Cancer survivor Joe Apgar's passion for Pelotonia began long before he became CEO. “I’ll never forget how I felt in the moment someone told me I had cancer,” says Apgar, who became CEO of the cycling-based fundraising organization in 2024. “You feel completely lost and by yourself and you don’t have answers to the questions running around through your head.” Apgar, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer while a college student in Pennsylvania, first participated in Pelotonia after moving to Columbus in 2011 and helping to create a team sponsored by his company. “I remember standing at my first Pelotonia Opening Ceremony, and how uplifted and excited and supported I felt,” he says. “That’s when I could flip the switch on and feel empowered by my own story and experience.” Click here to learn more about Pelotonia, and to be a part of a 2024 event as a rider, donor, volunteer or Challenger. The inspiration only grew in Apgar after that 2011 event, eventually leading him to the Pelotonia leadership team under CEO Doug Ulman. After years of partnership, they decided to change their roles to better position the organization to grow in the future. “Doug and I have spent a lot of time working together over the last five or six years, and really working through where our different skill sets lie,” he says about the joint decision for Apgar to assume the CEO role while Ulman took on a new position as vice chair of the board. “We've got some really big goals, and I think this is the next step towards achieving those.” Since its 2008 inception, Pelotonia has raised more than $283 million for cancer research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute. Among the initiatives funded, at least in part, by the Pelotonia community are Ohio State’s Pelotonia Research Center and the Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology. That funding has been made possible by countless riders, donors and volunteers, as well as Apgar and his Pelotonia colleagues, who have worked together to expand from the initial weekend ride to a series of events and fundraisers, including a new Gravel Day road ride that began in 2023. “I think [the Pelotonia founders] hoped that some of this sense of community would happen, but I don’t think anyone could have dreamed it would happen at the scale it has,” Apgar says. Click here to learn how you can support cancer care and research at The Ohio State University.