Tina Valeri, Vice Chair
Tina Valeri is the Leader of Enterprise Workforce Planning & Intelligence (eWFPi) at Lockheed Martin. Tina has been with Lockheed Martin for over 23 years performing in a variety of roles throughout her tenure, the majority focused on digital and data transformation for HR Centers of Excellence. Tina holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology and is a Certified SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager, Strategic Planner, and Six Sigma Greenbelt.
Tina is passionate about digitizing data not only for its value as a strategic asset but leveraging data as the digital thread that connects disparate agencies, functions, processes, and systems with appropriate governance models in place to ensure appropriate use, maintenance, utilization, and storage. She spends her free time riding and showing horses in the competitive Hunter/Jumper equestrian circuits and can often be found traversing the trails in Volusia and Seminole Counties with one of her four horses or taking to the skates (after all, rollerblading was cool in the 90s!).
Tina also volunteers as an advocate for unincorporated communities by partnering with local government agencies and non-profits to establish diverse equitable programs that benefit the safety, security, and prosperity of residents. Of particular interest is ensuring the trail system that runs through her unincorporated town is well maintained and continues to be a safe and equitable resource for all residents whether they bike, roll, ride, or stroll.
Tina lives with her husband Eric in rural Volusia County – Osteen, Florida (nestled between Sanford and New Smyrna Beach), where they run a working farm with 3.5 horses, 2 cats, 1 dog, and an ever-changing number of chickens.
Why are you devoting your time to this cause?
I’ll start with the biggest influence – my Dad. His love affair with riding a bike goes back to his childhood days in a tiny rural town just outside of Rome, Italy. Dad would ride his bike everywhere, and – as the story goes – the rest is history. In Italy in the 50s, when infrastructure in his rural town just didn’t exist, he was hit by a bus on a blind corner, slid underneath the bus between the tires, and somehow miraculously came out the other side without serious injury!
After immigrating to the U.S., Dad joined a local bike-riding group that would traverse Seminole and Volusia counties and bike for 20+ miles every weekend. Into his 80s, Dad continued to ride his bike almost every day from his home to visit his friends until an illness and dementia set in, making use of bike paths nearly impossible unless they were well maintained and with consistent safe passage.
Now that Dad has moved to a senior community, we realize how difficult it is for seniors who can bike to do so due to a lack of infrastructure, unsafe intersections, construction and engineering failures, etc. The local infrastructure simply does not exist to allow him to continue riding his bike. The loss of that physical activity, combined with an inability to use his preferred mode of transportation, is a key reason why I joined BWCF; it’s important to me to work with local agencies to improve access to equitable transportation options for residents of all ages.
Are you a biker or walker?
For sure, a walker – and also a roller! In Osteen, we have access to a fantastic paved trail that runs for miles through nature, and we can access multiple state parks and springs along the way. I love roller skating (especially rollerblading), and my goal is to get more kids and families back on skates. Who didn’t love the 90’s rollerblade scene?
