I have been working with Arena for going on 5 years now.  In my first year with IMG, I was asked to take over sole operational responsibilities of the Bank of the West Classic hosted at Stanford University.  I had never been a part of or visited the event, so I was tasked with building it from photo archives.  I was also asked by the host venue to cut our build timeline in half, in year one.

Luckily, we had been partnering with Arena for several years prior to my arrival.  George was able to walk me step by step through the build-out and develop a plan to cut the timeline in half.  The plan was executed flawlessly.  And to help calm a rookie’s nerves, George made it a point to be there personally to oversee the entire build.  Since then we have partnered together to move the event to a new venue and given the event a complete facelift.

To this day, George still makes it a point to come out and make sure everything runs smoothly at the event.  There is no task too small; from meeting with sponsors to make sure their plans come to life how they picture, to accompanying myself at permit and fire marshal meetings and walkthroughs, or just joining my operations team for dinner and cold drinks after a long hard day in the California sun.

Receiving that much attention and face time from the vice president of a company lends to the feeling of a mom-and-pop shop, not a huge international company.  Whenever I work with Arena and George, I always get the feeling I am the most important job on the books right then, and always leave with a great event and experience.