FAQ
Who is organizing this?Why a bike ride?
What if I'm an inexperienced cyclist?
How will we get back home?
Will there be support vehicles?
Can I just ride for a section of the trip?
What route will we take to D.C.?
Sponsors
Regional Organizers
The Trek currently has organizers in 14 states and counting. No organizer in your immediate vicinity? Contact us and take up the charge!
JP Kemmick, Founder - Seattle, WA
JP is active with the Sierra Student Coalition, the Cascade Climate Network and a host of other organizations. He is a recent graduate of Pacific Lutheran University where he led a succesful campaign to purchase 100% renewable energy. He spent the summer after college cycling from Washington State to Maine and he's excited to do it again, with a lot more people.
Contact JP - jp@trektoreenergize.org
Sarah Judkins, Organizer - Seattle, WA
Sarah is taking a year off from Whitman College in eastern Washington, where she is majoring in environmental studies-biology and music performance, to organize the Trek. She currently works for the National Wildlife Federation organizing around Power Vote and Power Shift 2009. Sarah is also active with the Cascade Climate Network. She is excited to help energize and mobilize people all across the country to call for strong, real action on climate change. When not organizing, she can be found exploring the mountains, tossing a frisbee or playing violin.
Contact Sarah - s.judkins@trektoreenergize.org
Tia Dickson, Organizer - Portland, ME
Tia grew up in Gray, Maine and currently attends the University of Southern Maine as a sociology major and holistic health minor. She's been a biker at leisure since childhood, and has recently started biking longer distances to get ready for the trek. She's an enthusiastic vegan/foodie and is interested in food politics and sustainable agriculture. She's founded the Animal Rights Activist Team at her college and has worked to promote education and action on vegetarianism, fur, and animal testing issues. In her free time Tia enjoys cooking, gardening, traveling, foraging, and culture.
Contact Tia - t.dickson@trektoreenergize.org
David Pinsky, Organizer - Wilmington, NC
David is a psychology graduate student at UNC Wilmington. When not doing school work, David is devoted to stopping global warming. A main focus over the recent years has been to reduce his carbon footprint while educating others about the dire situation our planet currently faces. David is very involved with the campus environmental group, UNCW ECO, where he serves as treasurer/webmaster, and focuses on coalition building with other local and state environmental organizations. Three years ago, David converted to bicycles as his main form of in-town transportation. He is really stoked riding across the country for such a great cause!
Contact David - d.pinsky@trektoreenergize.org
Lucy Richards, Organizer - Durango, CO
Lucy grew up in Durango, Co, leaving only to spend her junior year of high school in Bangkok, Thailand. After Thailand, she moved to Duino, Italy to attend the United World College of the Adriatic, where she graduated in May 2008. She is now taking a year off before entering Middlebury College in Vermont. This September she rode her bike from Durango to Washington, DC to spread the word about the Trek. She is currently working for Greenpeace in DC and will return to Durango in April.
Contact Lucy - l.richards@trektoreenergize.org
Michaela Skiles, Organizer - Middlebury, VT
Michaela grew up in Portland, Oregon, and currently attends Middlebury College in Vermont. She'll be living in the environmental house this year and is currently working hard to plan a week-long symposium on food at the college. Her hobbies include crafts, cooking, rock climbing, snowboarding, and the occasional broken bone. In the fourth grade, she took a year off of school to travel around the world with her family by tandem bike, and that's when she discovered how fun and interesting bike touring can be.
Contact Michaela - m.skiles@trektoreenergize.org
Paul Baker, Organizer - Saint Charles, MO
Paul is a junior at Lindenwood University. He is studying Business Administration as well as Music Business. He currently volunteers at several NPOÕs in Missouri and is an active supporter of the arts. He has recently started adapting to having a car free lifestyle and is an avid cyclist. When not on the bike he can be found playing a vast array of music, trout fishing, camping, and doing photography.
Contact Paul - p.baker@trektoreenergize.org
Lyndsay McKeever, Organizer - Blacksburg, VA
Lyndsay is a sophomore at Virginia Tech. She was the Fundraising chair for a statewide Virginia Power Shift that took place this past fall. As both an organizer in her school's environmental club and triathlete on the Virginia Tech Triathlon team, Lyndsay knew the Trek to Re-Energize America was her jam. Lyndsay loves bikes and is probably unhealthily obsessed with road bikes and the riders that ride them. She is ecstatic and cannot wait until to trek across America with Cupid (her road bike). Lyndsay hopes to recruit a massive amount of cyclists, triathletes, friends and Virginians for the Trek. Since she is a Virginia Regional Organizer, and the Trek ends in DC, she aspires to mobilize the Greater Northern Virginia area where she grew up.
Contact Lyndsay - l.mckeever@trektoreenergize.org
Jolene Brink, Organizer - St. Joseph, MN
Jolene grew up with the snow and pine trees in Northern Minnesota. She'll graduate from the College of Saint Benedict with an English major this spring. Last August she took her first bike trip down the Lake Woebegone Trail with four girlfriends, two tents and a backpack full of fruit. Besides pedaling she likes poetry, baking bread, and canoe paddles. She's currently working with other students to raise $100,000 for a campus Green Fund, writing a book of poetry and throwing darts at the map of all the places she wants her bike to see - Washington D.C. here we come!
Contact Jolene - j.brink@trektoreenergize.org
Marci Baranski, Organizer - Lansing, MI
Marci is a biochemistry undergraduate at Michigan State University, recently returned from three months in Bangladesh where she gained a deep respect for bicycle rickshaw drivers. She organizes for the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition and is on the Student Environmental Action Coalition's National Council and considers herself an eco-feminist. Marci is proud to be from a pretty hardcore biking family, and they have biked across Michigan twice. After studying abroad, Marci's now excited to mobilize communities in the United States by bike!
Contact Marci - m.baranski@trektoreenergize.org
Joe Gorman, Organizer - Morgantown, WV
Joe is from Northern Virginia and attends West Virginia University where he is majoring in Sustainable Architecture, Sustainable Landscape Design and Appalachian Studies. Between schoolwork, singing, cooking and organizing, he keeps himself busy experimenting with different ways to solve the climate crisis, and is excited to be part of Trek to Re-Energize. He's looking forward to a summer filled with mountains, impromptu music, bicycles, grassroots organizing, waste vegetable oil and organic gardening.
Contact Joe - j.gorman@trektoreenergize.org
Mindy Preston, Organizer - Madison, WI
Mindy is an on-and-off student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has studied computer science, linguistics, and classics. She has been active in the local Hoofer Outing Club for some time, leading bike trips that garner disbelief when announced and envy when reported on. She also can be found paddling, cross-country skiing, hiking, or doing just about anything else outside. Mindy volunteers at a local organic farm and hopes to someday lead bike tours for a living, but for now she works as a Java programmer and web application developer. Mindy is excited to have meaningful conversations about climate change from her well-worn bicycle seat!
Contact Mindy - m.preston@trektoreenergize.org
Caroline Mannaerts, Organizer - New Brunswick, NJ
Caroline has been a member of NJPIRG's Campus Climate Challenge initiative since the spring and plans to continue spreading the word about the need for awareness and action concerning the environment on campus by promoting the Trek. She is part of the Rose City Runner's club in Madison, New Jersey and hopes to get them involved. In her free time, she likes to paint and write short stories. She has backpacked through Eastern Europe, studied abroad in France and hopes to soon visit friends who live there as well as visit her family in Belgium. She loves adventures and hopes to serve in the Peace Corps one day.
Contact Caroline - c.mannaerts@trektoreenergize.org
Pari Kemmick, Organizer - Missoula, MT
Pari is a freshman at the University of Montana, Missoula. She is currently studying Photojournalism and Political Science. Pari got environmentally involved in high school when she started the first environmental club in ten years at Billings Senior High. After graduating Pari attended the SSC's summer camp, SPROG, in the summer of 2008 and was QUICKLY inspired to take serious action on the environment. Now that she is attending the University of Montana she has become involved in the on campus group C.A.N. and has been loving every minute of it. She loves Missoula and the fact that her only means of transportation is her bright orange cruiser.
Contact Pari - p.kemmick@trektoreenergize.org
Kyle Duba, Webmaster, Organizer, Bike Shorts Model - Lander, WY
Kyle grew up in the Northwest and considers that home but has been quite transient of late. He graduated from PLU (Tacoma, WA) and went on to complete a graphic design internship with RMI, the research and consulting group founded by Amory Lovins (Boulder, CO). He took a break after that with a six week road trip hitting all four corners of the U.S. Next up is a video production internship with NOLS (Lander, WY). Kyle hopes to ride to D.C. on his 70's-era steel-frame Schwinn "Le Tour" which he got at a thrift store for $10. He enjoys long hikes in the woods, cuddling under a thick down blanket, and girls that bike.
Contact Kyle - k.duba@trektoreenergize.org
