Tami Bensky has a very personal interest in bike safety and advocacy in Maryland.  She is the widow of Larry Bensky, an avid cyclist who was struck and killed in April 2010 while riding his bike in Baltimore County.  An instant advocate, Tami used her knowledge of the legislative process to go to Annapolis merely six days after Larry’s collision to successfully lobby for the passage of the 3 Foot Law.  Tami continued advocating for bike safety legislation in 2011, offering emotional testimony in favor of the Criminal Negligence bill, a law that took effect in October 2011.  In addition to supporting Bike Maryland’s efforts in Annapolis, Tami has led the effort to organize Larry’s Ride, a Bike Maryland fundraiser held in Baltimore County.  This cycling event attracts participants at every level of ability and has raised nearly $50,000 in just two years.  A mother of two young girls, Tami Bensky has also designed L7 Apparel, a line of athletic clothing to honor Larry’s life and raise money for cycling advocacy in Maryland.

Bruce Cohen is a software engineer, road cyclist and bike commuter.  He is a native Marylander  who can be frequently seen cycling the roads of Howard and nearby counties.

Bruce holds a BS degree in Computer Science from Lafayette College and an MS degree in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University.  He lives with his very understanding wife and three children in Clarksville MD.

Joe Lynagh
Bike Maryland President
Portfolio Manager, T. Rowe Price

Joe Lynagh works as portfolio manager within the fixed income division at T.Rowe Price. Joe grew up in the Baltimore area and now makes his home in Baltimore County. Joe regularly rides in the county and occasionally bike commutes to downtown Baltimore. His hope is for a safer, more robust bicycle community in Maryland.

Alex Obriecht
Owner Race Pace Bicycles and Bella Bikes

Alex began his bicycle business right after graduation from college, in 1978. His business has continued to grow through the years and it now includes six Race Pace locations as well as Bella Bikes, the first women's bicycle store in the U.S. Alex enjoys both mountain and road riding as well as multi-week self-supported tours around the globe. His most recent trip was 4 weeks of riding in Patagonia. His wife and three adult children are all cyclists. His interests are - the economic impact of the retail bicycle trade, successful and unique ways to integrate the bicycle into the transportation system, and how sophisticated planning and implementation of the bicycle travel network in Maryland yields a healthier, fitter population, a region which will attract more active residents, a tourist draw for those outside the area, and a network of commuter routes resulting in many benefits to all involved.

Michael Sonnenfeld
Bike Maryland Secretary

Michael is an avid cyclist in the rural environs of Northern Baltimore, Carroll and Harford Counties, and believes preservation of agricultural and rural land and open space creates significant benefits for all of Maryland’s citizens (and cyclists). He is an attorney and has spent over 25 years working in the residential mortgage and mortgage-backed securities industries, including founding Fieldstone Mortgage Company in 1995 and serving as the first President of Saxon Mortgage Funding Corporation prior to that. He is a cancer survivor and has participated since 2003 in the Pan Mass Challenge, an annual bike-a-thon that is the largest athletic fund raising event in the world and that has raised over $300 million since 1980 to fund advances in cancer research and treatment at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA. 

Cindy Woods
W.L, Gore & Associates, Sales/Marketing

Cindy is an avid road cyclist and mountain biker, and a real proponent of the bicycle as a means of travel, whether it be riding across the country or to the farmers market to buy organic veggies! Living in the Fair Hill area, she is able to take advantage of beautiful country roads and trails, but also has first hand experience of the hazards of sharing roads with cars. She considers herself very fortunate to be able to combine her passion for cycling with her work as a sales and marketing associate for GORE BIKE WEAR (tm). Cindy's main focus is to help educate drivers about sharing the road with cyclists and to ensure Maryland roads and trails are accessible and safe for all to enjoy.

Tom Blanks has lived in Towson with his wife and three children for nearly five years. Prior to his move to Baltimore, Tom lived in Houston, Texas, where his drive to and from the suburbs was often a miserable experience. Upon moving, Tom was determined to find a living situation that would no longer require him sit through hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic. He had two goals in mind while house-hunting in the area; his new home needed to be near his Inner Harbor office, and it needed to be in a good school district for his children. The Rodgers Forge neighborhood in Towson fit the bill perfectly. Initially, his intention was to ride his bike to work a few days per week. However, he now bike commutes exclusively, tallying over 3000 miles each year. Tom’s primary goal is to educate others on the logistics of bike commuting year-round.

Greg Cantori
Bike Maryland President Emeritus

Greg recently completed 100,000 bicycle-commuting miles! He and his wife Renee have taken many 'human powered' vacations on their tandem that included Holland, France, England and Scotland. As a teenager, Greg used his three-speed 'English Racer' to explore many parts of Cairo, Egypt while living there for two years. Back in the USA, he witnessed the gas lines and frustration of the 1974 gas crises from his bicycle. His dad didn't get a driver’s license until into his fifties, preferring to spend that precious time reading and writing on buses, trains and while carpooling. Greg believes deeply that like all tools, cars are great for certain trips and that bicycling, walking and mass transit are better for many others. He lives in Pasadena, Maryland with his wife, two teenage daughters and dog Cosmo.

Dave Love, PhD
Project Director at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and on the faculty at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Love is a microbiologist by training and studies the connections between food, farming, health, and the environment.  He just completed a study of motor vehicle passing distance of bike commuters. Dave is bike advocate and bike commuter in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Richard Neuman
Bicycle Ambassador

Dick is a retired civil servant and an avid road cyclist. He has cycled in Scotland, New Zealand, Germany, France and Italy. He has also pedaled from Maine to Florida, from Seattle to San Diego, and six times across the U.S. from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The best part of Dick’s cycling experiences is the people he has met, some of whom have become wonderful friends and one of them a very special friend –his wife. Dick has served as a volunteer with the League of American Bicyclists, Habitat for Humanity, the Maryland Commission on Human Relations, and currently he serves as a mediator with the Consumer Protection Division in the Office of the Maryland Attorney General. With Bike Maryland Dick will focus on insuring that the needs of cyclists are not ignored during the design, construction and maintenance of Maryland’s roadways.

Gorden Peltz

Gordon resides in Baltimore and is a Baltimore Bicycle Club Hall of Fame Member and an active League Certified Instructor who leads the BBC Instructional Ride Program Series. Gordon has been involved in bicycle education matters for many years. He also is involved in the Tour du Port route development.

Stu Sirota
AICP Principal, TND Planning Group

Stu is the founding principal of TND Planning Group, a consulting firm specializing in the integration of sustainable transportation and land use. He helps communities become more pedestrian-, bicycle-, and transit-friendly through development of innovative designs and implementation strategies. Stu derives his greatest professional satisfaction from creating appealing choices and places that reduce dependence on cars. He has been recognized for his leadership in advancing progressive approaches and education towards walkable communities, transit oriented development (TOD), “Complete Streets”, and Safe Routes to Schools. He is also the founder of EnvisionBaltimore, a grassroots network of urban livability advocates that foster dialog and awareness about built environment and transportation issues in the Baltimore region.

Heather Strassberger is the Bicycle, Pedestrian, and Human Services Transportation Planner at Baltimore Metropolitan Council. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals and holds a Master of City and Regional Planning from Rutgers University and a Bachelor of Arts from UMBC. Her professional interests include transportation and land use integration; environmental justice; providing safe, accessible, healthy, and sustainable transportation options for all travelers; and enhancing research and data collection about pedestrian and bicycle travel. Prior to joining BMC, Heather was a transportation planner for Land-of-Sky Regional Council in Asheville, NC and served as treasurer of the North Carolina Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations. She returned to her native Baltimore in 2011 and now enjoys a short but scenic daily bike commute around the Inner Harbor.

Chris lives in Columbia and generally rides with the Baltimore Bicycling Club, Glenelg Gang, and HoCoCyclists. Chris is on the Board of Bicycling Advocates of Howard County (BAHC) and is a member of the Sunrise Rotary Club of Ellicott City. He chaired the Columbia Association's Active Transportation Agenda Task Force and currently serves as BAHC's representative on the Technical Advisory Group for the Howard County Bicycle Master Plan. Chris is a newly minted League Cycling Instructor and has taught BAHC's annual Road Bike 101 course for the past few years. Chris is a lawyer focusing on business, corporate and commercial transactions.