Champions of Change Blog

Inclusion Is Imperative in Today’s World

Posted by Angela Mackey on October 20, 2014 at 3:00 PM EDT

Angela Mackey is being honored as a Disability Employment Champion of Change.

As an individual with a disability, I know all too well the barriers that those in this segment of our society face. Historically, opportunity and disability seldom go hand-in-hand. I grew up with a grandfather who also had a disability, and I learned that others sometimes used his disability as a reason for exclusion from privileges such as education, a meaningful career, and social acceptance. Being around him as a child, I knew the barriers I would also one day face. The conversations growing up between myself and my grandfather were motivational exchanges, in which he listened to me recite my goals for the future and, in response, offered words of encouragement regarding them coming to fruition. I often wonder what my fate might have been without those interactions.

I was fortunate. At an early age, I understood that through my own determination, hard work, and God, I could be more than just a person with a disability. I also knew that with an education, and eventually a career, I would have a voice. Without a job, I knew that it would be extremely difficult for me to feel like I was in control. In my mind, work equated to personal power. Work, in a lot of ways, leveled the playing field. I might not have the ability to run a mile or score a homerun, but I could operate a computer system with the best of them.

This ideology is why I believe inclusion is so imperative in today’s world of work. I often tell those I train that I am just as capable as someone without a disability, but until I am provided an opportunity to show what I can do, nobody believes it. Luckily, I have had two organizations, South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation and Walgreens, to open their doors to me to show what I can do, and in doing so, I have assisted others in doing the same. Inclusion does not mean that we want an easier job or a different set of standards. We just want a chance to enter the door like anyone else.

Angela Mackey is a Human Resources Generalist at the Walgreens Distribution Center in Pendergrass, Georgia.

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Innovative Opportunities for Entrepreneurship

Posted by Dan Hromas on October 20, 2014 at 3:00 PM EDT

Dan Hromas is being honored as a Disability Employment Champion of Change.

I am the owner and operator of Prairie Pride Poultry, a small pastured chicken operation located on the northeast edge of York, Nebraska. I started the farm in 2013 in order to support the growing local food movement by providing healthy, farm fresh eggs to area consumers.

At the farm, we pride ourselves on the humane treatment of the flock of heritage Rhode Island Red chickens. The farm’s standards and practices are conducive to a happy and healthy flock. Coops are moved around the acreage, each one having plenty of floor area, roosting space, and nesting boxes. The flock’s pasture diet is supplemented with feed that does not contain any chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, or animal byproducts; the feed comes from only 14 miles away from a cooperative that has recently achieved HACCP Certification, the highest level of accreditation for food safety in the United States.

In addition to providing the local community with farm fresh eggs, Prairie Pride Poultry also assists in educating consumers and potential farmers about the “Incredible Edible Egg” by sharing interesting facts and information about the widely used and versatile protein source, as well as fostering an environment whereby everyone can feel welcomed at and connected to the farm. I’ve engaged local communities through the York Chamber of Commerce, establishing a great working relationship with Grand Central Grocery in York and participating in the Center for Rural Affairs’ “Farm to School” initiative by selling eggs to York Public Schools, setting up at local farmer’s markets, and raising awareness about importance of a healthy diet that can include eggs.

Before working on the farm, I served in the U.S. military in Iraq. I have also served as a Captain in the Nebraska Army National Guard as a Transportation Corps Officer. I am fortunate enough to have had my hard work receive national recognition through the Farmer’s Veteran Coalition’s national marketing campaign, “Homegrown by Heroes.” I have utilized services from the Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society, Center for Rural Affairs, and the Farmer Veteran Coalition as a platform for outreach to other fellow disabled military veterans so that they know a future exists for them in the field of agriculture.

I am honored to receive this Champions of Change award. I hope that other veterans with disabilities will similarly find their own entrepreneurship opportunities, gaining meaningful employment and contributing to their local communities.

Dan Hromas is the owner and founder of Prairie Pride Poultry, a pasture-raised egg business in York, Nebraska.

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Recruitment of All Abilities Is Just Good Business

Posted by Oswald Mondejar on October 20, 2014 at 3:00 PM EDT

Oswald Mondejar is being honored as a Disability Employment Champion of Change.

As an immigrant from Cuba, my mother cherished the American virtues of freedom, independence, and opportunity. She told my sister and me that, in this country, anything is possible. The honor of being selected as a Champion of Change by the White House is proof of that. It’s so humbling because I know that I’m merely representing the work and voices of so many others who paved the way.

Growing up with a limb difference, I learned from an early age that my biggest challenge would always be overcoming others perceived “limitations” of what I could and could not do. There’s no place that another’s perception about your abilities has a greater impact than in the workplace. I got my first job at age 13, and seeing my name on a paycheck for the work I’d done was empowering. A job wasn’t simply about survival; it provided dignity, camaraderie with coworkers, and a fully independent life.

Fast forward to a career spent in Human Resources, and what I have seen is that people with disabilities are seldom given a fair chance to show what they can do. To many employers, the workplace is full of impediments (physical barriers, policies and, yes, attitudes), that make it “too much trouble” to hire them. While we’ve made great progress, there’s more work to be done.

Unemployment and underemployment for people with disabilities remain incredibly high, and that is a call to action for all of us. Our charge is to seek out and find creative solutions to these old challenges.

Working at Spaulding Rehabilitation Network (SRN) has been a great opportunity. At SRN, I have helped develop the “Working Partners” program, a first of its kind public/private partnership focusing on providing people with disabilities the skills and support they need to join the workforce and improve their overall quality of life. Like any worthy endeavor, it takes an intrepid group of collaborators to be successful, and I am incredibly fortunate to partner with my colleagues from Partners HealthCare and the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission (MRC) to make this all possible. Through Working Partners, qualified candidates with disabilities work directly with an embedded MRC employment specialist and Spaulding’s hiring managers to navigate the employment process with the ultimate goal of job placement at SRN or within Partners HealthCare.

But Working Partners does more than provide assistance with finding a job. With their new positions, candidates are empowered to take more control over their lives. They feel the great sense of pride that comes with entering or re-entering the work force and contributing their talents to something far greater than themselves.

While many businesses and agencies speak about diversity or inclusion, much of this talk is hollow. In order to truly progress, leading companies must see what efforts like Working Partners are; just good business. The productivity and talent that people with disabilities can contribute is only limited by our own perceptions of what is possible.

Oswald “Oz” Mondejar is the Senior Vice President for Mission and Advocacy for Partners Continuing Care, the non-acute care division of Partners HealthCare based in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Disability Is My Strength

Posted by Jenny Lay-Flurrie on October 20, 2014 at 3:00 PM EDT

Jenny Lay-Flurrie is being honored as a Disability Employment Champion of Change.

As a person with a disability who is passionate about enabling others with disabilities, I am humbled and honoured to be a White House Champion of Change.

My journey with disability started early. By the age of 5, my hearing was already declining, a process that would continue over the next 30+ years. As a teenager and even through most of my twenties, I felt that I needed to hide my disability. My hearing loss is now profound, but by asking for the help I need and seeing my disability as a strength, I have been able to make myself – and now my employer – stronger. I am fortunate to work for a company that empowers and enables people to be successful. I wake up excited every morning, eager to get to work. I’m lucky to be in a position to make a difference, and this fact drives me to do more every day.

I am a Senior Director at Microsoft, leading the Trusted Experience Team (TExT), which focuses on privacy, online safety, and accessibility. Our goal is to provide a positive experience for all customers. As with any great journey, mine started by taking big terrifying steps. The first was to identify to Microsoft as a person with a disability. I joined the deaf ‘huddle’ group at Microsoft and went on to create and lead the DisAbility Employee Resource Group (ERG), a community of amazing people with disabilities, advocates, colleagues, and parents who share best practices and elevate understanding. At our first annual ‘Ability Summit’ four years ago, 80 people showed up. This past spring, 800 people came to Redmond headquarters to spend the day, which featured our CEO Satya Nadella, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, and many others. The theme of the summit was “Imagine, Build, Enable,” and we have taken that to heart at Microsoft.

In 2012, we announced the Disability Answer Desk (DAD), providing specialized support for customers with disabilities. Today, DAD helps about 4,000 customers a month do more with Microsoft products and services. The team is made up of talented people both with and without disabilities. In addition, I work with the Washington State Disability Taskforce, a public-private group focused on driving representation of people with disabilities in state government to at least 5%. Lastly, I sit on the US Business Leadership Network (USBLN) board of directors, which works towards disability inclusion in the workplace. It’s more “than just doing the right thing;” it’s about enabling people to be successful and achieve their dreams. It’s about changing lives, just as mine was changed.

At Microsoft, we are imagining and building technology for people with disabilities. During our company-wide ‘Hackathon’, we had projects focused on improving technology for people with deafness, blindness, autism, and more. Out of nearly three thousand submitted “hacks,” six of these projects placed in the top 100. I’m most proud of our work with former NFL player Steve Gleason, who is living with ALS, to help create prototype technology to independently move a wheelchair via eye tracking. This work won the 2014 Microsoft Hackathon Grand Prize!

My disability motivates me to strive for a higher bar—a new level of independence and empowerment. It helps me to understand and have empathy for our customers. I work to drive this understanding into Microsoft to create better products. So go on, if you want to know more about your customers, take that step and hire a person with a disability. They’ll teach you all you need to know.

Jenny Lay-Flurrie is a Senior Director at Microsoft, leading the Trusted Experience Team (TExT).

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That Won’t Work—Let’s Do This Instead

Posted by Tim Springer on October 20, 2014 at 3:00 PM EDT

Tim Springer is being honored as a Disability Employment Champion of Change.

During the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, I was a student at Stanford working on the problem of the day: how to make it big. My friends and I were discussing a recent overseas trip. One of my fellow students, a wheelchair user, commented that some of the places he visited were inaccessible to him and that it would have been helpful if there had been a resource to consult regarding accessibility when traveling. That gave me a great idea about how to provide a valuable service to individuals with disabilities—by creating a website to provide this type of information online.

As it turns out though, we were not the only ones with this idea. While we were building the website, we found out that at least four other firms were working on similar projects. We realized that our project was probably not going to be successful.

But as part of our work, we had become familiar with the concept of web accessibility, which means ensuring websites and applications can be used effectively by people with disabilities. So, in industry parlance, we pivoted. A pivot is what an entrepreneur does when he or she is too dumb to quit when finding out that the business plan no longer makes any sense—“That idea clearly won’t work, so let’s do this other thing instead.” That pivot, however, gave us the chance to have a far larger impact. Instead of making one website accessible, we could make them all accessible. Out of this was born the heart of SSB BART Group. We had a vision of creating a world where all digital systems were accessible.

From the very early days we understood the value of hiring technologists with disabilities. Uniquely qualified to identify and develop working solutions to digital accessibility challenges, these creative, knowledgeable, and dynamic professionals have brought an unrivaled level of insight, passion, and dedication to our company. Today, nearly half of our team of accessibility analysts, developers, and consultants are individuals with disabilities. At SSB, we see this as a compelling competitive advantage. It allows us to offer solutions to our customers that address their core concerns. I am honored to work with such remarkable people on a daily basis.

At the end of the day, our team views access to technology as a profound empowering force in the lives of individuals with disabilities. On a fundamental level, I believe that everyone has the right to participate in society to the fullest extent of their abilities. It is my belief that society works best when we focus on accepting differences among people and facilitating broad participation in society. My goal is to provide a base for that participation and an even playing field in an increasingly digital economy. As CEO of SSB BART Group, I am dedicated to the realization of that dream.

Tim Springer is the founder and CEO of SSB BART Group, which provides technology accessibility compliance solutions to corporations, government agencies, and educational institutions.

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ABLE to Work

Posted by Alexandra McArthur on October 20, 2014 at 3:00 PM EDT

Alexandra McArthur is being honored as a Disability Employment Champion of Change.

I love my job. As an Associate Consultant at the Taproot Foundation, I work with the country’s top companies to help them build high-impact corporate pro bono programs. I enable companies to use their most important resources, their people, to support nonprofits that are strengthening our communities. My position is challenging, fulfilling, and provides me with a livelihood. Seems pretty lucky, right?

As a person with a disability, a member of a population where only one out of three of adults ages 18-64 are employed, I’m more than lucky. Barriers, such as poor inclusion training, inaccessible workplaces, benefit systems that disincentive savings, and lack of financial literacy, are keeping talented persons with disabilities out of the workforce. Thus the poverty rate for people with disabilities is nearly double the U.S. national poverty rate.

This is why I work to reduce these barriers and change these statistics. In 2011, I was chosen as Ms. Wheelchair America on a platform of promoting workplace inclusion. In this position, I traveled across the nation to speak with corporations, associations, diversity groups, government officials, and job-seekers about how every sector can benefit from the talent, perspective, dedication, and creativity that people with disabilities bring to and encourage in their workplaces.

As a Co-Chair of the Junior Board of Resources for Children with Special Needs, I’ve helped to expose over 60 young professionals to the often-overlooked needs of the disability community. The Junior Board meets regularly to advocate for policy changes, volunteer with youth with disabilities, and to raise money for the organization. I’m thrilled that this year we chose disability employment as our advocacy focus. The board members now know how to make their workplaces, which include schools, investment firms, media agencies, just to name a few, more open to hiring people with disabilities and more accommodating to employees with disabilities.

There is much more work to be done to make improvements in the disability employment statistics, which have remained essentially unchanged since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act nearly 25 years ago. Workforce development programs must integrate specialized programming for people with disabilities. Employers need training about the positive ways hiring people with disabilities impacts their bottom line, in addition to tangible strategies and avenues for recruiting people with disabilities. The disability community needs specialized financial literacy education.

But perhaps the most significant change needed is currently sitting in the hands of our lawmakers: the ABLE Act. Presently, a person with a disability who receives Social Security benefits cannot have more than $2,000 to their name without losing those benefits. $2,000. Total. The ABLE Act will provide the option for people with disabilities on benefits to earn a living and save for crucial expenses, such as retirement or medical equipment. Thus, it will allow gainful employment to be a realistic option and a true avenue for wealth accrual for people with disabilities.

I envision a world where people with disabilities are seen as assets in the workplace and are represented in the middle class. Through workforce development, financial education, and passing of the ABLE Act, let’s take steps together to make this vision a reality.

Alexandra McArthur is a Senior Associate Consultant at the Taproot Foundation and was Ms. Wheelchair America 2011.

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