MARINETTE, Wis. — It’s taken months of work for Megan Cheney and the staff at Veriha Trucking in Marinette to get ready to support the NFL Draft.
As the setup gets underway at Lambeau Field, the company’s trucks and drivers are a key link in the sound and video production at the event.
“We will have 29 trucks that come in directly with this vendor,” said Cheney, who is the vice president of the company’s entertainment division. “About 10 of them are coming out of Lititz, Pennsylvania, which is about 70 miles west of Philadelphia. The remaining are all coming out of Nashville, Tennessee.”
Hauling light and video gear is nothing new for Veriha Trucking. Its entertainment division moves gear for concerts and other touring events.
“This is a very normal event for us. We support tours. Different artists and bands that go out on tour, we’ll bring all of their gear from show to show,” Cheney said. “We also do a lot of speciality events that are one day, two days, three days, where we bring all the gear into the facilities and then after the event is done, we’ll be coming back in when they rip everything down, loading it back up and returning it to the customers.”
Late last year the league started connecting with businesses from around the state to help support the draft.
“We know that some of these large events can be kind of disruptive. We want to make sure those that are disrupted by them are also benefiting from them,” said Myisha Boyce, the NFL source lead for Super Bowl and Draft programs. “It’s really, really important to the league to see local businesses thrive at a time when we are putting in a huge economic infusion.”
The draft is expected to have a roughly $94 million economic impact statewide.
“Our intention is put the dollars locally first,” Boyce said. “If those contracts are not able to be fulfilled locally, that’s when we start to look to national partners. The NFL really works on this local first idea.”
While Veriha is well versed in supporting special events like the draft, there’s something a little special about this one close to home.
“It’s definitely a good revenue driver for us, but it’s also really good from a press perspective,” Cheney said. “Most people don’t even realize that Veriha specializes in and does this type of work.”
