Gary Dick/Gerald Homme: Mission of the Careers 2B Program

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender.

All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hey everyone, welcome to the show, to everyone in the United States and around the world. In China, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Russia. We have an incredible listening audience. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And hello, Richard Roberts, my good friend from the U.S. State Department in Brazil, formerly Japan, and South Korea, where I first met him. He is just awesome. He is awesome. And another great person, Gangyong Cho in South Korea. Hello, Gangyong. Thank you so much for your support. And Vinyamin in Kazakhstan, thank you. And then we have Australia, Tunisia, Indonesia, Libya, so many countries that support this show, and I, I thank all of you and commend all of you. And hey, a special shout out to my good friend Yoshiko Dart. Yoshiko, you know I'll never forget you, and you know I love you. And lead on, Yoshiko! And then, hi Mark, our sponsor, lead sponsor for years. I always say Highmark sets the high mark for other companies to follow. Such a great company they are. And one of my guests today is from InGen, a wholly owned subsidiary of Highmark, a good friend of mine, a long-time disability advocate, a great person, Gary Dick, who's the Chief Information Officer, and Gerald Helmy, who I love so much, Manager of Talent. Acquisition and Technology at Bender Consulting Services. So Gary and Gerald, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having us. Excited to be here, Joyce. This is Gary.

And it's Gerald. Thanks again, Joyce. Always a pleasure to be on the show.

All right. So Gary, we're going to start with you. For our listeners, not only in the United States, but globally, I wanna start so people know a little bit more about you, how, where you grew up and what was your academic pursuit? What ended up leading you to Highmark? If you could just go over, I call it your story.

Thanks, Joyce, I'd be glad to. So, you know, spent some time growing up in Chicago, grade school, junior high school in the Chicago area, lived in a couple of the suburbs around the Chicago area. Moved to Pittsburgh for high school and college, went to the University of Pittsburgh where I studied engineering, business, and IT. And right out of college, I started a career with Bayer, and that's where I met you, obviously, our time at Bayer. Getting involved with helping people with disabilities find competitive employment and had a really exciting year there. And then about, I guess it's 9 years ago in October here, I will have been part of the Highmark Enterprise and currently functioning as CIO in that role, as you mentioned, and very much enjoying all the excitement that comes from enabling healthcare.

And, you know, I just, I want to mention for young people listening to the show, you went to school for engineering, but you moved into business technology. And I always tell people that, you know, when you graduate, you never know what area you can go into. But if you have a great academic background and some STEM area, you're going to be going somewhere. What do you think about that?

I give people the exact same advice, Joyce, so that's great to hear.

Right, and you know what the key thing is, is to get your foot in the door. You know, I always talk about Deb Rice Johnson. How can you go from, uh, claims customer service to president of Highmark? And, uh, and I always say It's called initiative, being affable, of course, productive, but, you know, having that great attitude, always looking forward. But that just shows you that, you know, anything is possible. And how about you, Gerald?

Well, you know, I've been working for Bender Consulting for 15 years now, a person living with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and mental health disabilities. And as you know, Joyce, I have known you my whole life, my father Jim was the first person with a disability that you ever placed, and that was at Highmark. So Highmark obviously has a special place in my heart as it gave my father the opportunity to be the primary bread earner for my family growing up, and a lot of people who are blind didn't have that opportunity, especially in the pre-ADA era, and forever grateful for that. And now for all the opportunities that in the recruitment team I get to work on filling with Highmark and Engine, and a lot in Gary's area to get people with disabilities into competitive jobs, like my father, who were entry-level starting out in their career and moving into the workforce.

And would you mind explaining to our listeners, because I know you talk about this, speaking publicly. What is dysgraphia dyslexia? Could you explain that?

Yeah, so many people are familiar with dyslexia. Dyslexia is a learning disability that affects how you process written information when reading, and oftentimes it can make reading difficult. Letters can get jumbled up and you can misread things. It requires a lot more focus and mental energy to read effectively. Dysgraphia is closely related to dyslexia and a similar disability, but it affects writing instead of reading. So when writing is when things get jumbled up, and it's almost for me as if I'm individually drawing every single letter when I'm handwriting something, which, as you can imagine, when your mental focus is on so much the physical aspect of writing, the thoughts and just expression gets lost in that. And as an accommodation, I use software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking to dictate to my computer, and I use Siri on my phone to dictate all the time, and I use voice commands to write a lot of content as an accommodation.

And Gerald, just a little bit more detail about Dragon, because for people listening to the show that have learning disabilities but aren't familiar with this technology, would you mind explaining that?

I would be glad to. So Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a great piece of software that is utilized for people that need to use their voice to navigate the computer or to write on a computer. So it's very helpful for people like me who have dysgraphia to speak to my computer, and it will write anything that I say, so that makes that process much more natural for me. But it also goes a step further and can be utilized by people who have motor impairments that need to use their voice to actually fully navigate a computer and tell it what to do. So it can take it as far as that too. If you have a physical disability and find it difficult to navigate a computer using a keyboard or mouse,. You can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking as another option to physically navigate through a computer.

That is so great. I know you've told me, Gerald, that when you were in school, people did not understand that technology. Am I right?

Yeah, I actually did not start using that until I was in the workforce at Bender. In school, they would provide me with something to type on, which took a lot of the— made the physical aspect of writing a lot easier, but it did not fully address it in the way that Dragon does, which is a much more natural way for me to express myself and get my writing down. And, you know, it's funny, we were talking recently, Joyce Bender, about how dictation has been a big part of history for a lot of writers. And Winston Churchill, almost all of his writing was through dictation. So you can still be a a great writer and use dictation as a way to put those words onto paper.

Yeah, that is amazing. Gary, getting back to you for a moment, I wanted to ask you, you know, we were talking about NGINN. What is NGINN? You know, you're a wholly owned subsidiary of Highmark, but what does the company do?

Yeah, so Joyce, I think we can break out— we can kind of break Highmark Health Enterprise into three, three main areas. Uh, the first one would be the typical Highmark Inc., which is the insurance arm of the company. And we have, you know, dental insurance, we have stop-loss insurance, and then the health insurance organization, which Highmark is so well known for. We also have InGen, which is our technology and operations organization. It's about $1 billion of services we provide to the enterprise as well as to other Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations, and there's more than 10,000 employees as part of InGen. And then the third area would be Allegheny Health Network. We have 14 hospitals. It's about $4 billion in revenue. There's actually about 2,400 beds that, that make up the hospital if you think about it, its capacity. So the overall enterprise, Humana Health, is, you know, more than a $25 billion company with more than 40,000 employees. So, InGen is the technology enterprise and operations enterprise for the company.

Wow. I mean, I remember— you're probably too young, Gary— but I remember downtown Pittsburgh where that small building was located, Blue Cross, Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania. And I think it was one floor. And I, from that to Fifth Avenue Place, unbelievable how Highmark took off. And you, $23 billion company. I mean, that is mind-boggling. You know, when you think about it, same size as a lot of corporations that are that size or more. I mean, it's just mind-boggling to me. And Mick Malick is the president of NGINX?

Uh, he's the, the chief operating officer, and then Brian Lukasz would be the president. That's correct.

He's the chief operating officer, and you are the CIO?

CIO.

Yeah. Okay, well, um, you've been the CIO before, that's for sure, and I met you 15— well, no, I met you longer than that. It's 15 years ago that we started talking about this ongoing barrier of companies telling me, oh, they would be happy to hire people with disabilities if they had experience. I cannot begin to tell you how many times people said that to me. Well, Joyce, if they— because back then, the majority of people with disabilities did not have work experience. Some did, but the majority did not. Now today, you know, still same thing. A lot of people with disabilities are junior level in experience, but much more have experience because obviously, you know, through the years, if I place someone or someone found employment, 20 years ago or whatever. Now, these are people with experience that, you know, may have moved on looking for an opportunity. And I also remember talking to Greg Babe at that time, the CEO of Bayer, saying to him, uh, this whole problem, and him saying, oh my goodness, I think there's more to that, Joyce. I want you to meet Gary Dick. I mean, I want you to go meet with him and explain you know, what's going on and this barrier. And from that, something really fantastic occurred. So, Gary, I'm going to turn it over to you since you are the one that came up with this idea.

Thanks so much, Joyce Bender. It is funny when we think about how time has really passed because even though it's been about 15 years since we've came up with this Careers to Be concept that I'll share, we've actually known each other, been working together for more than 25 years. So that really is makes me think a little bit about how much time has gone by.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, and because I found it— I founded Bender in 1995, and I know you— of course, Lee Noble was running Bare Material Science, which is what it was called then, and I think you knew a couple of the people that worked in there. You had met a couple of them.

I did. I worked in my team. Yeah, yeah, yeah, worked in my team. Absolutely.

Yeah, I remember they were the first two at Bayer. They were the very first two.

Fantastic.

Yeah. Anyway, go ahead, tell everyone the idea you came up with.

So I, I really remember we were sitting in, uh, in my office in Building 16, and you were sharing with me how a little bit of frustration around the city of Pittsburgh where you would talk to companies and tell them about these great candidates that had the education and the potential, the initiative to really contribute to an organization, but they didn't have any experience. And as you pointed out earlier, the companies would suggest that, "Oh, if they only had experience, we would definitely give them a shot or definitely hire them." And I think the point that was frustrating or amazing to both of us is Those exact same companies hired a lot of people out of college without any experience. And so we found that to be very awkward that the people with disabilities needed experience, but other people could be hired out of college, you know, without experience. And that's when we started brainstorming a little bit. We came up with the idea of why don't we create a program where somebody with a disability can join B.A.R.E. at the time. For up to a year as a contractor, and it's almost like a very extensive internship, but with the purpose of not only contributing to the company, but gaining a year of solid experience that then they could either come on board as a full-time employee at Bayer, or they could, you know, enter the marketplace as somebody with a year experience at one of the premier companies within the Pittsburgh marketplace. And I think one of the exciting things for me is And it really worked out amazingly well because not only did it benefit the person, it created a pipeline of hiring for Bayer of some really great talent. And then also it really started to help the culture of Bayer change to make it more open to hiring people with disabilities. So I really do remember that, that very well. And that's been a very exciting progress we've seen over the past 15 years.

Yes, that was the greatest idea, Gary. Greatest idea. Careers to be number 2, Bender Bear. I mean, how fantastic. And also, if you don't mind, I remember you telling me why you felt it was exciting is there were limited positions at Bear. But if you did this, it would multiply. Do you want to explain what you meant exactly?

So we had talked for a while at one time, you know, for instance, at a lot of companies they'll have a couple people that they'll bring on, you know, with disabilities. They'll provide them an opportunity, but the problem is they might be helping 5 people. And so they're not changing the culture a whole lot by just having 5 people at the organization. And with this turnover of every year, allowing people to move into other roles, you know, over a 10-year period, you can move 50 people into a position rather than just 5 people and then spread it out throughout the company. And I think we said that would make such a big difference in helping the community of people with disabilities, as well as changing the culture and helping the organization as well.

Yeah, and that was so fantastic. So we started at, uh, Bayer, and now we're at Heimark. Maybe you could explain how that program works, and if you don't mind, even include how when we have events you include the managers.

Absolutely, Joyce. So as we talked a little bit as I mentioned before, the main purpose of the program is to engage people with disabilities into competitive employment over a long period of time. And so, what we like to do is set aside a certain number of positions, you know, depending on the size of the organization, and then every year we like to rotate new people in through those positions. At the end of the year or somewhere around that timeframe, they can either migrate into a full-time position within Highmark or within Bayer or any other organization. Or if it just doesn't seem to be the right fit or they want to try something else, Joyce Bender has been great at marketing them to other organizations within the Pittsburgh community. I guess now with work from anywhere, they could work anywhere in the United States, which makes it a lot easier as well to multiply the program. And that's just worked out really well over the course of time. Our managers really get to understand what it's like to lead a team with people with disabilities and the employees, you know, really breaks down a lot of barriers and maybe preconceived notions that aren't really true when working with folks with disabilities. And then once a year, we would have some type of event where we'd pull together the managers and the employees and celebrate, you know, the year activity that we had. And that was really powerful as well, because a lot of people would share their stories about what a full-time job meant to them as, as as Gerald pointed out with his father, Jim. And it really, I think, let people see the personal side of things, not just the business side of things, because it certainly makes sense from a business standpoint, but sometimes the personal stories and the personal side of it really enable people to, to think how much value it quickly brings to the organization as well as to the individuals.

Yes, because now you can say Oh, but I have 1 year of experience at Highmark or 1 year of experience at PNC or 1 year experience at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee. That's what makes the difference. The person has the experience. Now, I just want to say, you know, I'm hearing all the time, I can't find IT people. I can't find IT people. Here we are. Here we are. We have an untapped labor pool of people who want to work, and not just in IT, in engineering, finance, healthcare, you know, across the board in all business disciplines, procurement. I mean, I could go on and on, but my point is we have the talent. People with disabilities want to work. They want to work. They value work. And when they get a chance to work, that is a treasure to them. Because as I've said many times, until you have competitive employment, you are never free in this country. And I don't know how that is overlooked. But Gary, there is an ongoing need for people in, for example, technology. Am I correct?

Absolutely. That's one of the areas, especially in the city of Pittsburgh, that's really— there's much more demand than there is— than there are employees. So with the work from anywhere, that's opened it up a bit across the country because now we're hiring from all across the country. But there's always been a significant more demand, especially in some of the fast-growing areas like data analytics or cybersecurity.

Yeah, yeah, that's— and Highmark, by the way, has worked with them, with us, in both of those areas very successfully. So, Gerald, I want to turn it back over to you for a few minutes. We had a partnership first with Bayer, then Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, now P&C, and it has really taken off at Highmark. In my opinion, due to Gary's leadership. Can you tell us what Bender's part is in Careers2Be and a little bit about the process?

Absolutely. So, you know, first and foremost, our, our main objective with the Careers2Be role is when you identify an entry-level role for us to fill, is to find the best talent available for that opportunity and provide great candidates with disabilities that have gone through multiple interviews on our team, have gone through a reference check, have been really thoroughly vetted to be, and recruited specifically for the role that's available. To really find a candidate that's not just, you know, a person with a disability, but going to be great talent earmarked for that particular job. And after they go through the interview process with our customer and conversations between us and they determine this is somebody they want to bring into that Careers to Be role, through that whole time that they are a Careers to Be applicant working on-site in that job, we provide our workplace mentoring for them where a member of our staff is in contact with that person frequently to make sure that they are successful in that opportunity, that they are retained, that they understand the skills that they're developing and the experience they are gaining and how they can leverage that to gain an opportunity. And, you know, many of our customers that we work with, like Highmark, will frequently take a person who's on a Careers2B contract and convert them into a permanent employee. But even if there isn't an opportunity available for that, we help to help those individuals exiting the program leverage their skills to find a long-term permanent role and rebuild their resume, start the application process with that new experience that they've gained that's so valuable for them to move into the workforce. And we have a 99% success rate of our folks that have gone through the program finding competitive work at the end and moving into a permanent role. So, it's been incredibly successful, a lot because of how involved everyone is in the process and supporting these folks as they move through this opportunity.

And it has been wonderful. And right now, though, we've got to go to break, our news break with Perry Jude Radesik. Perry, are you with us?

I am, Joyce, and I'm ready to tell the listeners about a new government program to help transportation systems.

Oh, great. Well, we are happy to hear that.

Well, Joyce, the U.S. Department of Transportation is focusing on the accessibility of public transportation systems that were built before the Americans with Disabilities Act. So, this is pre-ADA. And the— on— so, on July 26th, which was the 32nd anniversary of the ADA, the Federal Transit Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation announced the availability of $343 million for a new program called All Stations Accessibility Program. Now, that $343 million comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was recently passed by Congress. So the allocation of interest— infrastructure funding will be awarded competitively to state and local governments who operate rail stations. So it's only available to state and local governments. The goal is to repair, improve, modify, retrofit, or relocate the infrastructure of rail stations or facilities that are pre-ADA and which are not accessible. The money can also be used if you— the government needs to do some planning or some assessment of accessibility. So, when the FTA refers to these legacy rail stations, they are referring to public public transportation stations that were constructed or where construction began prior to January 25th, 1992, or for commuter rail stations where construction had— was completed or began prior to October 7th, 1991. Now, get this, the FTA estimates that there are still over 900 inaccessible stations in the U.S. And these stations have been inaccessible to people with disabilities for over 30 years. So, really, the Department of Transportation wants these infrastructure funds to assist in fixing some of these inaccessible stations. Now, the deadline for state and local governments to apply for this money is October 7th. Advocacy matters. The best way you can help us with making these stations accessible is to contact your state or local government. If you know that there have been inaccessible pre-ADA public transportation systems, contact your state and local governments. Encourage them to apply for this funding because it's available. If you want to read more information about this funding and get a link to the Federal Transit Administration's website, go to www.disabilityrightsPA.org. That's disabilityrightsPA.org. And check out our Advocacy Matters segment for today. The links are included with that segment. It's on the homepage. Just click on it and you'll get all the information you need to talk to your state local government.

Oh, that is so awesome. You know, when you were talking, Perry, I'm thinking, how the heck has this been so long? 32 years, you know what I mean? This would be like someone without a disability wants to get on the train, the subway, and the person says, sorry, you can't get on, you're a woman. Sorry, can't get on, you're Latina. I mean, really, this is what you're doing. Sorry, you can't get on. You know, it's not accessible. That impacts work, that, you know, your economic means, that impacts so much. So this is so great, and I want everyone to go to this. Would you one more time give us that website.

Absolutely, Joyce Bender. Go to disabilityrightsPA.org, click on today's advocacy matters segment, it's on the home page, and then you can read all about this funding opportunity with links to how your state or local government can apply.

All right, everyone, you make sure you do that. And Perry, thank you so much for being with us.

Hey, thanks, Joyce.

Talk to you later.

You're welcome. What do you think about that, Gerald?

I think that's great that we're making advancement in that area. You know, it's, it's wild to think after all this time after the ADA, there's still so much to go in the transportation area when that was such a key fight.

Yeah. Gary, don't you think possibly A lot of our listeners without disabilities are not familiar with that. They don't even know that. Absolutely.

I always— I really feel like there's a lot of education.

Yeah. Yeah, I always think when you don't have a disability or if you're not in the disability rights community or have a child with a disability, or, you know, a spouse, whatever it is, you really don't know. You just don't know. You go get on the train, you don't even think about it until you are one of those people or you have a disability. And once you're in our world, boy, you notice that all the time, all the time. Uh, I want to get back to you for a minute, Gerald. You were talking about what we refer to as the workplace mentoring with our employees. I wondered if you could talk about that a little bit more.

Yeah, so, you know, this is one of the key things that we find to be really important in the work that we're doing, not just to place people into jobs, but to help with retention and move people into successful careers. One, there's a lot of people that when they're getting their first job in corporate America really can use that extra bit of support to understand the culture, what's okay to do, what's not okay to do, you know, what's the difference between the way that they would have been in school versus in corporate America. And getting that extra bit of exposure and having somebody on their corner to support them is really helpful. But also, you know, we can— We really help by working with them to make sure if they are in need of a reasonable accommodation that they have an effective accommodation strategy for the workplace that, for example, could be using Dragon NaturallySpeaking like we talked about earlier, that they may not have been aware of as an option for them. So helping people with disabilities navigate through that piece of it and helping companies navigate through that piece of it.— there's two pieces of what we do with that program. One is regular contact from our team with the employee in the field to ask them questions and learn about how things are going at work and support them to be the best employee that they can be. And then at the same time, having a resource manager in contact with the person who's managing that employee from the day to day in their role to make sure that they don't have any questions or have any issues that they think could be there. So that way, if there's anything that comes up, we have the opportunity to address it. And just that level of attention and care makes employees so welcomed and excited about these opportunities and really have a significant impact on the retention of individuals with disabilities that we place. Which already has an incredibly high retention rate, which is something desperately needed right now in this workforce.

Right, because retention is a cost, and we have a high retention rate, people with disabilities. Now, so I want to make this clear. You're a hiring manager. You're looking for a new way to bring people with disabilities into the workforce, an innovative way Here it is, Careers to Be. The person comes on a 1-year contract, and at the end of 1 year, either you hire them, or now that they have experience, we can market them into the workforce. I mean, it's like a win-win situation. Although Gary said a million times, hey, if you get a job offer in 9 months, go. I can't— I so often I remember you saying that, Gary, and that is true because this is all about people with disabilities gaining employment. So, Gary, I have a question. We're talking about these hiring managers. What impact do you believe Careers2B has breaking down barriers for someone that has not hired people with disabilities before?

You know, Joyce, I think we talked a little bit about the excitement and life-changing opportunity for the person with a disability coming into the workforce, but I think a close second is the life-changing effect it has on the managers as well. Because many of these managers, one, may have never thought of purposely reaching out and hiring someone with a disability, and they certainly didn't have any insight into how it would change the person's life, but also the skills that they have and the educational background and the ability they have to contribute to the team. And so as you think about these managers struggling to find a great candidate to contribute to their team, especially in today's competitive climate as far as hiring new employees, it's just been remarkable to see the manager's perspective on this. So somebody who might have been lukewarm about the idea in the beginning now becomes a very strong advocate And some of the stories you hear after the fact from the managers are just as emotional or heartfelt as the ones you hear from the employees.

Oh, yes. And I'll tell you another thing. I've noticed after that, just as you said, not only do they like it, but they, they call us and they want to hire more people. It is definitely a game changer. For anyone that has an attitude about employing people with disabilities, this is a game changer. Gerald, how about an example? How about if you give us an example of a success story from Careers To Be?

Yeah, so there is a young man who is a great example of this that we placed into the Careers To Be program at one of our customers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with the Cross Blue Shelter Tennessee. This person has a significant disability, has cerebral palsy, and is a really talented IT professional. So they were just trying to start out their career. They got hired at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee before COVID went into their contract role there. Was going on-site using their wheelchair, navigating through the building. They did a great job accommodating, including this person in the work, and they had great experience. They were there for a year, and then this person was able to land a full-time role actually at Highmark in engine as a, professional now, moving out of Careers To Be and into a long-term opportunity. And the person's level of dedication is so great. They gave us a call recently. They are still working out of Chattanooga. And they were crossing the street in their wheelchair and they got sadly hit by a vehicle, but was okay, went to the ER. And they got sent flying out of their wheelchair and everything, and gave us a call and said, "Don't worry, I'm only going to miss one day of work." I mean, you talk about dedication. I mean, somebody gets hit by a car, flying out of their wheelchair, and they only miss one day of work. Their chief concern is getting back to work. This is the dedication of people with disabilities in jobs, and that person is now incredibly successful and on their career at Highmark doing great work in the IT space. And there's a lot of folks like them that have been successful in careers to be in procurement and HR and all throughout the IT infrastructure, all different types of roles that we've had the chance to, to work with throughout the years.

Yeah, I mean, that story, uh, I remember when I told Ted Kennedy and he said to me, oh, I'm going to be telling this story. Hey, I, I got hit by a car, but I only missed one day of work. But you know what, when you— this isn't about the person being a superhero. This isn't a Marvel character. This is a person left out. And when you are left out and someone gives you this opportunity, it's a treasure. You're not going to let it go. And that's what competitive employment means to a person with a disability. I want to add to that, Gerald, if you could share our philosophy on paychecks, not pity.

Yeah, so Paychecks Not Pity, what that refers to is, you know, people with disabilities, we do not want your pity. We don't want you to feel sorry for us. We don't want a handout. We just want opportunity. And that means when we're filling a job, we put a person with a disability in that role, they have to be successful. They have to meet the criteria of that job. They have to be a great employee. And go figure, they are. People with disabilities will not only be great employees, they're going to be oftentimes your best performers on team. We have— people with disabilities have the best attendance records. We have the best retention rates. I mean, we just make incredible employees. So that's why hiring people with disabilities is good for your bottom line. It's because we're a good business investment. And of course, if someone is a bad employee, you know, they don't get to keep their job, but that's not indicative of all people with disabilities. The majority of us are, you know, wonderful employees that will have that great impact.

Yeah, see, this is not a charity. This is a business investment, and that's what you have to understand. We don't want you to feel sorry for us. We don't want you to treat us differently. Equal treatment. Equal treatment. And you know why? In addition to we don't want you to pity us or feel sorry for us, you cannot make the achievements that others would make unless you have equal treatment. So when you're hearing us talk about this, remember, no pity. People with disabilities want paychecks, not pity. Equal treatment. And Gary, we talked about this a little bit before, but we've had a lot of people calling asking about this being a great time for people with disabilities. Sadly, not great enough or more people would be hired since 70% of people with disabilities are still not counted in the workforce, but I must say I do see the ship moving. It may be moving slowly, but it is moving. So what's your opinion on this being a great time for people with disabilities seeking work and companies looking for talent?

Yeah, I think one of the things that, you know, you and I have talked about over the years, and of course this is our 2019 and earlier days, is about the transportation difficulties. And oftentimes we would say, hey, we have two barriers. One is that the person with disability that's struggling to find employment, they need to have some experience to kind of break down that barrier that's up for them that may not be up for everybody else, but it's something we need to overcome. And I remember the Careers to Be did a great job of taking that one off the table. But then the second one we struggled with was transportation. And it was very difficult in some cases to have people, you know, arrange, you know, trips to work depending on their disability and different things like that. Did the company have public transportation access and all these different things. And now with this work-from-home movement that we have post-COVID, I really feel like that sets the table now where the two biggest those obstacles are now removed. We can utilize Careers2B to remove the work experience, and then oftentimes companies will make allowances for people to work from home, if not every day, you know, a significant portion of the week, which then solves a lot of the transportation barrier we had in the past. So I really feel like now is a great time for the candidate. And then from an organizational standpoint, all we ever hear about is how there's a labor shortage especially in the technology space, and using the Careers2B program to set up another channel to integrate people into your organization, especially as you pointed out, this has an enormous number of people in this space. You had mentioned the 70% number of people that were unemployed, but there's probably a large number of people that are also, I would say, underemployed, where they could be contributing a lot more than what they currently are in a job if they had an opportunity.

That is such a good point, because the saying in the disability community was for years, underemployed or employed in the industry, meaning underemployed or I'm deaf and I work for the School for the Deaf, you know, underemployed or I work, I have epilepsy and work for the Epilepsy Association, which is why competitive employment is so awesome. Gerald, what is the change you see in these candidates after they have experience? I mean, from when you first meet them, as they get more and more experience, what changes do you see?

I think one of the biggest changes you see as in confidence level because, I mean, people with disabilities have faced most of their lives with people with disabilities or others just kind of putting them down, treating them poorly. So when you see an organization that gives them that opportunity, you talked about this earlier, you know, the loyalty, the— you've got this mindset of, I'm going to prove everyone who ever told me no wrong. And when they start to get those wins, they just flourish into such strong professionals. And along with that, this loyalty for the organization that gives them that chance really develops with them. And they become extremely confident in their abilities. And they become extremely professional, very outspoken about, you know, and positive influences on their teams. You know, they end up being really bright spots for the organizations that they're with and are great for morale that way because everyone knows when you bring that positive, excited attitude to work, it's contagious and really makes that big difference. And then just utilizing that experience to really grow and develop their career. They now know that, you know, there is opportunity for them and they're ready to seize it.

And not only that, it impacts the family because Gerald always talks about how his father, who is the first person I placed even prior to Bender Consulting Services, being founded by me in 1995. Prior to then, when I got him a job, it changed the whole dynamics of his family. I know Jill, who works for me, her husband's blind. She often talks about the same thing because all of a sudden you have dignity, you have pride, and you have the ability to take care of your family. So, I just want to say one more time, careers number 2B. Go to benderconsult.com, and you can read more about it and contact us, and we'll move forward. So, whether you're a hiring manager or a person with a disability, especially junior level, get in touch with us today because we have a great way for companies to work with people with disabilities. So, Gary, what message would you like to leave with our listeners today?

I think the main message I'd like to leave is that, you know, try it. You know, a lot of people listen to, to these types of shows, and Joyce, I really appreciate, you know, you having us on your show today as guests. They listen to these shows, they get very inspired, especially when Darrell shares a story about an individual, and it's a lot of feel-good, but you're missing out if you don't actually try it because this is a great opportunity for you not only to make a difference in the lives of several individuals with disabilities, but it's also a great opportunity for you to change the culture within your organization. And I really feel like that's one of the really big values You can find talent from a number of different places, but here's an organization that can find you talent, you know, a talented person with disability. You know, you heard about lower turnover, more loyalty, higher degree of engagement, perhaps a lot more grateful for the opportunity. And then you also get to change the culture within your organization, starting your leadership team and the other peers that they'll be working with., you know, within the organization. So if we think about, you know, disability equality, you know, it's really about changing the culture, not just simply finding somebody an opportunity. And so this program allows, you know, very low risk from that standpoint. It's a year commitment. I think you'll have outstanding results, both from the performance of the individual, but also you start changing the culture within your organization.

I do too, and I hope everyone takes that seriously, that message from Gary. Gary and Gerald, thank you so much for being with us today.

My pleasure.

Thank you for having me, Joyce.

Now we end every show with a quote, but before we do that, you know the third Wednesday of every October is Disability Mentoring Day. Disability Mentoring Day is organized through Bender Consulting Services, but nationally it's under the umbrella of the American Association Association of People with Disabilities. It's a day of job shadowing where a student with a disability goes to a company and spends maybe 9 to 1 o'clock job shadowing someone. Once again, it gives that person hope, and it breaks down barriers with the hiring manager. If you're not participating, please get in touch with us. But why I bring that up Next week on the radio show is Scott Hammerstrom from Bender Leadership Academy and also the person that runs Disability Mentoring Day, Jenny Holme from Highmark, and two leading executives from Nova Chemical and Calgon Carbon. So make sure next week get on the show. So this is our quote for today: No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. One of my favorite quotes by my favorite author, Charles Dickens. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at Voice America. Talk to you next week, and in Mary Brooker's words, remember, choose joy.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet Internet Talk Radio.

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