UPDATE: Individual winners in Thursday night’s race were Scott Loforte, representing Popli Design Group, with a time of 17:43 in the men’s division, and Trisha Byler, representing International Flavors & Design, with a time of 20:06 in the women’s division.
Loforte was the Corporate Challenge runner-up in 2023 and won the race in 2022. For Byler this was her sixth Corporate Challenge in a row. No person has won more Rochester Corporate Challenge titles in the event’s history.
The largest companies in terms of participation included: L3Harris (224 entrants), Paychex (188), CooperVision (150), University of Rochester (88), St. John Fisher University (84), City of Rochester (78), Constellation Brands (64), IDEX Health & Science/Pulsafeeder (64), CNC Machining (63), and The Bonadio Group (63).
Original story:
Parts of downtown Rochester will be filled with thousands of runners and walkers on Thursday night.
The occasion is the 32nd running of the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge which involves a 3.5 mile course that starts and ends at Innovative Field.
This year’s event does not include parts of the Inner Loop as it did the last couple of years. The new course moves through Corn Hill and various downtown streets, and also will give the participants some good views of the Genesee River.
Casey Fitzgerald, Executive Director of Commercial Banking for J.P. Morgan, noted that with a lot of workers spending more time either in a remote or hybrid situation in recent years, this is a good way to do some networking with co-workers and and also people from other companies and organizations.
“You know the hybrid and remote work environment has changed the dynamic, but I think this is a great excuse to get your employees out together,” said Fitzgerald. “And it’s just a great event to bring together corporate culture and teamwork and camaraderie and get your teams together out for a nice night’s event.”
He said organizers look at the route every year to see where improvements can be made, and this year the course will go down several city streets. “Plymouth, onto Exchange in Corn Hill, across the Ford Street Bridge, Mount Hope, South Ave, and then cuts back down Main towards Innovative Field.”
About 4,000 runners and walkers are expected to participate, representing about 200 companies and other organizations.
The J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge also will raise money for the United Way of Greater Rochester and the Finger Lakes.
It gets underway at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, and that will also result in some detours with temporary closing of certain city streets:
Beginning at 4 p.m., the following streets will be closed:
- Morrie Silver Way from Oak Street to State Street
- N. Plymouth Avenue from Allen Street to Brown Street
At 6:30 p.m., the following streets will be closed:
- Plymouth Avenue from Allen Street to Exchange Boulevard
- Exchange Boulevard from Plymouth Avenue to Ford Street
- Ford Street from Exchange Boulevard to Mt. Hope Avenue
- Mt. Hope Avenue from Ford Street to Byron Street
- South Avenue from Byron Street to Main Street
- Main Street from South Avenue to State Street
- State Street from Main Street to Platt Street
- Mill Street from Commercial Street to Platt Street
- Platt Street from Mill Street to State Street
All streets are expected to reopen at approximately 9 p.m. You can get more information about the race at: https://www.jpmorganchasecc.com/en/home
