joy Covey, the former Amazon.com chief financial officer and a Fresno State graduate, was killed Wednesday afternoon when a van hit the bicycle she was riding on a rural roadway in San Mateo County, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Covey, 50, of Woodside, was biking on Skyline Boulevard at 1:30 p.m. when the collision occurred, the California Highway Patrol said.

The driver, a 22-year-old Fremont man, cooperated with officers and has not been cited in the incident, the newspaper reported.

The CHP said the collision is under investigation, although drugs or alcohol do not appear to be a factor.

The tech executive served as treasurer and a director at The Natural Resources Defense Council.

Covey, a 1982 Fresno State graduate in business administration, received Fresno State's 2003 Distinguished Alumna Award -- the highest honor given by the university's Alumni Association. She went on to receive her law degree from Harvard Law School and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1990.

She served as president of the Beagle Foundation, a private environmental group, and as a board member of JetBlue Airways and a trustee of the Santa Fe Institute, a private, nonprofit research and education center.

Covey joined Amazon.com in December 1996 as CFO and vice president of finance and administration. She became chief strategy officer in September 1999, and served until the end of that year.

Covey was born in Boston (her father was a doctor) and grew up in San Mateo. In a 2002 interview with the Harvard Law Bulletin, she said she didn't finish high school, moving away from home at age 15 and working as a grocery clerk in Fresno.

She told the Wall Street Journal in a 1999 interview that she began her career as an accountant at Arthur Young LLP, working for clients including Denny's restaurants. She graduated from Harvard Law School's joint J.D.-MBA program in 1989.

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Source: Fresnobee