Green Wheels is a non-profit organization complete with an Advisory Board of top-notch community members. Ever wonder about them—our Board? Well, we have an amazing group of folks who volunteer their time, minds, and energy to guide us here at Green Wheels. And in this issue we’re pleased to introduce to you Melanie Williams and Bob Ornelas, two of our stellar Advisory Board members.

Melanie Williams

Melanie Williams has been a Green Wheels supporter from the beginning—since 2003 when the organization began as an HSU club, and she’s been on our Advisory Board since it convened July 27, 2007. A political scientist by training, Williams taught at HSU for 18 years prior to becoming a Senior Planner within the Redwood Community Action Agency; she also serves on the board of Food for People, the food bank for Humboldt County. Williams, a lifelong cyclist can’t remember when she’s “ever not had a bike.” For her cycling is a state of being; whether she’s commuting from her home in Arcata to her day job at RCAA or spinning through the French country side, Williams is a genuine bicycle enthusiast.

JJ: Why were you interested in becoming a board member with Green Wheels?

MW: I really wanted to work with this great group of bright, commited, fun individuals to establish non-profit status for Green Wheels under the North Coast Environmental Center. As an organization separate from the HSU chapter, we are better able to address community transportation issues beyond the campus and ideally throughout Humboldt County. We also focus more on local policy issues and serve a broader cross section of the community; Green transportation is imperative.

JJ: Does your work with RCAA overlap with the mission and focus of Green Wheels?

MW: Being an advisory board member fits my day job and lifestyle. “Active living by design not privilege” is an ideal I promote through my work at RCAA and am most interested in making sure community policies are made with green transportation in mind.

JJ: What do you see as the most important policy issues for Green Wheels?

MW: Influencing the general plan, so that future land use includes safe walking and biking, is crucial. Development must take into consideration bikes and pedestrians. And of course, influencing the next generation of cyclists so that kids today become the riders—not drivers—of tomorrow.

JJ: What’s your favorite ride in Humboldt County?

MW: That’s got to be the ride from Arcata to Patricks Point through the bottoms and along the Hammond Trail. It’s 50 miles roundtrip and it’s great. I often stop at the Beachcomber in Trinidad for coffee and a chat with bike tourists riding the Pacific Coast trail.

Bob Ornelas

As of June 15th, Bob Ornelas has biked 3500 miles so far this year —roughly three times as many as he’s driven to work in 2008. Bob Ornelas loves biking, and according to him “being on the Advisory Board of Green Wheels is one way to express that love and promote my beliefs about advancing sustainable transportation in our communities.” Between 1999- 2004, Ornelas served as Arcata’s representative on HCAOG, Humboldt County’s regional transportation board. He was known as a bit of an alternative transportation fanatic, frequently asserting that far too many resources were going toward individual car use and that opportunities for increasing other forms of transportation were being lost. One such loss was the County’s failure to advance the Annie and Mary Rail Trail which was a keen frustration for Ornelas who found himself increasingly upset with Supervisors who ignored public opinion regarding the future of recreation and transportation in Humboldt County. As Ornelas puts it, “I constantly challenged my HCOAG fellows to think outside of the car!”

Growing up, Ornelas was fascinated by wheels, preferring to roll, glide, and bounce over dirt and pavement as opposed to chasing balls or playing other sports. At age 12 he rescued his first bike from a burn pile on an uncle’s farm and forged a fifteen year friendship with that Raleigh single speed. Over the years, Ornelas has bought, built, and sold at least a hundred bikes and has owned, rode, and raced nearly two dozen motorcycles. And now, at age 55, he is as much as ever appreciative of the phenomenal rewards that biking and the natural world have to offer. “I cannot stress enough how magical it is to coast and breathe the air and look around me,” says Ornelas, “most of my adult goals are somehow connected with having more time to bike and cover great distances.” Once an avid runner, Ornelas has now “resigned myself to roads and trails to the pursuit of popularizing bikes and walking and building more pathways between them.”

He recently completed a bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Says Ornelas, “My health and happiness are directly tied to the biking and walking I have done and plan to do. My goal as an Advisory Board member is to promote all other transportation modes other than single individual car use.”