Bikes have to be one of the most versatile inventions of all time. They’re transportation, entertainment, and exercise all in one. You can even rig one to turn human power into electricity if you really want. They may have been around for a long time, but they’re still a surprisingly good solution to many of our society’s problems. That’s why the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition was started to promote the bicycle for everyday use. They’re a San Jose, CA based non-profit that is working to “to create a healthy community, environment, and economy through bicycling for people who live, work, or play in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties.”
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One of my cooler life experiences was being picked up by a friend after landing at the airport in El Salvador. Instead of driving to the airport, he flew there. We hopped in his plane and took a tour of the country at a few thousand feet. Then we landed at another airport and drove to his house (it was almost as long a drive as it would have been from the original airport). While most of think of people who “have a plane” as billionaires with private jets, the reality is that a lot of normal people have and fly plaines. That’s why the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has hundreds of thousands of members. It’s a Frederick, MD based non-profit that “is the largest, most influential general aviation association in the world.” The organization acts as a “beacon for those who cherish the freedom to fly.”
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I grew up about 45 miles outside of New York City. While my parents always worked within five minutes of our house, a lot of my friends’ parents commuted in to the city. Most took the train, but some drove, and one occasionally used a helicopter. It’s hard to move millions of people in and out of the city on a daily basis without cars, but not everybody has helicopters. The Tri-State Transportation Campaign is a New York, NY based “non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to reducing car dependency in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.” They have a tough job, but they’ve already been at for more than 20 years.
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I am an outdoorsman. I fish, I hunt, and try to spend as much time in the wilderness as I can. Ok, that’s not completely true. I tend to stay in hotels/motels on my fishing trips, but I know a lot of people prefer to camp on those kinds of trips. It always seemed to me like a lot of work and equipment for a little more time outdoors; however, for many camping is the main event. In my mind that means sleeping in a tent, but I guess it can also mean sleeping in an RV. The people who prefer the latter definition are likely customers of Camping World. The Bowling Green, KY based company is “the camping and recreational vehicle enthusiast’s one-stop-shop for everything they need to enjoy living in and traveling in their RV.” Camping may be in the name, but it seems to be all about the RV lifestyle.
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We can all agree… that we can all agree on some things sometimes–even when it comes to politics. I tend to like when the disagreement between the two parties locks things up because it means that the government won’t be able to break anything else; however, I understand that occasionally we need our government to actually accomplish something. The Bipartisan Policy Center is a Washington, DC based non-profit that encourages the two parties to work together on important issues where ideological differences can be worked through. The organization was “founded in 2007 by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell,” so it truly is a bipartisan effort.
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My New Year’s Eve has been the same for the past 9 years. I’ve never celebrated in a big city, but from what I hear, it’s awesome… until you realize it’s 2 AM, 12 degrees, and you’re a long way from your nice warm bed. You made the smart decision to leave your car at home, but now what? Everybody in the city is trying to get home at the same time, and every cab that drives seems to be full. You’ll probably die of hypothermia before you can hail a cab, so you might as well use an app to find a ride. Uber can get you a black car or a cab, but their “surge pricing” will make it hurt. If there’s a time to try Lyft, it’s tonight (though Lyft has its own surge pricing called “Prime Time Tips”). They are a San Francisco, CA based company that offers “on-demand ridesharing” in nearly 20 cities across the country. They call it “your friend with a car.”
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Over the past six months baby blue bikes have been popping up all over Chicago. As a driver, they’re a bit scary because many of the riders seem unsure of themselves on two wheels, but it’s an overall good thing for the city. The bikes are part of the Divvy Bikes bike sharing system. The program seems to be a huge success so far, and I’m hearing the same thing about similar programs in other cities. The company behind Divvy, CitiBike, Bay Area BikeShare, Capital Bikeshare, and quite a few others is Alta Bicycle Share. They are based in Portland, OR and have offices in San Francisco, Columbus, Chicago, Brooklyn, Chattanooga, Boston, Washington, DC, and Melbourne, Australia. They’ve been able to launch programs in such major cities because they ” provide solutions for all aspects of bike share, from location assessment and business modeling to system maintenance and expansion.”
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When you get engaged, everybody tells you how much fun registry shopping is. I’m still waiting for the fun part. Just kidding. The fun part was doing our Amazon Registry, which had all of the cool kitchen gadgets that I wanted. When someone bought us something on that, I got really excited. I was a little bit less excited about our registries at Simon Pearce, Bloomingdale’s, and Restoration Hardware. I’m very grateful to everyone who bought us a gift from those registries, but a blowtorch is way better than a water pitcher in my book. Now let’s go back to that last place we registered: Restoration Hardware. That ended up being our least popular registry (in terms of % completed), which is surprising when you consider that the Corte Madera, CA “home furnishings retailer” made the Inc. 5000 with 91% three-year growth to $1.2 billion in revenue. While that growth rate is lower than what we’re accustomed to, we can make an excuse for a company that passed the billion dollar mark (and is no longer eligible for the list now that they have IPOed).
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Transportation is all about turning energy into movement. The problem is that almost every single mode of transportation results in some sort of environmental impact. Even when you’re walking down the street, you’re constantly expelling carbon dioxide. After thinking about it for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that floating down a river might be the cleanest form of transportation. Unfortunately, that’s not realistic for most of us (even if it is my favorite way to travel). Luckily, we have the International Council on Clean Transportation to help us all move towards cleaner transportation. They are a Washington, DC based non-profit that aims “to improve the environmental performance and energy efficiency of road, marine, and air transportation sectors and fuels, in order to benefit public health and mitigate climate change.”
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One of my favorite episodes of The Office is when Michael Scott tells his employees to pack a swimsuit for a leadership training trip, and then takes them on a “booze cruise” on Lake Wallenpaupack in January. The staff are obviously pissed at Michael, but for the most part end up having a good time. I’ve been on a few evening cruises, and I’ve always had a great time. I guess that is why Entertainment Cruises is doing so well. They’re a company with “26 vessels serving eight cities with six unique cruise products.” Entertainment Cruises’ offerings range from fine dining and dancing to speedboat tours, with a lot in between. They currently operate fleets in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New Jersey, New York, Norfolk, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.
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Our country was built on railroads. Rail travel changed the way that nearly every entity did business in the 19th and early 20th centuries, much like the Internet has done during our lifetimes. The similarities don’t end there. The railroad system was subject to multiple boom and bust cycles, and that led to far more rail being laid than could ever be used. Chances are that you have abandoned rails somewhere near you. Rails-to-Trails is an organization that wants to put them to use. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit that is aiming “to create a nationwide network of trails from former rail lines and connecting corridors to build healthier places for healthier people.” Rails-to-Trails Conservancy has been around for more than 25 years now, and in that time they’ve helped the number of rail-trails grow by more than 700%.
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A few weeks ago I was reminded of how annoying car ownership can be. I got a flat. Luckily I was parked on my street and they weren’t doing street cleaning that day. I called AAA to have them help put on my spare, but it ended up that the spare was rusted in place on the bottom of the car. Then I had to call a tow truck to take the car to a tire shop where I spent $500 on new tires. Overall it wasn’t too bad (I wasn’t stuck on the side of the road in a bad neighborhood or anything), but the experience reminded me that there’s a price for all of those times that having a car is super convenient. Getaround is a San Francisco, CA based company that changes the car ownership equation. They offer a platform for peer-to-peer car sharing that allows car owners to earn money by renting out their cars and the carless to enjoy the convenience of owning a car when they need it.
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Our society is on an endless quest for growth. From the largest corporations to the smallest non-profits, there’s a shared goal of improving the status quo (though the definition of what that means varies widely). But for every problem that growth solves, it seems to unearth a new challenge. There is a constant tradeoff between the speed of growth and control–the faster something grows, the less control you have over it. Sometimes it’s easier to grow fast and clean up the mess later, but that’s rarely the case when it comes to infrastructure. Smart Growth America is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that believes “smart growth solutions support thriving businesses and jobs, provide more options for how people get around and make it more affordable to live near work and the grocery store.” They’re willing to sacrifice a little speed for more control because they see the long-term benefits of well planned communities.
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We’re a week away from one of the worst travel periods of the year. If you’re flying between next Wednesday and the following Sunday, good luck. Look forward to long lines, getting groped by the TSA, crying babies, no legroom, and probably a delay or a lost bag. Wouldn’t it be nice to travel without those headaches? That’s why ridiculously rich people buy their own jets. But what if you’re only really rich and can’t afford your own jet? You buy time on one. That’s what Sentient Jet does for its clients. They’re a Cleveland, OH based company that “arranges more air charter flights than any other jet charter procurement business in the country.”
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I’ve never been on a cruise ship, and I’m not looking to change that any time soon. I realize that cruises are the ultimate vacation for some people, but they’re just not for me (especially after hearing about food poisoning outbreaks and the Costa Concordia disaster). Still, I respect the brilliance of the cruise ship. Travelers can sample a variety of destinations without having to think about logistics or anything else really. When you can combine hospitality, transportation, and gambling all in one, you have pretty good foundation for a business. The second largest cruise company in the world is Royal Caribbean Cruises, which is based in Miami, FL and owns the following cruise lines: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Pullmantur Cruises, Azamara Club Cruises and CDF Croisières de France. Those all contribute to nearly $7 billion in annual revenue.
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I played beach volleyball yesterday. On St. Patrick’s Day! And I was hot! No, I didn’t go on vacation. Chicago is having an amazing stretch of unseasonably warm weather. The best thing about it is that it gets people out doing what they love because they know that it still could snow again. For me it’s volleyball (or fishing if I can escape the city), but for others it may be running, playing with their dog, or riding a bike. Since I saw a ton of bikes yesterday, I thought it would be a good day to take a look at Bike New York. They’re a New York, NY based non-profit organization that aims to “promote and encourage bicycling and bicycle safety through education, public events, and collaboration with community and government organizations.” Biking is good for cities and good for people, so Bike New York isn’t just about biking for biking’s sake.
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They say that you can’t forget how to ride a bike, but I’m giving it my best try. In elementary and early middle school I was constantly riding around town. I picked up inline skating for a year or two after that, and never got back on the bike. Now I tell people that I hate bike riding. I don’t actually hate it, but as I mentioned in my post on Niner Bikes, I love seeing people’s reactions to that statement. My twelve year old self would be disappointed that I don’t even own a bike, let alone a cool brand like a Cannondale or Specialized. Luckily for Specialized, they’ve been able to grow an impressive business without me as a customer. They’re based in Morgan Hill, CA, and from what I can gather their annual revenue is measured in hundreds of millions of dollars (but I can’t find a reliable source on that). That’s impressive considering that it all started in 1974 when founder Mike Sinyard sold his “old VW Microbus for $1,500 and used the money to fund a cycling trip through Europe.” That led to importing Italian bicycle parts into the United States, and a business was born.
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I don’t know about you, but I love the smell of gasoline–at least in limited doses. Oddly enough, I absolutely hate the smell of coffee, so I’m not sure how I’d do if I had to work at a RaceTrac. They’re an Atlanta, GA based chain of more than 525 gas stations and convenience stores that stretch across twelve southeastern states. The odd thing about them is that their home page puts more emphasis on their coffee than on the gas. I guess gas is pretty much the same at every gas station, but good coffee will actually bring people through the doors. Besides the coffee RaceTrac differentiates itself with its size–their stores are typically over 5,000 square feet with more than 4,000 items and 20-24 pumps. If I owned a chain of gas stations, I’d probably use clean bathrooms as a point of differentiation. I think it would be a goldmine, but RaceTrac’s $8 billion in annual revenue makes them the third largest private company in Atlanta, so maybe coffee is the right choice.
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I don’t mind flying; in fact, I kind of enjoy it–especially on smaller planes. Unfortunately, it’s not often that you can hop in a 6 seater and get a sweet view for the entire flight. Usually you are crammed into a 150-seater and spend most of the time looking at clouds. I guess most people are more comfortable with that, but not me. When I’m flying I’m not particularly brand conscious, so I mostly choose my airline by who has the cheapest fare. That means that I end up on flying all different airlines, but I’ve never flown Allegiant. They’re a low-cost carrier and travel company based in Enterprise, NV. They travel to 75 destinations with a fleet of 75 MD-83s and MD-87s. All of Allegiant’s routes begin or end in one of 9 hubs: Bellingham, WA; Los Angeles, CA; Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; Myrtle Beach, SC; Orlando, FL; Tampa Bay, FL; Fort Myers, FL; and Fort Lauderdale, FL.
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Whether you need something to wear for a job interview or a tropical vacation, Gilt is the place to get it at a good price. Here’s a link that will get you an additional 20% off.
In my previous life as the boyfriend of a management consultant, I would often spend my Thursday evenings using a flight tracking website to figure out when I’d be eating dinner. Those days are mostly over now that Amy is working at Groupon, but I had a bit of a flashback since she is traveling for work this week. My preferred flight tracking website is FlightAware, which tells me that she’s somewhere just south of the Great Salt Lake right now. I also know that she’s moving at 459 knots at an altitude of 35,000 feet. I can even see that the fares for her flight ranged from $50.03 to $3,365.92 with an average of $238.13. FlightAware is based in Houston, TX, and they provide “live flight data, airport information, weather maps, flight planning, and navigation charts, as well as aviation news and photos to over two million users a month.” I have no idea how they get all of their data, but it’s extremely useful and very easy to access.
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Transportation is essential to Thanksgiving as we know it. A large majority of our country’s population travels for the holiday, whether it’s a few miles or a few thousand miles. Sometimes it actually seems easier to travel across the country than it is to travel across town (can you say gridlock?), so it’s surprising that our country’s biggest city is actually pretty easy to get in to, out of, and around. For more than a century New York City has had an exceptional transit system, and its history is remembered and displayed at the New York Transit Museum. As far as I can tell, the museum is a non-profit that is directly tied to the MTA. It’s also “one of the city’s leading cultural institutions and the largest museum in the United States devoted to urban public transportation history.”
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Yesterday I picked my parents up from the airport. Because of traffic, I ended up spending more time in the car to do a roundtrip of about 35 miles then than they spent on the plane flying from New York City to Chicago. It’s amazing how far we’ve come in terms of transportation over the course of human history, but we still have a long way to go. Society still has a ton to gain economically and environmentally through innovation in transportation. That’s why the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy exists. They’re a New York, NY based non-profit organization that “works with cities worldwide to bring about sustainable transport solutions that cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce poverty, and improve the quality of urban life.” They have offices in Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, so it’s clear that their mission is as much about international development as it is about transportation.
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Last night I read an article from The New York Times about how two New York City taxi cab medallions recently sold for $1 million each. These aren’t some weird collectors’ items–they are actual pieces of metal that are attached to the hood of a taxi cab and are required for the cab to be able to operate in a given city. It’s a relatively common system (you can read about it here), and it limits the number and ensures the quality of cabs in the city. In some cities, the medallions can be bought and sold, and the secondary market for them is getting extremely expensive. Because of this, most cabbies can’t own their own medallions–they usually have to lease them or work for a fleet that owns it own medallions. That’s where Medallion Financial Group comes in. They’re a New York, NY based financing company that specializes in Taxi Medallion and Commercial Lending.
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You have to love it when July 4th lines up on a Monday to make for a long weekend. It provides a great opportunity to get away, see friends or family, and enjoy our freedom. When I’m getting away, I prefer to do it via private jet. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to one, which is why I’m staying put in Chicago this weekend. But if I did want to spend every penny I have on a flight for the weekend, I’d totally try evoJets. They’re an Aspen, CO based company (though I see some indication that they’re actually based in New York, NY) that provides “on-demand private jet charter service.” That means that you don’t need to own a plane or a share of a plane. You can just call them up, and they’ll get you where you want to go. evoJets is another company that I learned about from Inc Magazine’s 30 Under 30. Both founders are 28, which seems too young to be flying on private jets, let alone running a company that provides access to them.
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I must admit that I probably use my car more than I should to get around in Chicago. It’s often just so easy. I still walk and take public transportation when it makes the most sense, but I could definitely be convinced to do both of those things more often. That’s the job of Transportation Alternatives, although they do it in New York, NY. They’re a non-profit organization with a mission to “reclaim New York City’s streets from the automobile, and to advocate for bicycling, walking and public transit as the best transportation alternatives.” There are a ton of negative externalities with cars (pollution, danger to pedestrians, noise, etc.), and plenty of positive externalities (less congestion, healthier citizens, etc.) with alternative forms of transportation, so it makes sense for an organization like Transportation Alternatives to be so adamant about their position.
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You’d be hard pressed to find anyone but an oil executive who isn’t excited at the prospect of electric cars. Yet, the only ones that I’ve seen on the road are from Tesla Motors, and those are few and far between. The problem is two-fold. First, the technology is just getting to the point where it’s actually reasonable to have an electric car as your everyday automobile. Second, the infrastructure for charging electric cars away from home is nearly non-existent. Better Place is a Palo Alto, CA based company that is working to change this. They “build and operate the infrastructure and systems to optimize energy access and use” for electric vehicles, so that they can achieve their mission of “accelerating the transition to sustainable transportation.” They have a long road ahead of them, but they’ve already made a big impact.
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Did you know that there’s a wild coyote population that lives in downtown Chicago? I’ve heard plenty about suburban coyotes (my dog was attacked by one a while back), but you don’t hear much about urban coyotes. I even saw one running through the streets once, but I assumed it was someone’s German Shepherd that got loose until I learned about Chi-town’s coyotes and their affinity for eating vermin. Anyway, there are also coyotes on the North Shore–Lake Forest, IL to be specific, but I’m not talking about wild dogs. I’m talking about Coyote Logistics, a logistics firm that was referred to me by a reader and that came in at #6 on the Inc. 500 last year with 13,847% three-year growth to $249.8 million in revenue. Since many of you probably know less about logistics than you do about urban coyotes (now that I’ve told you all about them), I’m going to enlighten you with a definition straight from Wikipedia. Logistics is “the management of the flow of goods and services between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet the requirements of customers,” and it “involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and occasionally security.”
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Getting a taxi in Chicago is a cinch. Just standing on the street looking kind of confused will get taxi drivers honking at you to see if you need a ride. If you have luggage in tow, they’ll nearly run you over to get that $42 fare to O’Hare before someone else does. I’ve heard hailing a cab in other cities can be kind of a pain though. Apparently San Francisco, CA is one of those cities, which is why Uber (formerly UberCab) is getting so much attention. They offer a super simple, relatively affordable black car service that harnesses the power of the mobile Internet. Through SMS or an iPhone or Android app, you can request that Uber send a car to come pick you up. They’ll give you an estimated arrival time (usually within 5-10 minutes), and when they get there they’ll notify you. You hop in the car, tell the driver where to take you (or to lose the car that is following you), and hop out once you’re at your destination. Uber already has your credit card from when you signed up, so the payment is covered and a tip is already included. It’s certainly a luxury, but it’s a luxury done right.
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Generally, we as a society trust scientists. We see them as unbiased and smarter than us, so we look to them when we need answers to complex questions. However, we often don’t respond to those answers as well as we should. Part of the problem is that science is ever changing—what was thought to be true last year has now been updated (or reversed) based on new research. When you have different experts on the same subject saying different things, you as a layperson don’t know whom to listen to. But when scientists come together on an issue and vocally push for action, it’s time to listen. The Union of Concerned Scientists is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1969 “by a group of scientists and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to protest the militarization of scientific research and promote science in the public interest.” They’re based in Cambridge, MA, and they are “now an alliance of more than 250,000 citizens and scientists” with members “from all walks of life: parents and businesspeople, biologists and physicists, teachers and students.”
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I’m sure that you’ve all heard of sonar, but how many of you have actually used it? My first real experience with sonar was in college when I was part of a research team trying to find the Finger Lakes equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster. Ok, that’s an exaggeration. I was actually fishing on a friend’s boat, and he taught me how to use a sonar unit to catch Lake Trout. It’s pretty cool—you can actually watch your jig drop down to the bottom of the lake, and you can watch on the screen as little blobs of pixels occasionally chase it—these are fish. It’s half video game, half real life fishing. Obviously, there are far more serious and important uses of sonar, and that’s what Farsounder is all about. They’re a company based in Warwick, RI that “is one of the world leaders in the design, manufacture and marketing of 3D sonar systems for a variety of applications in the commercial, recreational, defense and homeland security markets, internationally as well as domestically.” Two-dimensions is great when you’re fishing, but if you’re navigating a large, expensive ship around underwater obstacles, three-dimensions is the way to go.
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Tagged as:
defense,
Internships,
navigation systems,
Rhode Island,
shipping,
software development,
transportation
