Taking the Ride of a Lifetime

Sixty-five-year-old colon cancer survivor from Barrington, Illinois, rides his bicycle 6,500 miles across America to help find cures for cancer and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and to help promote awareness for hospice care.

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.

— Robert Louis Stevenson

Many second act reinventors use their birthdays as markers. When Bob Lee was turning sixty-five, he celebrated his milestone by riding his bike across the country and raising $130,065 each for three causes: the Les Turner ALS Foundation, the American Cancer Society, and the National Hospice Foundation for Public Awareness. In 2008, he was named the recipient of the Les Turner ALS Foundation’s Hope through Caring Award. He’d dreamed about riding his bicycle across the country, but he’d spent most of his life in a three-piece suit at the helm of a boardroom.

Bob Lee, 65, Barrington, Illinois

Act I: Father of two grown children; grandfather of six; president of Eastern Standard Corporation, and career-long senior corporate manager.

Act II: Philanthropic sojourner and fund-raiser.