Board Chair

Roger Schwed was born, raised and still lives in, New York City on the Upper West Side. He is currently Executive Vice President and General Counsel of United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI), the largest equipment rental company in the world, with almost 700 locations in North America and approximately 12,000 employees. Prior to United Rentals, Roger was for nine years the General Counsel of Maxcor Financial Group Inc. (Nasdaq: MAXF), an international financial services company whose principal business line was inter-dealer brokerage conducted through its various Euro Brokers affiliates in New York, London and Tokyo. Prior to Maxcor, Roger was M&A Counsel at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom in New York and an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. Roger graduated from Columbia University Law School, where he was an Editor of the Law Review and a Kent Scholar. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the New York Foundation. Roger has had a lifelong love affair with cycling, and has regularly commuted to work by bicycling and participated in “centuries" and other bike rides. He is also a pretty decent bike mechanic. In addition, he works regularly with children in his capacity as a head coach for many years of his two sons’ various teams in West Side Little League, Safe Haven Basketball and West Side Soccer.

Secretary and Treasurer

Peyton Williams has a background in both education and nonprofit fundraising. After graduating from Washington and Lee University, Peyton taught for four years at private schools in both Switzerland and Virginia. In 2002, Peyton moved to New York City and joined with a small team of educators to establish the Academy for Careers in Sports, an alternative public high school in the South Bronx developed under the guidance of New Visions for Public Schools. Peyton now works as a Project Manager in charge of fundraising at Take the Field, a nonprofit organization that is rebuilding New York City public school athletic facilities. In three years, this organization has raised over $120 million and rebuilt 37 public school athletic facilities throughout the five boroughs. Peyton, a former co-captain of his college football team, is an avid sportsman. His love of biking began in 1994 following a 10-day 700-mile father-son bike trip from Richmond, Virginia to Toronto, Canada. For five summers from 1998 to 2002, he led various hiking expeditions as a counselor at Camp Pasquaney, the oldest continually running camp in the United States. Peyton served on the Pasquaney board from 1999-2002.

Members

James “Miguel” Pierce has a background in the health sciences and has worked in the biopharmaceutical industry for more than 8 years. He is currently a Global Partnering Manager with ClinPhone, a UK based Clinical Technology Organization, where his primary responsibility is to identify new strategic alliance opportunities from licensing in and/or development with external partners globally.   Prior to taking this position, James worked for 3 different bio-pharmaceutical companies in varying capacities within Medical and Clinical Affairs. In these positions his responsibilities included serving as a liaison for all therapeutic area clinical research, providing scientific advice/consultation in the design of investigator initiated clinical trials, and overseeing all corporate communication regarding the monitoring and management of these studies. James has a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College, master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is completing a Psychiatric Epidemiology Fellowship at Columbia University.   James is on the board for New York Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. James is also an avid sports fan and works out regularly.

Honorary Board Member

Nelson Vails.  As a teenager, Nelson trained with the Century Cycling Association, a local cycling club in Manhattan. He fed his competitive spirit on Saturday mornings by participating in races sponsored by the club in Central Park. By the time he reached high school, Nelson had successfully combined his love of cycling with a well-paying job. Working after school and full-time in the summer, he earned recognition as an efficient and reliable bike messenger for New York's Cycle Service Center. "I did well," Nelson muses. "I was willing to work even on the rainy days."

At the same time, Nelson found himself immersed in the fast-paced world of national, and ultimately international, cycling competition. After being invited to participate in a cycling development program in Colorado Springs in 1981, he made the U.S. Cycling Team. He and his teammates were among the first competitive U.S. cyclists to train in the Soviet Union, at the height of the Cold War.