You’ll have a chance to mix and mingle with current members, the current board and our 2019 candidates at the annual Bike East Bay Member Meeting on December 5. Get a sneak peek at what the candidates on the ballot have to offer below, and meet them in person on the 5th!
Kristi Marleau
Kristi Marleau lives in Dublin with her husband and two sons. She puts her Master’s Degree in statistics to use as a self-employed evaluation consultant, designing surveys, building databases, analyzing data, and writing reports for a wide variety of organizations, mainly in the field of public health.
She has been on the Bike East Bay board since 2014 and currently serves as the chair of the Fundraising and Membership Committee. She is the Safe Routes to Schools parent champion at her son’s elementary school and also serves on the Alameda County Transportation Commission Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC).
Kristi’s whole family uses bikes as their primary mode of transportation, with her husband commuting by bike to Livermore and her kids biking to school every day. Having her whole family on bikes has given Kristi a passion for seeing that the bicycling conditions in the Tri-Valley are the best that they can be.
Recently Kristi took up cycling for recreational purposes when she joined the 2018 Bike East Bay Climate Ride team and rode the California North Coast from Fortuna to San Francisco while raising money for Bike East Bay.
Kjiersten Fagnan
Kjiersten did not own a bicycle until she was 24 and living in Seattle. She soon found biking not only offered a kind of freedom that previously only seemed possible with a car, but was significantly less expensive. Kjiersten grew up in California, received an education at Cal, but had never biked the cities of California until she moved back for work and wanted to avoid traffic. She has commuted from the Presidio to Oakland, Oakland to Berkeley, and Oakland to Walnut Creek by bicycle and public transit over the past 9 years. She discovered the quirks of each commute, but also an easier ride as infrastructure improved.
Researchers have demonstrated that long commutes by car make people angry are slowly killing us, and Kjiersten believes bikes can help. Bike boulevards, bike-friendly trains and buses, and bike share programs have improved our commute options in the past two decades dramatically. The ability to travel by bike is a privilege that should be accessible to everyone. She has been fortunate to work for organizations that have showers at work, wageworks pre-tax commuter benefits, and a culture that encourages health and safety, but still found that most of her coworkers do not bike. In her current role as the Chief Information Officer at the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Dr. Fagnan has organized bike tune up workshops, women’s rides from Oakland, a bike booth at the annual wellness fair, and shared safety videos, but has found the number of regular commuters remains flat. Kjiersten sees the significant challenges to broader adoption of bicycling, including culture, accessibility, safety, comfort, and she would like to help Bike East Bay reduce these barriers.
Alden Mudge
Alden has chaired the board of Bike East Bay for the past 3 years. Before that, he was a board member and a volunteer. He is running to complete the final year remaining in the term of a board member who had to resign because of work obligations. That year will allow him to use his recent experience to assist with the transition to new board and staff leadership. Alden asks and thanks Bike East Bay Members for your support.
Sandra Hamlat
Sandra Hamlat’s professional background and interests include the protection of natural areas and revitalization of urban areas, especially in terms of planning for climate change and sea level rise. Currently, Sandra is a Senior Planner with the East Bay Regional Park District. She has worked for other private and public environmental organizations throughout California on various projects dealing with planning, composting, recycling, and land conservation. In addition to program management, Sandra prepared environmental review documents for urban park and brownfield projects. Her educational background includes a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California at Irvine and a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Economics and Policy from the University of California at Berkeley.
Come out on December 5 at Sports Basement in Berkeley to meet the current and prospective board members, meet other bike-friendly folks, and get 20% off Sports Basement purchases.
