2/2/2018
WISSOTA
Gramm hired to become next Executive Director
SAUK RAPIDS, MN (February 2) - The WISSOTA board of directors has added Carson Gramm to its staff, and Gramm will succeed Terry Voeltz as executive director later in 2018, according to WISSOTA president Rob Palmer. Voeltz will stay in his position of executive director, then retire once the transition is complete.
“I think Carson will bring a lot of enthusiasm and new ideas to WISSOTA, and will be a good asset to our organization. We felt his education and experience at race track operations was exactly what we needed in this position, and we’re really looking forward to getting him involved more,” Palmer added.
Gramm, a native of Ipswich, SD who currently resides in Sauk Rapids, MN, is a lifelong race fan. His father, Mark, was the track announcer at Brown County Speedway in Aberdeen, SD for many years, beginning when Carson was just a young boy, and eventually Carson made the jump from race fan to race car driver. After racing karts as a youth, he raced Legend Cars, then WISSOTA Super Stocks for a number of years prior to moving to Minnesota to attend Minnesota State University - Mankato after high school.
Gramm attended MSU-Mankato and graduated with Bachelors Degrees in both Sport Management and Economics in 2017. He was then hired to become the promoter at WISSOTA-sanctioned Granite City Speedway. There, he managed all event and speedway operations, and worked closely with ownership, staff, racers, crews and fans.
Gramm explained, “MSU Mankato forced me to become good at networking with people in racing and the sport management department allowed me to take that a step further. My focus on economics courses also offered great opportunities to apply practical economic information to sport, especially motor sports.”
Prior to his graduation and move to Granite City Speedway, Gramm also had other rich race track promotion and management experiences to supplement his secondary education. He assisted with promotions during the Bad Boy Buggies World Finals at Charlotte (NC) Motor Speedway, and later worked as a sales and marketing representative for Elko Speedway. During that time he was responsible for all communications with speedway partners and sponsors, created fan engagement opportunities for fans, compiled and utilized demographic information to assist in marketing the speedway, and also managed various acts that performed at the track, plus the victory lane operations and VIP suites. Later, he also became the NASCAR ambassador at Elko Speedway in Minnesota, where he activated promotions and managed relations between drivers, the sanctioning body and track officials.
“I’m thankful to the entire WISSOTA community for the opportunity to serve the promoters, drivers, and fans to improve the sport I’ve loved since I was a kid. I’m also very grateful for the opportunity that Granite City Speedway provided me over the past year. Moving from track management to a wider set of responsibilities will be a fun transition when I’m able to meet and share ideas with promoters around WISSOTA. By working with the member promoters, I believe we can become an even stronger organization. I’m looking forward to serving all of our promoters for years to come,” Gramm said.
Submitted By: Scott Hughes