The non-profit Community Cycling Center has announced that Mychal Tetteh will be their new CEO. Tetteh takes over from former executive director Alison Graves, who left the organization back in March.
Tetteh is a familiar face in the community and at the Community Cycling Center. He worked at the CCC for six years from 2005 to 2011, rising to the position of Director of Shop Operations before leaving for a job at the non-profit Village Market in the New Columbia neighborhood. Tetteh is currently the Executive Director of the Major Taylor Cycling Club of Portland, a non-profit that promotes bicycling among African-American communities across the region.
In a statement released this morning, CCC Board Chair Kathryn Sofich said Tetteh can “hit the ground running,” because, “he already has established relationships with our partners and a deep understanding of the issues they face as it relates to bicycling, equity, health, and more, ensuring that our work remains relevant to these communities in the future.”
With his background, Tetteh is poised to continue the CCC’s work of understanding — and overcoming — the barriers that prevent many people in our community from bicycling. “I want the Community Cycling Center to be on the leading edge of the cultural evolution of bicycling in the United States,” said Tetteh.
CCC Executive Director Susan
Remmers in 2006.
(Photo © J. Maus/BikePortland)
Tetteh has been an active participant in bicycle advocacy in Portland for several years. In August 2006 as a CCC employee, Tetteh helped oversee the shipment of 450 donated bikes to the African nation of Ghana, which also happens to be where his father is from. In March 2011, he sat on a panel at the Oregon Active Transportation Summit that examined the intersection between mobility, race, and health. “We’ve found that barriers to cycling are culturally specific,” Tetteh said during that panel, “and we in turn have had to tailor custom solutions to encourage these populations to bike.”
You might recall Tetteh as one of the speakers at the Community Forum for the Williams project hosted by the City back in November 2011. He was also one of the nine people added to the Williams project Stakeholder Advisory Committee after the City expanded the group based on concerns about its lack of ethnic diversity.
Tetteh’s first day will be September 16th and there are plans in the works for a community welcoming celebration.