Roger Schwed was born, raised and still lives in, New York City on the Upper West Side. He has a lifelong love affair with cycling and has been a happy participant in over 15 Climate Rides since his first one in 2011 (NY-DC). He also biked cross-country during the Summer of 2012 with a friend he met on that initial Climate Ride! When he is not biking, Roger is a corporate lawyer with his own practice, specializing in providing general counsel services to smaller companies without their own in-house attorneys. Previously, he served as the General Counsel of United Rentals, Inc., the largest equipment rental company in the world, and, before that, as the General Counsel of Maxcor Financial Group Inc. and its Euro Brokers affiliates, an international financial services business ultimately bought by Cantor Fitzgerald’s BGC Partners. Roger for many years also was M&A Counsel at Skadden in New York and an associate at Cleary Gottlieb. Roger graduated from Columbia University Law School in 1986, where he was an Editor of the Law Review and a Kent Scholar. He received his undergraduate degree in 1979 from Princeton University. He formerly was Board Chair of the New York Foundation, a charitable institution that has been making grants in support of start-ups focused on community organizing and advocacy since 1909, and of I Challenge Myself, which since 2005 has been helping lower income high school students in the Bronx, Washington Heights and Harlem develop leadership and workplace skills, as well as confidence and self-esteem, through endurance cycling training and rides, including a Century Bike Ride. He has been married to Laura Dukess for 35 years, and has two sons, Ben and Stephen.