an insurance policy that allows inexperienced drivers.
Second, being from Florida is a handicap in that it's hard to get out once you get in. In other words, a lot of companies don't hire Florida based OTR drivers because they will have trouble getting the freight in and out to ensure you regular hometime.
Now, for you to start a trucking business without experience as a driver requires that you convince a lender to take a chance on a guy just walking off the street and professing to be competent and profitable. It will be a tough sell. Next, your insurance man will probably have a lot of reservations about ensuring a 0 mile driver. Your 10-year-old Top Gun award will probably not carry much weight and your bus experience will not be enough to satisfy most insurance companies mandate of multi-state T-T experience.
There are droves of owner ops either turning in their trucks or having them repoed. Now is not a good time to jump in, especially running under your own authority.
I'm not sure how many owner-ops hang out here. There are some other boards that may be able to help more:
:: Pumpkindriver Homepage :: and
PrimeDrivers.net are a couple. My advice is to drive for someone else and get some experience. There are quite a few owner ops that have clear title to their trucks who have parked them and are driving company trucks until the price of fuel stabilizes or freight rates come up to match.
Your question about how to find loads is a very complex one and will require that you do a lot of research. It would take too long to go into here but you typically you'd get loads like this:
Owner op with own authority: Load boards and direct relationships with brokers and/or shippers.
O/O leased to a company: Some have forced dispatch, other don't. Some have boards for you to choose your loads, others don't.
Lease to own: Some treat you just like a company driver others give you flexibility.
In my experience there are three kinds of O/O's: The one that claims to be getting rich, the one that claims to be losing their shirt, and the one that says that at the end of the year they made about as much as a company driver but like having the ability to have more control.
Good luck!
Why Not Just "Do it" Myself? 
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