Becky Afonso, Executive Director of the Florida Bicycle Association, will talk about Educating Your Delegate. To improve cycling safety, it is important that we keep in regular communication with our elected officials.
Becky is a native Floridian from the Tampa Bay area and has favored bicycle commuting since her grade school days in Clearwater. Her interest in road and off-road riding evolved in the late 1990s, becoming a member of the Suwannee Bicycle Association, SWAMP and a charter member of the Suncoast Cycling Club. She served on each club’s board and within all three took on additional duties as social director, newsletter editor, List-Serve Moderator, volunteer coordinator, and event director.
Becky holds a degree in Mass Communications from Loyola University in New Orleans, specializing in television news directing – an intense skill set of time-management and multi-tasking that does not allow for “dead air”. These skills, however, were put to test with the family coffee distribution company after graduation, allowing Becky to travel the Caribbean as the southeast operations manager.
Becky has over 20 years of cycling experience in project management, route logistics, and marketing via her involvement with aforementioned clubs, Sun Cycle Center of Tavares, Bike Wisconsin, Florida Bicycle Association and Bike Florida. She has taken the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) Effective Cycling course, is a LAB League Cycling Instructor and is a graduate of CyclingSavvy and Teaching Safe Cycling from Wisconsin Department of Transportation. In 2015, Becky was appointed to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Florida Greenways and Trails Council.
Known as the “Coffee Lady” at the July Michigander and the November BubbaFest Florida Keys bicycle tours, Becky continues to bicycle commute locally in Oldsmar, averaging 1500 miles a year and serves on the City of Oldsmar Leisure Services Advisory Committee.