I always say I became a journalist because it was the only way to get a little piece of every career I've ever wanted to have. It's a long list.

I started my career as a community reporter for local newspapers and later transitioned into business and trade publishing. There, I found a niche covering transportation and related industries as part of the editorial staff of various industry publications. My focused coverage has included commercial trucking, freight railroading, transit, aviation and the automotive aftermarket. My editorial experience was developed among some of North America’s largest B2B trade publishers, including Endeavor Business Media. From there, my experience eventually broadened from transportation to the U.S. supply chain and industrial markets when I became the senior editor of Modern Distribution Management (MDM). There, I analyzed and reported on the industrial wholesale distribution, including dealmaking and business strategy.

Now, I cover the oil and gas sector for Hart Energy, a Crain brand, as senior reporter of energy and M&A. I report on mergers, acquisitions and capital markets activity in the North American upstream oil and gas industry, with a focus on exploration and production companies, private equity-backed operators and the investors and dealmakers behind them. I chase breaking news, and write analysis and enterprise stories on deal activity, consolidation and company strategy.

I’m a Midwesterner who grew up in the Florida Keys, and had a recent nearly-three-year stint in Washington, D.C. before relocating back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin — somehow I feel at home in all three. I’m a journalism nerd, rec soccer player, non-fiction reader, creative writer, a reader of all the museum plaques and consider myself an iced tea connoisseur.

I come from a family of adventurers and "fixers" (a pilot and diesel mechanic, an immigrant and electrician, and a scuba diver and world traveler). A little bit of everything rubbed off on me. 

Name pronunciation: Vesna (Ves-nuh) Brajkovic (Brye-ko-vitch)