Parry was in charge of the effort to make the DNC convention here in Denver in 2008 as green as possible. She'd drawn together a large committee, and was working with them in the initial stages of the effort to identify possible projects. "My approach to management is to get good people and then provide a structure where they can share," she told us. One day she got an email from one of the committee members that just said, "bike sharing," and that was the light-bulb moment.
1000 bikes were donated, along with enough staff to ride herd on them and keep statistics. At the end of the DNC convention there was about $4 million left over, and the bikes were such a hit that Mayor Hickenlooper and others decided that $1 million of it should be used to launch a Denver bike sharing program.
Andy Duvall and Parry met each other at about that time through a local bicycle enthusiast group. Andy was doing a PhD dissertation at University of Colorado Denver on bike sharing, and had proposed a project he figured would have to be done in another city. He was delighted to find the project here in Denver, where he could apply what he'd learned visiting bike sharing programs around the world.
Andy had gone back to graduate school after being in the Peace Corp for two years and a 10 year career as a business executive. While doing his Master in urban planning he connected with one of his professors as a mentor who alerted him to a National Science Foundation grant on a Friday that had a deadline the following Tuesday.
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