A Trucking Life Ray Vettel grew up in trucking, and now he’s growing a trucking company.


BY STEVE BRAWNER Contributing Writer


PHOTOGRAPHY BY THOMAS GRADY


Ray Vettel, 55, is owner of Grand Island-based Sunrise Express, a dryvan over- the-road hauler that he joined as a dispatcher in 1986 when it operated only a handful of


12 Nebraska Trucker - Issue 1, 2017


trucks. Now it has about 200, with intentions to keep growing.


The company was founded in 1985 by Charlene and Lloyd Mettenbrink as part of a partnership with Butch Brown, owner of Brown Transfer, an LTL carrier. Mettenbrink had been an industry veteran, and when he didn’t become a partner at another firm, he struck out on his own. The company’s origins


were humble: The office consisted of a phone with a toll-free number set up in a spare bed- room, and the “fleet” was one owner-opera- tor. Charlene was the company’s first safety director and secretary. The first customers came from contacts made earlier in Metten- brink’s career. The first haul—the invoice is enshrined in a plaque at company headquar- ters—was a 23,000-pound load of Pabst Blue


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