(Photo © Jonathan Maus)
The Oregon Bicycle Racing Association (OBRA) has just announced major leadership changes.
The OBRA Board of Directors has named T. Kenji Sugahara as the Assistant Director with the intention that he will advance to the Executive Director role within the next twelve months.
Current Executive Director Candi Murray — a recent inductee to the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame who announced her plans to retire last October — made the announcement.
In a press release sent out this afternoon, Murray said, “Kenji has a really good grasp of racing and understands the challenges of the position…We are excited to have an individual with his qualifications to help run OBRA.”
The announcement comes after former OBRA official, volunteer, and race director Sal Collura announced that he was fired by the organization in a cryptic email to the OBRA email list. Collura has declined to comment further on that situation.
Sugahara, 34, is currently the chair of the Oregon Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and runs the “Racing with K-Man” blog.
OBRA currently has over 3,000 annual members and is the driving force behind Oregon’s superlative racing scene which has the highest number of racers per capita in the United States and is second only to California in the number of annual racing events.