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Meet HUB Cycling's New Board of Directors!
HUB Cycling held its 26th Annual General Meeting last night on September 21st, 2023.
HUB members joined virtually and in person to get an annual update from HUB's Executive Director, Erin O'Melinn, and President, Jeff Leigh.
Guest speakers Dr. Alex Choi and Megan Oakey both gave inspirational speeches about the importance of cycling in healthy communities.
HUB's Regional Advisory Committee and Local Committees also shared updates on the advocacy work they have been involved in for the past year. Outgoing board Treasurer Matt Alexander presented the financial update from the last fiscal year.
At the AGM, HUB members elected six new directors of the board, presented below.
Alexandra Flynn
Alexandra Flynn is a law professor at UBC and a mom of two teenagers.
Alexandra's work focuses on municipal law and governance, including Indigenous-municipal legal relationships. She is an avid cyclist for transportation, sport, and pleasure, including taking a 6-month cycling trip in Europe and Southeast Asia with her family.
Alexandra has a long history of volunteer and board experience and hopes to contribute to making cycling safe and possible for all.
Luke Gillies
Riding doesn’t have to require special clothing or the best bike, but for most people (including me), it requires safety and convenience. I believe that cycling should be accessible to people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities, providing a transportation option that is cheap, fun, and safe for everyone. I’m Luke Gillies and I believe in creating accessible and inclusive active transportation.
I’m a professional municipal civil engineer with over a decade of managerial experience both here and abroad. I have four years of community board experience and volunteer as an adaptive ski instructor, helping people with disabilities access winter sports on Vancouver’s North Shore Mountains. Professionally, I’ve delivered a wide range of municipal projects, many with bikes in mind, and have overseen the maintenance and operations of bicycle infrastructure. I’ve advocated for the benefits of bike infrastructure projects and maintenance to a wide range of stakeholders, including City Councilors. For my Masters of Engineering Management thesis, I researched the user experience of cycling infrastructure on the North Shore.
I understand what it takes to design, fund, build, and use good bike infrastructure. Vote for me to give everyone the chance to ride safely.
Caitlyn Hydelund
Hello! A few words about me - I am a Canadian-Danish citizen who has spent the last 30 years living in Denmark and Russia, where I worked and raised my children – and taught them how to cycle responsibly in and around our cities.
As a Dane, I see cycling - whether city cycling, sport cycling, or as an alternative to car ownership - all of these I perceive as normal, organic, and sustainable. I have yet to see this framework in Vancouver and believe that there is work yet to be done to create safe and logical bike pathways, to cultivate mutual respect inside the road framework for bikes, cars, and bus transportation - including the responsibility of cyclists to be co-participants in traffic.
The "bike wheel" of safe and integrated cycle transportation is already invented and can also work here.
The HUB Board is particularly looking for applicants with leadership insights. I have worked in leadership roles for the past decade, where I have led supply chain projects and business development initiatives, including tough international scenarios with limited funding and complex frameworks. I am collaborative and goal-oriented and believe that my Danish experience can help HUB achieve its goals. Thank you!
Esther Holobuwich
I have been a biking enthusiast for 35 years. While living in Kelowna, I would commute on my Walmart bike to and from my accounting job, during winter and summer. In winter, I would get home some days and say, whew, I made it. There was no safe cycling infrastructure, just painted lines. But even with that, I was grateful that my employers supplied a safe bike lockup area, showers, and lockers. It was rare (and still is). When teaching my two daughters to ride, I was nervous. I had seen a lot. It was about constant vigilance, not freedom and fun, which it should be.
I bring to this board years of accounting and bookkeeping experience, experience on two boards, strong communication skills, and a desire to work with an organization that I support and appreciate. Advocating for safe mobility routes for all is important and necessary.
Anne Murray
I’m excited at the prospect of bringing my 30 years of strategic leadership to HUB's Board. I love to bike for fun, commuting, and travel, and want to ensure these opportunities are available and comfortable for all. As a seasoned executive and board director, I’m passionate about driving success through sustainability. My Vice President responsibilities at Vancouver Airport Authority (YVR) spanned diverse areas including marketing, community, environment, government advocacy, and first nation relations over 20 years. While at YVR, I built respectful, deep, and personal relations with Musqueam leading to a historic 30-year Sustainability and Friendship Agreement. I have served as board director on YVR Art Foundation (an indigenous-focused not-for-profit), Georgia Strait Alliance, and Richmond Hospital Foundation and recently attained my Institute of Corporate Directors ICD.D designation, Canada’s highest board governance credential. Since retiring from YVR in 2020, I volunteer as a business advisor to indigenous organizations and provide strategic consulting services in tourism, aviation, and sustainability. I’ve been an active HUB member for decades and recently mentored a refugee family and a new immigrant through HUB’s newcomer program. I would be honored to bring my optimistic, ethical leadership; sound judgment; and personal commitment to the HUB Board.
Mairin Shields-Brown
Mairin is a passionate changemaker and avid road cyclist based in Vancouver. From her upbringing on northern Vancouver Island to her studies in Resource Management at Simon Fraser University, she carries with her a deep sense of respect for our home planet and all that is necessary for us to steward a regenerative, just, and equitable economy. Mairin is an Impact Strategy Consultant at Decade Impact, a boutique, women-owned impact consulting firm in Vancouver. She finds joy and excitement in her work helping purpose-driven organizations define, measure, manage, and communicate their social and environmental impact on the world. With several years of experience in the sustainability consulting space, Mairin is skilled in policy development and advocacy, as well as team management, leadership, and facilitation. As a daily bike commuter and keen cyclist for the last 6 years, Mairin’s familiarity and lived experience with Metro Vancouver’s cycling infrastructure have inspired her to join HUB as a Board Director.
She believes that cycling plays an invaluable role in fostering thriving and accessible communities. Mairin hopes to help advance HUB’s policy advocacy work in service of removing barriers to cycling and support HUB’s collaboration with government bodies and other values-aligned organizations.
If you missed the AGM, a recording will be uploaded to HUB Cycling's YouTube channel soon. More information, including meeting documents, the annual financial statement, the Annual Report, Erin's PowerPoint presentation, and meeting minutes, is available here.
We'd love to hear your feedback if you did attend the AGM! What could we do next year to make the AGM better? Let us know.
Help us make a lasting impact by advocating for a safer and more connected cycling network for people of all ages and abilities by becoming a Lifetime Member of HUB Cycling for as low as $10.
The more members we have, the stronger our voice is when we advocate for better biking across Metro Vancouver.