Champions of Change Blog

The Impact of Positive Change

Vanessa Abernathy is being honored as an Affordable Care Act Champion of Change.

Each generation has contributed to the social, political, and economic change that has made America great. I have been privileged to witness one of the greatest periods of change in American history, as well as to make a contribution to it by supporting the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. I am honored to be nominated as a White House Champion of Change and would like to thank Get Covered America for the opportunity to serve my country.

The objective of the Affordable Care Act is to provide everyone with access to affordable health insurance. We are achieving this goal through positive and peaceful change. ACA was enacted after a nationwide discussion about what health insurance should look like. There were heated town meetings in communities across the nation. We witnessed negotiations and opinions from the medical industry, unions, and elected officials. We saw our democracy in action with the passage of ACA and are still experiencing peaceful and positive change as challenges to the law are argued in the judicial system. 

The national movement to ensure affordable health insurance for all Americans has been a life-changing experience for me. I have joined thousands of volunteers throughout the country going door-to-door and church-to-church, asking my neighbors if they know about ACA and if they need health insurance. That personal contact reminded me of so many historic campaigns that required volunteers to spread the word and call Americans to action. It has been a humbling experience for me to join thousands of volunteers all over the country to help our fellow Americans understand how the ACA Marketplace works, that financial assistance is available, and that there are people certified by the federal government to help them navigate the process.

I moved to Fairmont, North Carolina, in May 2013 and started my volunteer work with Get Covered America the following August. I spoke to churches and media outlets. I distributed flyers and talked to customers in small businesses, including nail salons, restaurants, professional service firms, and beauty shops. I felt a particular sense of pride and fulfillment when I visited Spanish-speaking businesses and offered flyers written in Spanish about ACA and local enrollment events because I knew that we were doing our best to reach out to all Americans.

I’ve worked in six counties in southeast North Carolina. I’ve traveled hundreds of miles spreading the word about the Affordable Care Act and the importance of health insurance and helping to organize enrollment events. But I haven’t been alone in this movement. Pastors and community leaders have opened doors to me. Friends and family have continually reaffirmed my work. And Navigators and certified application counselors have been partners in supporting insurance enrollment under ACA. 

Our work is not over. The second open enrollment period for insurance under the Affordable Care Act begins on November 15, 2014. Mahatma Gandhi is paraphrased as saying, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” We all can impact the future of our country through volunteering and advocating for positive change.

Vanessa Abernathy works on Affordable Care Act outreach in North Carolina.

That Won’t Work—Let’s Do This Instead

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.