Board of Trustees elects four new members

At its fall meeting in Philadelphia, the East Coast Greenway Alliance Board of Trustees elected four new members recommended by the Nominating Committee. The four begin their three-year terms on January 1, 2018.

Meet our newest trustees

Andy Clarke serves on the East Coast Greenway Alliance Advisory Board. He brings three decades of experience promoting active transportation and livable communities as a consultant, trainer, advocate, and policy analyst, including serving for many years as president and CEO of the League of American Bicyclists. Andy helped create and implement the League’s Bicycle Friendly Community program. He also wrote several case studies for the National Bicycling and Walking Study, and served as chair of the Transportation Research Board Committee on Bicycle Transportation. He lives outside of Washington, D.C.

Sarah Hreha is executive director of the nonprofit Gruber Foundation in New Haven, Connecticut. Her nonprofit leadership experience includes board management, mission stewardship, strategic communications and public relations, and VIP event planning. Sarah is an avid cyclist and a founding member of Citi Bike. She’s also a world traveler, author, and lover of languages.

Iona Thomas, AICP, is a planner specializing in bicycle and pedestrian planning and design. Working in the Triangle region of North Carolina, she has successfully developed, executed, and monitored strategic plans, built and led diverse teams, and created consensus through respectful facilitation. Iona chairs the North Carolina Committee for the Greenway and was co-director of our highly successful Southeast Greenways & Trails Summit in Durham in early October. She lives in Durham, N.C.

Dick Woodbury, PhD, is an economist and former state representative and senator from Yarmouth, Maine.  He taught economics at his alma mater, Harvard University, and served as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He is a weekly commentator on Maine Public Radio’s “Across the Aisle” program and serves on a number of advisory boards focused on strengthening Maine’s economy.

Five trustees re-elected to three-year terms

In addition to electing four new members, the trustees elected current members Tom Kaiden, Anne Maleady, Brandon Douglass, Atiba Mbiwan, and Larry Silver to new three-year terms. Read about the trustees (scroll down past staff listings and click on board member photos to read their bios).

Meet Atiba Mbiwan, elected to board in July

Atiba Mbiwan joined the East Coast Greenway Alliance Board of Trustees in July. He serves as associate director of the Zeist Foundation, a family foundation based in Atlanta that supports nonprofits serving children, youth, and families in Georgia. Atiba serves on the governing board of Community Farmers Markets and the Grant Park Conservancy in Atlanta, as well as on the advisory board of the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, S.C. He dedicates most of his civic time to the Bike Ride Across Georgia Dream Team, a youth cycling program with clubs across the state of Georgia.

Atiba says he fell in love with the East Coast Greenway Alliance in 2015 after co-leading the BRAG Dream Team, in tandem with the Spoke’n Revolutions youth cycling program, on a youth bike tour along the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor from North Carolina to Florida. He recently served as a core rider on the East Coast River Relay and served as a featured speaker at our recent Southeast Greenways & Trails Summit.