Super Commuter Nominations
The Super Commuter Award is the Grand Prize for the Commuter Challenge. The person who wins the Super Commuter Award will receive a package of goodies from all four neighborhoods in the downtown.What Makes a Super Commuter?
getDowntown will select a Super Commuter based on the following criteria:
- Person demonstrates a commitment to try and/or use sustainable commute options such as walking, biking, busing, carpooling/vanpooling, etc.
- Person made a noticeable change in their commuting habits during the Commuter Challenge.
- Person has gone great lengths to use sustainable transportation.
- Person encourages and motivates others to try sustainable commuting.
Tina Mainieri
Senior Survey Methodologist, Survey Sciences Group, LLC
Nominated by: Zehra Husain, Aaron, Scott Crawford, Alana Knoppow
From Zehra: Tina is the person responsible for bringing the Commuter Challenge to our office. She's actively recruited the entire staff to participate and has provided ongoing encouragement to continue our efforts. This emphasis on reducing fuel consumption is part of Tina's broader iniative of improving our environmental footprint. She's organized a recycling campaign and regularly distributes information with tips for "greener" living. She has made environmental stewardship important, practical, and fun!
From Aaron: Because of her tireless efforts to improve the environmental impact our own company by providing information and resources that make it easier to assess our individual activity and make changes easily.
From Scott: Prior to Tina's efforts, nearly 100% of SSG drove their own individual cars in to the office daily. One individual drives from as far as Clarkston. Nobody used the buses, only one employee walked, and nobody rode their bike. In a matter of a few months, Tina has made our office much more "green" in many ways... and this commuter experience is just one of those ways. Tina has been solely responsible for the efforts that SSG has put forth in this competition, and I believe, will have a lasting impact on SSG -- not just for this competition, but for months and years to come.
From Alana: Tina is committed to making our office greener all year round.
2008 nominees:
David Thomas
Research Associate, University of Michigan - ICPSR/ISR
Nominated by: Emily Merchant
David is a Super Commuter. He rides his bike to work five miles each way through most of the year and obeys all traffic laws. He has been encouraging his coworkers to bike to work since well before the Commuter Challenge started, and he organized our team for the Commuter Challenge. He also planned and carried out a bike outing for our office to further encourage people to ride. David is highly committed to sustainable commuting and is a very visible advocate for it at our office.
Training Consultant, Thomson Reuters
Nominated by: Katy Derezinski
Lowell bicycles to work every day, traveling eight miles roundtrip. That might not seem like a lot, but it's his consistency that's impressive. Lowell didn't wait for the Curb Your Car challenge to get started. He bicycles to work everyday, not matter what the season. When the weather is really bad (for Lowell that would be a tornado or blizzard), he takes the bus. Don't look for Lowell's carbon footprint. You won't find it!
Jason Young
Information Superhighway Tour Guide, Pure Visibility
Nominated by: Dunrie Greiling
Jason, Pure Visibility's Curb Your Car Month (CYCM) captain, really brought the spirit of CYCM to Pure Visibility. He cajoled, joshed, and wheedled us to take part--to become ambassadors, to log our commutes, and to spread the sustainable transportation vibe across the SE Michigan region. Jason had a friendly rivalry with our “am-bus-ador” Mike Beasley about whether biking or busing in is superior (I know that walking is, so I didn't interfere with their “discussions”...). Jason inspired us with stories (and photos!) of the conference bike from the bike to work rally and other CYCM events.
Best, Jason is already cooking up ways to spread the sustainable travel and networking love by thinking of even more ways for folks to gather downtown, meet each other, and not use vehicles. Specifically, he's working up a scheduled run/jog for local tech folks, kind of an active a2b3 minus the bi bim bap (b3) plus running shoes (weekly? monthly?).
I think I know why Jason loves running and biking so much. He's an accomplished cook and has a cool food blog (http://foodinthelibrary.com/) to show for it. He's gotta work off all that gourmet food somehow.
Jason is exceptionally creative, great at Wii Bowling, committed to sustainable transportation, and very enthusiastic about CYCM. He's Pure Visibility's sustainable transportation hero!
Laura Damschroder
Research Health Science Specialist, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare system Health Services Research and Development
Nominated by: Mary Hogan
Laura has a physical disability that limits her use of a regular bicycle. This month she brought our her bike that is powered and uses a rechargeable battery. This creates difficulties because the rechargeable battery is very heavy and needs to be brought into the office for charging during the day so that she can be sure to have enough power to get back home again. She had to figure out how she was going to manage this because carrying it into the office was not feasible. Her willingness to try to tackle bicycling to work, given the extra hassle involved was really inspiring. Congratulations to Laura for trying to work this out!
Mary Hogan
Research Health Science Specialist, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System Health Services Research
Nominated by: Angela Larkin
Mary has been an inspiration for me and others in the office to participate in this event and to try sustainable commuting options. She has sent emails notifying us of this program, provided brochures for the office, offered to help find bus routes for anyone wanting to try out the bus, and she has even come and picked me up so that we could try car pooling together. I often see Mary on the bus during my commute in, last week she was riding the bus in with her bike so that she could ride home. I understand that she has discontinued her parking permit at work to make a permanent effort at sustainable commuting. She has identified a program at the VA that will reimburse employees for the cost of a monthly pass, and has shared this information so that I can do the same. I am planning on canceling my parking permit at the end of this month as well.
Martha Kern-Boprie
Accountant, University of Michigan-Nephrology
Nominated by: Susan Keller
Martha and her husband decided to bike to work for the commuter challenge. She rides from Ypsilanti, 8 miles each way, I think. When the first few days were tough using her 30 year old bicycle, she bought herself a new bike and is very committed to the challenge. Although we have no shower or locker room at the office. She always manages to change and look professional after riding more than an hour in the morning. She has also encouraged many others in our department to sign up for the challenge and is very positive and enthusiastic about it. She really deserves to be recognized for her efforts.
Kelly O'Doherty
Project Architect, Angelini & Associates Architects
Nominated by: Theresa Angelini
Kelly believes in sustainable transportation and demonstrates this by riding the bus or riding her bike year-round. She's an enthusiastic supporter of the Commuter Challenge program and has signed us up every year. She causes all of us to think about this seriously and positively.
Joan Bulmer
Director of Financial Services, Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan
Nominated by: Shannon Tubb
Joan gave her car to her son and she takes the bus to work daily. She takes walks during the day for exercise and is an inspiration to keep me from using my car.
Dunrie Greiling
Director of Happiness, Pure Visibility, Inc.
Nominated by: Rebecca Siegel
Dunrie has earned the most points in our company. Throughout the past month, she has encouraged all of us to participate in the Commuter Challenge and we all benefited because of it.
Eva J. Patterson
Technologist, University of Michigan - Library Information Technology
Nominated by: Phillip Farber
Eva was highly motivated to succeed and proudly proclaimed that she *walked* 4 miles each way between work and home. and exceeded her goal of 15 points. This is an extraordinary commitment that deserves recognition.
Edgar Boettcher
Bicycle Mechanic, Two Wheel Tango
Nominated by: Jess Bratus
Although always dedicated to riding his bicycle, Edgar has taken on Curb Your Car Month with even more passion, enthusiasm, and dedication than usual. His spirit of "no cars, only bikes" is inspirational, as well as enlightening. He is militant about his commute but always with a positive attitude and never hesitates to tell his peers, co-workers, and customers about the many merits of riding your bike to work. His commute is a serious one, working on the west side of Ann Arbor near Zeeb road, and living in Dixboro. Edgar commutes year round, but with Curb Your Car Month, he has an awesome excuse to share his stories and inspire those not yet riding to make the switch. Thanks Edgar!!
Jeff Gaynor
Teacher, Ann Arbor Public Schools Clague Middle School
Nominated by: Bruce Geffen
Jeff has been commuting by bike for a number of years now about 7 miles one way. But this year is a bit different. He was undergoing treatment yet still maintained riding his bike as he normally would. He's the one who put our bike to work month team together and got us all signed up to come up with an alternative to just driving our cars in. Hat's off to Jeff and his efforts!
David Boprie
Senior Electronics Technician, University of Michigan, CoE-AOSS
Nominated by: Faye Ogasawara
Dave often rides his bike...even when it is cold and rainy. On days I've wimped out, I've seen him riding up the sidewalk to park his bike. It takes great commitment to do 15-20 miles a day, but somehow he has managed to do this for our commuter challenge...even going as much as 24 miles to bike to night class as well. I think Dave's enthusiasm is inspiring for many - on a recent day he shared his top speed of 30 mph and the joy of that made me wish I'd ridden my bike in that day!
Peter Klaver
Senior Engineer, LimnoTech
Nominated by: Carrie Turner
Peter goes from being a super-commuter to a superHUMAN-commuter during the winter when he rides up the 4-inch shoulder of State Road in snowy, blustery, 10 degree weather on his fixed gear bike. He has his helmet and ski goggles over his balaklava and while it looks miserable to us fair-weather commuters, it's also inspiring and challenging. Peter sets a great example for all of us in being undeterred by weather and for offering safe biking strategies through some treacherous sections of road between our office south of the A2 airport and downtown Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti, where most of us other bike commuters live. And he's been doing this for years, well before the commuter challenge or bike ambassador program started!
Pete Hines
ArborBlue
Nominated by: Elizabeth Tidd
Pete Hines does not work for our organization, but I know him through the getdowntown program. He has currently started a new business in telecommunications. Pete Hines has been commuting sometimes great distances in all kinds of weather for a long time. He demonstrates how to commute safely. He is known for his handmade super big lights on his bike that make him visible from a long ways off. He also wears a lot of reflective clothing in order to be seen. He is a certified League of American Bicyclists Instructor, so he is aware of the laws and how to ride safely and he freely shares that knowledge with others. He rides in all sorts of weather even to the extent of putting studded tires on his bike in the winter, so he can ride on the worst of days. I don't know a person that is more committed to commuting by bike than Pete Hines.
