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ter like Hurricane Sandy or law enforcement funerals – though
hopefully as few of those as possible – and be flabbergasted by
the crowd it attracts and the boost of energy it radiates. Buoyed
by the Ford F250 Crew Cab XLT Truck that tows it and wrapped
in colors and icons that Captain America would be proud to
wear, the trailer is a rolling, ascending personification of a superhero.
“It’s big, it’s bright, it’s bold and it’s open,” highlights PBA
Special Projects Coordinator John Hulse, who not only birthed
the trailer but has been nursing it along through its wrapping
and equipping of all the amenities that can be conceived.
Hulse and NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan spent nearly a
year procuring and designing both the trailer and the truck to
not only provide the greatest comforts to members who will
work it at the events, but to make a big, bright, bold statement.
“I think it appropriately represents the presence our organization has as the largest, most important law enforcement
organization in New Jersey,” Hulse continues. “It’s what you
think an organization as influential as the PBA would pull up
with.”
Appropriately, the trailer’s features create a huge wow factor,
or at least that was the common reaction from those who saw
it when it debuted at the Police Security Expo at the Atlantic
City Convention Center on June 28-29, according to PBA First
Vice-President Pete Andreyev who chaperoned the trailer on
the expo floor. It is the fourth in the line of PBA trailers since
the first one was deployed 20 years ago, and, yes, it was not
cheap.
“I was nervous about spending that amount of money and
coming up with a glorified landscaping trailer,” President Colligan shares. “We could have gone cheap and had to replace
it in 10 years, or we could have something that we will use for
the next 20 or 30 years. It’s a service we provide that people
depend on so we went all-out for them.”
Trailer splash
The PBA trailer has forged a history as illustrious as its latest
incarnation. The inaugural version premiered in 1997 in honor
of a little girl from Belleville, the hometown of then-PBA Executive Vice-President Tony Wieners. Megan Jaret had been the
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