The Strength of the River: Honoring the Women Who Pulled Bilbao Forward

As we walk along the waterfront below the famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, we encounter a moving piece of art dedicated to women laborers.

These women were the sirgueras of the Bilbao estuary. In the late 19th century, they performed astonishing physical labor: pulling barges and boats upstream with ropes from the river mouth into the heart of the city. Once pulled by oxen, these boats instead relied on human muscle—often women’s—to haul goods into Bilbao’s docks.

The sirgueras formed a labor guild, often working both on the ropes and loading cargo. Harnessed to thick lines, they pulled vessels as if they were draft animals. Despite the importance of their work to Bilbao’s economy, it was seen as low-status labor, often looked down upon.

This artwork along the waterfront reminds us of the endurance and grit of these women. Once overlooked, they are now recognized as a symbol of Bilbao’s working-class strength and history.

media contact:
David Perry / David Perry & Associates, Inc.
(415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com

Tom LeNoble’s Best-Selling Memoir Earns National Recognition as Readers Turn to Stories That Help Make Sense of Life’s Most Complex Moments

“My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels” receives multiple major awards while resonating with readers navigating change, identity, and the deeper meaning of success

21 April 2026 – SAN FRANCISCO, CA: At a time when success is being questioned more than ever and many high performers are quietly asking what it has all been for, Tom LeNoble’s best-selling memoir, My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels: In Control, Being Controlled, Out of Control! is earning national recognition while resonating with readers who are navigating not just achievement, but identity, uncertainty, and what it means to truly live a meaningful life.

LeNoble, a former Silicon Valley executive who now serves as a trusted advisor to leaders and organizations, does not present a traditional success narrative, but instead offers a deeply human and reflective account of what it looks like to live, lead, and rebuild when the structures we rely on no longer hold in the same way.

Spanning his journey from a modest childhood in Florida to leadership roles at companies including MCI, Palm, Walmart.com, and Facebook, and high growth startups, the memoir moves beyond professional milestones and into a more layered exploration of the internal forces that shape our decisions, relationships, and sense of identity over time.

Recent Honors and Recognition

• Amazon International Bestseller and Number One New Release

• PenCraft Book Awards Spring 2026 Gold Winner in Nonfiction Memoir

• Nonfiction Book Awards Silver Award

• Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite in Inspiration

• Feathered Quill Book Awards 2026 Finalist in Memoir and Biography

• Literary Global Book Awards Finalist in Non Fiction Inspirational

The memoir was also selected for inclusion in Lee Woodruff’s Winter End 2025 Book Marks reading list, where she described it as “a memoir about resilience, love and taking risks” and “a reminder for all of us to make bold choices.”

“This season of recognition has been deeply humbling, and while the awards themselves carry meaning, what has stayed with me most are the conversations with readers who have shared that they recognized parts of their own lives in these pages, not only in the moments of strength but in the uncertainty, the questioning, and the rebuilding that so often define us,” said LeNoble.“This memoir was written from a place of truth and reflection, and if it offers someone language or perspective for their own experience, then it has served its purpose.”

LeNoble’s story includes surviving the AIDS crisis, navigating a later prostate cancer diagnosis, leading within organizations during periods of rapid growth and pressure, and continually returning to the work of understanding identity and self acceptance, yet what distinguishes his voice is not simply what he has experienced but the way he invites others to examine their own lives with greater honesty and awareness.

Rather than positioning himself as a conventional coach offering answers or prescribed solutions, LeNoble’s work reflects a more nuanced approach that centers on helping individuals and leaders pause long enough to consider the deeper drivers behind their choices, especially in moments when outward success no longer feels aligned with internal truth, a philosophy that is reflected throughout his work and writings at www.openingpathwayscollective.com, his platform dedicated to exploring leadership, identity, and meaningful change.

His perspective is informed not only by decades spent inside high performance corporate environments, but also by the lived experience of navigating loss, reinvention, and meaning in ways that are rarely linear and often deeply personal.

The book is available through Amazon, independent bookstores, and through his official website.

About Tom LeNoble:
Tom LeNoble is a San Francisco based author, speaker, and advisor to founders, executives, and organizations who are navigating meaningful leadership moments and life transitions. His career includes leadership roles at MCI, Palm, Walmart.com, and Facebook, and his current work focuses on helping individuals explore the underlying forces that shape how they lead, make decisions, and move through the world.

His approach sits at the intersection of resilience, identity, and reflection, and is designed for those who have achieved a level of success yet find themselves seeking greater clarity, alignment, and a more honest understanding of what comes next. Learn more at www.openingpathwayscollective.com and  www.tomlenoble.com.

About the Book:
My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels is a memoir that explores what happens when the external structures we depend on begin to shift, and how individuals can begin to make sense of their lives in real time while learning to rebuild with intention, awareness, and authenticity.

For interviews, speaking opportunities, or media inquiries, please contact David Perry and Associates, Inc.

NO ROOM AT THE INN

By J. D. Murphy—Preserve Lodi Lane

If the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for the creation of the Inn at the Abbey boutique luxury resort on both sides of Lodi Lane at California State Route 29 (SR 29) in St. Helena is approved without a present-day review of structural geometric hazards affecting public health and safety, and a cumulative traffic impact study including all 19 wineries within one-mile of the Inn at the Abbey, by the Napa County Board of Supervisors, a score of families long occupying rental houses on Lodi Lane owned by the developers will be evicted without concern for housing in a county long plagued by the absence of affordable family residences.

The Inn at the Abbey eviction of the families isdisguised by the characterization of their long-occupied residences as simply being remodeled for occupancy for employees of the new hotel, noticeably absent of any acknowledgement of the horrific consequences to the families. Absent linkage to the evicted families, the Inn at the Abbey proposes the creation of just five housing units at a yet-to-be identified location in Napa County, plus the donation of $250,000 towards public housing, despite hiring an estimated 103 new employees.

Neighborhood Proposal

The following modifications to proposed Inn at the Abbey physical locations on both sides of the Lodi Lane/State Route 29 would substantially address major health, safety, and housing concerns:

1. Construct the proposed Inn at the Abbey 50 rooms solely on the property occupied by the Freemark Abbey winery, together with registration, underground parking, restaurant, rooftop lounge, conference center, pool and spa, retail outlets, and other amenities, and

2. Replace the proposed 29 rooms on Lodi Lane with the five dwelling units proposed by the Inn at the Abbey designated for use by the evicted families.

Health and Safety Threats 

The placement of 29 Inn at the Abbey hotel rooms on Lodi Lane constitutes a health and safety threat to all guests residing in those rooms—together with the employees servicing them—because they will be required to physically cross Lodi Lane on foot, or by Inn service carts, 24-hours a day to utilize Inn amenities. Mitigations identified for this structural geometric hazard are a striped crosswalk and a ten-foot cement median at the tee-intersection of Lodi Lane and SR 29. 

The generic fault with these mitigations is that guests seeking hotel amenities will inevitably forgo across walk clogged daily with cyclists, passenger vehicles, big rig, service, and delivery trucks, and wine tasting visitors, among others, and cross Lodi Lane at unmarked locations both day and night on a narrow, two-lane road with virtually no usable shoulders, and a 40-mph speed limit.

Guests will share the crosswalk with walkers, joggers, and cyclists using the Vine Trail contiguous to the proposed Inn at the Abbey; big rig wine tanker trucks servicing a new Duckhorn Winery production factory near the eastern end of Lodi Lane prohibited from using a nearly 100-year-old deteriorated bridge over the Napa River on Lodi Lane adjacent to the Silverado Trail; the over 90,000 guests approved to visit the Duckhorn Winery annually; wine tasting visitors at 19 wineries within one-mile of Lodi Lane; service and delivery trucks supporting the new hotel and the existing  29 room Petit Pali hotel; electric carts delivering and picking up guests occupying the Lodi Lane rooms; 2,000 vehicles using Lodi Lane weekly(2017 traffic study); Inn at the Abbey guests traveling south from Calistoga who will be required to turn left on Lodi Lane to check in because of being not allowed to enter the SR 29 entrance to the hotel by stopping to turn left off SR 29 with traffic approaching out of a blind rise behind them at 50-mph; the nearly 101,000 vehicles (2017 traffic study) on California State Route 29 (SR 29)crossing Lodi Lane weekly; and the cumulative nearly 5 million vehicles traveling at 50-mph on SR 29 annually past Lodi Lane.

Flawed Cumulative Traffic Study

Although there are 19 wineries within one mile of Lodi Lane, the Inn at the Abbey FEIR cumulative traffic study included only 7 wineries (36 percent) within one-half-mile of the proposed hotel were studied, inexplicably even excluding six other wineries within its arbitrary study radius; Grace, Ravena, Ballentine, Markham, Titus, and Krug. A present-day cumulative traffic study must be undertaken with all 19 wineries within one-mile of Lodi Lane to obtain a factual assessment of its public health and safety impact.

Cooperative Solution

Designating the construction of 50 Inn at the Abbey rooms plus amenities solely on Freemark Abbey property together with the replacement of 29 proposed rooms on Lodi Lane with five dwellings for the families evicted as the result of the construction plans, will materially protect the health and safety of the public while ensuring the creation of Inn at the Abbey at a scale balanced with environmental and physical constraints, and avoid throwing families into the cold with no provision for their welfare.