Silicon Valley Leadership Group Launches CEO/Celebrity Cycle-to-Work Day Challenge for May 17

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group today launched a CEO/Celebrity Cycle-to-Work Day Challenge as a friendly competition among businesses and public agencies to encourage participation in National Bike to Work Day on May 17.

The challenge is part of the Leadership Group’s comprehensive Clean & Green Alternative Energy Action plan to affect climate change by reducing greenhouse gases and foreign oil dependence.

At a press conference at Palm, Inc. headquarters in Sunnyvale, Leadership Group CEO Carl Guardino challenged Silicon Valley CEOs and elected officials to support Bike to Work Day on May 17 by riding their own bikes to work, encouraging their employees to do the same and by hosting a “Celebration Station” at their offices to greet and acknowledge cyclists arriving to work.

“This is a fun and worthwhile competition to get people out of their four-wheel vehicles and onto two wheels to demonstrate our commitment to cleaner air and healthier lifestyles that will benefit everyone in our own region and beyond,” Guardino said.

More than a dozen senior corporate executives and local elected officials clad in colorful cycling attire joined Guardino as they rode their bikes into the press conference, creating a powerful peloton representing their public-private partnership.

NOTE: Photos of today’s event are available from Business Wire (http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=5372115).

Speakers:
Carl Guardino, President & CEO, Silicon Valley Leadership Group
Ed Colligan, President and CEO, Palm
Yoriko Kishimoto, Mayor of Palo Alto
Doug Merritt, EVP and General Manager, SAP
Mike Sinyard, CEO, Specialized Bikes
Kim Fennell, CEO, deCarta
Len Kwiatkowski, VP and GM, Lockheed Martin Space Systems
Mike Burns, General Manager, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority
Corrine Winter, Executive Director, Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition

Additional Participants:
Greg Becker, COO, SVB Financial
Barry Cinnamon, CEO, Akeena Solar
Sharbel Noujaim, VP, LifeScan Bill Thayer, VP, Bloom Energy
Dean Warshawsky, Mayor, Los Altos Hills
Frank Benest, City Manager of Palo Alto