Kevin is a born and raised Calgarian, who started riding bicycles in childhood. A passion for riding developed which morphed into riding dirtbikes in his teens. Dirt Bikes require a lot of maintenance. That led to a strong interest in mechanics. Many evenings were spent preparing his dirt bike for the weekend's riding.
Kevin earned a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Calgary but found teaching in the school system not to his liking. Instead a journey through many different jobs began. Those included construction work, working in group homes, running programs for the City of Calgary Parks and Recreation department and eventually managing instructor training for the Red Cross First Aid Services.
The Red Cross job came about as an indirect result of training, as a volunteer, to provide spectator first aid during the 1988 Winter Olympics.
The Red Cross went through some hard times that resulted in lay-offs. The day Kevin was laid off, he contacted a friend who told Kevin to look into working with computers. That led to going back to school at SAIT to earn a computer technology diploma.
Kevin then started a career as an IT support person in the oil and gas industry. After a few years, bicycle commuting became a part of working in oil and gas. Kevin may be the only person to start bike commuting in winter.
Kevin began mountain biking as a way of training for riding dirt bikes but then discovered that it was far more economical to ride a bike without a motor. Mountain biking became a passion. Kevin began racing mountain bikes. The 24 Hours of Adrenalin race got Kevin hooked on endurance mountain bike racing. He raced that one particular race seventeen times. Racing mountain bikes requires a great deal of maintenance and Kevin taught himself to be a bicycle mechanic, using skills first learned from working on dirt bikes.
After 23 years in oil and gas, the industry decided that Kevin needed to retire. Looking for something to do and being too young to actually retire, Kevin started volunteering at Two Wheel View. An opportunity came up to work as a program facilitator. That allowed combining a love of bikes with an underlying desire to teach.
Kevin is now the Workshop Lead at Two Wheel View.
TWV Team Member
