Have a package?

Bike messengers will deliver.

In 1994, three bike activists opened Pedal Express to promote clean air living, building on a foundation of cycling, an environmentally conscious alternative to driving cars.

The worker-owned bicycle courier cooperative specializes in regularly scheduled and cargo deliveries.

The business model is as efficient as the daily route.  There are four partners.  Each partner is paid a living wage, $15 an hour.  The rest is pooled for operating cost then profits are split equally among them at year end.

Now Pedal Express is looking for more help.

“You know the carefree skinny guys who eat cookies for breakfast,” Partner Foresta Sieck-Hill, 31, a graduate of UC Berkeley in Development Studies, jokes, describing the punk bike messenger type that we refer to as Puck on television.

Quick, smart and on top of their game, the woman of Pedal Express are quite the contrary.

The last time the Emeryville-based co-op hired a new partner, partners thought they would receive three of your typical applicants at the door. Instead, with the economy still in flux, the open call for new hire led to a flood with resumes.

With more than 30 overqualified applicants at the door, they had to make some tough decisions.

“It was heartbreaking turning all those people away,” Sieck-Hill said. “Those intricate resumes and cover letters were overwhelming, but we focused on who is in it for the long haul and met the company philosophy.”

That’s when Nicole Boucher, a graduate of San Francisco State in Women's Studies, came into the picture.  An avid cyclist and community superstar, she rode a bike up to the day her daughter, Paloma, was born.

Sieck-Hill came on board in 2005.  She rides her bike 30 to -50 miles a day, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., three times a week, pushing the pedal to the limit to deliver to government and small businesses owners in Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley and Albany.

"We can't say no to a job even when we are really busy because our clients are relying on us."

For more information, visit pedalexpress.com. Please send a resume and cover letter to Nicole[at]pedalexpress.com  - applications will be accepted until Nov. 30.