For LRE Sr. Administrative Assistant Destiny Smith and HR Director Matt Molinari, LRE’s annual participation in the Dallas MS 150 cycling fundraiser is both universal and personal.
Destiny’s sister DeDe and a relative of Matt’s have both been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, so both would do anything to help fund research and find a cure.
Including getting on a bike and riding like the wind.
For the past six years, LRE has been part of a cycling team called Wind Force, comprised of LRE employees including Matt, Destiny, LRE CEO Jason Allen, and other Dallas-based renewable energy riders. The Wind Force team annually participates in the Dallas MS 150, a fundraising effort where teams of participants cycle to raise money for the research, support and awareness efforts of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Bike MS is a 2-day event where riders can pedal up to 150 miles or choose shorter “adventures.” This year’s team with eight LRE members rode over 1,500 miles with seven team members riding the entire 150 miles. In 2025, the Wind Force team’s efforts raised more than $75,000 including matching funds from the company’s Benevity donation matching program.
“I started riding with Wind Force six years ago and it grew out of my road bike hobby,” said LRE’s CEO Jason Allen. “There was a social group I rode with and the captain of the Wind Force team happened to be in that group. He had a family member with MS and invited the group to join the team. Then it really hit home two years ago when a relative of one of our employees was diagnosed with MS. That made it personal.”
The Dallas MS 150 is part of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Bike MS effort, the largest fundraising cycling series in the world. Each year, nearly 75,000 cyclists and more than 6,000 teams across the U.S. ride to change the world for people affected by MS. For the Dallas-area version, cyclists can take all or part of a 2-day ride from Mansfield to Glen Rose, Texas, with the final leg to Forth Worth to complete the 150-mile route.
This year, nine of the 13 Wind Force team riders were from LRE, including the first two women to join the team. Other LRE riders this year included Mahuder Belay, Ken Clark, , Nate Graham, Greg Hazleton, Scott Perry, and Dustin Wambeke.
According to Cathy Beatty, Director of Bike MS, the involvement of teams like Wind Force and companies like LRE is critical to achieving the organization’s mission of curing MS while empowering people affected by the disease to live their best lives.
“There’s been great strides in the last five years in the development of medications and treatment of MS,” Beatty noted. “We could not make that kind of progress without partnerships like the one with have with renewable energy organizations including LRE. In fact, Wind Force is one of my favorite teams. They’re great humans who are doing their best to support our work.”
Multiple Sclerosis is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system. There is currently no cure for MS. Symptoms vary from person to person and range from numbness and tingling to mobility challenges, blindness and paralysis. An estimated 1 million people live with MS in the United States.
For riders like Matt Molinari, working toward a cure and more advanced treatment of MS is a labor of love. A casual bike rider, he decided to join the Wind Force team after a relative was diagnosed with MS. “I decided to ride and went out and bought a bike,” he said. “It was important to me to ride. I did it for family, but I also did it for anyone suffering with this horrible disease.”
Destiny Smith’s sister Cadelia, or DeDe for short, was diagnosed with MS in 2017 after nearly three years of unexplained medical challenges and uncertainty. Destiny said she’d heard of Bike MS but wasn’t completely aware of the event’s purpose until then. “When I learned they were riding to raise funds and awareness for the National MS Society I knew I had to be a part of it,” she said. “No hesitation, no training, because this cause is deeply personal to me.” “Riding in Bike MS gave me a way to actively support my sister and the countless other MS warriors who fight every day. It wasn’t easy, but it was meaningful.”
This is one in a series of stories proudly highlighting organizations the LRE Foundation has supported using funds raised though the LRE Foundation.
The LRE Foundation drives positive community impact through three key pillars: environmental stewardship, health and safety, and education.
About LRE
LRE (Leeward Renewable Energy) is a high-growth renewable energy company forging a sustainable future through integrity, innovation, and positive impact. We own and operate 30 large wind, solar, and energy storage projects across the United States, totaling over 3 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity.
LRE has an ambitious goal of 10GW of operating assets by 2028 and is developing and contracting an increasing pipeline of new projects every year. We take a full-lifecycle approach to our projects, built on a long-term ownership model and a company culture dedicated to our community partners and protecting the environment. LRE is a portfolio company of OMERS Infrastructure, an investment arm of OMERS, one of the largest defined pension plans in Canada, with C$128.6 billion in net assets (as of Dec 31, 2023). For more information, visit www.lreus.com.
