 Joy Covey, an executive who joined Amazon.com when it was a new company with big ideas and played a major role in turning those ideas into reality, died on Wednesday after the bicycle she was riding struck a delivery van in a remote stretch of San Mateo County, Calif. She was 50. California Highway Patrol officer Arturo Montiel confirmed Thursday that Joy Dianne Covey, 50, of Woodside, was the bicyclist killed on a rural stretch of road in San Mateo County Wednesday afternoon. A deeply committed environmentalist, according to her colleagues at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Covey served as the environmental action nonprofit's treasurer and established the Beagle Foundation, which funded a two-year fellowship with the NRDC for Harvard Law School graduates. less Joy Covey, chief financial officer of Seattle-based Amazon.com, Inc., gets pointers on trading using a hand-held market maker terminal at the Chicago Board Options Exchange on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 1997, by ... more Photo: Chicago Board Options Exchange, AP Former Amazon CFO killed while riding bicycle 1 / 1 Back to Gallery 
 
 (09-19) 21:28 PDT WOODSIDE -- Joy Covey, a former chief financial officer for Amazon.com, was killed riding her bicycle in Woodside, authorities said Thursday. The driver, a 22-year-old Fremont man, stayed at the scene and cooperated; he has not been cited in the incident, but Montiel said the collision is still under investigation, though drugs or alcohol do not appear to be a factor. Covey was chief financial officer at Amazon from December 1996 to September 1999, and remained at the company until April 2000, according to Bloomberg's executive profile, and was named the 28th most powerful woman in business in 1999 by Fortune Magazine. In a 2002 interview with the Harvard Law Bulletin, Covey -- who received a law degree and MBA from the prestigious university in 1989 -- recounted dropping out of San Mateo High School at the age of 15 and working as a grocery clerk before wrapping up a degree at Fresno State in two-and-a-half years. Besides working for the National Resources Defense Council, Covey also established the Beagle Foundation, which gives funding to environmental causes.
– Amazon.com's first CFO was killed Wednesday afternoon in a bicycle accident, authorities confirmed yesterday. Joy Covey, 50, was riding on a rural road in Woodside, California, when she collided with a minivan as it turned onto another street. "She was wearing a helmet, but the injuries were too severe," says a California Highway Patrol officer. "The vehicle turned left directly in front of the bicycle, which was traveling downhill." The 22-year-old driver has not been cited, but authorities are still investigating, the San Jose Mercury News reports. In a tragic twist, police say he may have been making deliveries for OnTrac—a shipping service that counts Amazon among its customers, the New York Times reports. Covey was the CFO and VP of finance and administration from 1996 to 1999, and oversaw Amazon's IPO, the San Francisco Chronicle reports; during that time she was named one of the 50 most powerful business women in America by Fortune. After leaving Amazon in 2000 she served on various boards, started a nonprofit, and most recently worked with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's a very sad day for Amazon," a company spokesperson tells CNET's Dara Kerr, who describes Covey as "instrumental in making the massive e-commerce company what it is today." Many reports on her death are citing a 2002 Harvard Law Bulletin interview, in which Covey recounted dropping out of high school and working as a grocery clerk; she ended up graduating from Fresno State in just 2.5 years, and got her law and MBA degrees from Harvard. (Covey wasn't the only business leader to die this week.)