Jeff Wissel: Internationally Recognized Accessibility Leader Helps Making Accessibility the Standard for All Businesses

At Highmark Health, we believe what makes us unique makes us better. Our differences broaden our perspectives and foster a variety of skills to complement each other, creating a stronger and more vibrant workforce. It's this belief that earned us recognition as the Best Place to Work for the 10th year for individuals with disabilities in a survey by the American Association of People with Disabilities and Disability:IN. We'll continue to celebrate and benefit from the inclusion of all people. To find out more, visit highmarkhealth.org. Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on this show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, hope you're having a great day. This is Joyce Bender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Disability Matters with Joyce Bender on VoiceAmericaVariety.com. And I have to, as I do on every show, thank you first, all the great listeners that have helped keep this show on for 22 years. Isn't that awesome? With over 1,000 episodes. You know— Thank you. You hear me say it all the time, but I mean it. If I would meet any one of you listening, I'd be giving you a big hug and thanking you for following the show like this. It really means so much to me. Thank you. And to the 135 countries around the world listening to the show with Singapore, number 2. Shout out to all of you in Singapore. I'll tell you, you've got it going on there. You know that? You must have really good disability advocates. Keep it up. Keep spreading the news. Let me tell you why. Anyone listening to the show, any country around the world, what I'm trying to do is show people with disabilities that they're important, that there's quality to their life, and that they can work. So, anyone listening from anywhere around the world, if you can help me, you know, share this news, send it to someone else, send me an email at jbender@benderconsult.com with any— Joyce Bender. Questions or suggestions that you have. We have a chance to continue to spread the news, and that's what we have to do. So thank you to all of you. Hey, Yoshiko Dart, here's my shout out to you. You know how I love you. You are awesome, Yoshiko. Always supporting the Bender Leadership Academy, you are.

Thank you.

Hi, Mark. Thank you. Hi, Mark. Best, best, best company supporting people with disabilities. David Holmberg, you are just awesome. Well, speaking of awesome, I have this great guest today who is internationally recognized as an accessibility leader, and I will say a really nice, good person. And that's what adds so much to everything else. So, Jeff Wessel, thank you to the show. Welcome. It's an honor to have you on today. And when I say he's known internationally, I am not exaggerating. So, Jeff, our listeners throughout the world— here's what always happens. They'll say, wow, that person is great. I wish we knew more about him. So everyone on now, for the past several years, I have them start with their journey, you know, where they grew up and what went on from there in school, how— what was it like, what barriers did you face. So, um, I'm going to turn it over to you, and thank you again for joining us.

Joyce, I can't thank you enough. Um, for this opportunity. Talk about internationally known, um, you are the rock star in the accessibility and disability inclusion space, and, um, you may never know how honored I am to be on your show, but also to be talking about accessibility and disability inclusion, and I'll try to explain why. Um, but I am Jeff Whissel. I'm a 58-year-old white male. I'm fortunate, I feel like I'm 28. My wife says I act like I'm 18.

Yeah.

And I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, have lived here all of my life. I live on the west side of Cincinnati, and I'll take you back to just growing up and go quickly through my lived experience of being a person who has a degenerative eye disease. I'm proud to share that I have retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, And it's something that I hid till I was 48 years of age. My wife will tell you I really wasn't hiding it that well, but I'll share more about that. But I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Friday nights were football nights, high school football. I went to a wonderful high school called Elder High School, home of the Elder Panthers. And I very seldom ever share that, but you asked about high school and stuff, and— Yeah. I was in marching band. I still had, you know, relatively normal eyesight. I was able to drive and I was in marching band. I was very involved in high school because of band and just had a lot of friends. One of the coolest things was, you know, changing classes and just hearing your name and yelling other guys' names and stuff. And just the, the feeling of camaraderie and the school spirit. After high school, I attended Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, a wonderful school, but I didn't know it was a wonderful school, Joyce. I was working pretty much full-time, working for a small construction company. It was one of my best friends. His brother owned it, and 4 of us were his crew and learned so much. But I had this idea that I want to get in and out of school, college, so I was in and out in 4 years, got my degree. And so I could work full-time. Now here I am, 58, and I've worked ever since I've been 15 and a half. And I scratched my head and think, why didn't I enjoy college that much? It's because I didn't get involved. So the first, if there's any younger folks listening, the first lesson that I like to share is really get involved in high school and college. It's amazing.

Amazing.

What getting involved means. When I was fresh out of college, I was working for a public radio station, and I was, when I was 21, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. That was kind of a, it wasn't that much of a gut punch because I knew my vision wasn't like my friends and so forth, but when I was told that I would go blind, That was a gut punch. But I'm very blessed I didn't get depressed about it. Again, I think I still had a lot of usable sight at that point, but something happened that was wonderful. When I was little, my grandfather talked to me about positive thinking, and for whatever reason— I believe God works in mysterious ways— I paid attention to him. So I knew about positive thinking, and when I was 23, I came across a motivational speaker that I highly recommend everyone listen to this. His name is, funny name, but it's Zig Ziglar. And Zig Ziglar has one of his series that you can get it on cassette or online called See You at the Top. And it's all about positive thinking. And so many phrases that Zig has but one that I'll quote right now, and it's something that I did throughout my life that I continue to do today, but I change it. I've changed it. Zig says that 90% of our reality is what we put between our own two ears. And I'll talk more about that. When I was 26, I had this—

Uh.

I pretty much told myself that I'm going to be single. My eyesight and so forth, I just, I don't know that I'll find anybody that would want to spend that much time with me. And so when I was 26, I kind of just resigned myself to being, you know, the eccentric uncle. I got 2 amazing sisters and 2 amazing brothers and lots of nieces and nephews and now great nieces and nephews. I just didn't, I just kind of told myself that. And when I left college, I worked for a public radio station for 3 years, the university radio station. It was wonderful. But I had a friend who worked at Fidelity Investments, my friend Greg, and he turned my resume in for me. And 2 weeks later, I started at Fidelity Investments. I had this wonderful career, a 28-year-long career. Lots of different roles and so forth. But when I started, I was using my vision or my sight. I had plenty of useful sight still. Fast-forwarding a little bit to, I'm 29 now, and at this company, amazing company for 3 years, and I had moved to a street that my elderly aunt lived on. And one weekend, a friend of mine asked me, my friend Jeff asked if I wanted to go boating. I said, "Sure." And when you launch your boat, you have to pay a couple dollars to launch your boat at this place. And this girl asked if we wanted a stray dog. There was a stray dog running around. 10 o'clock that night, he comes running across this parking lot, this little beagle. I thought, "Well, I can take him home and find him a— take him home, and if I can't take care of him, I'll find him a home." The reason I'm telling you this story is because that little dog— my aunt would watch him during the day, but I would walk him in the morning, afternoon, and in the evening. And on account of that, I met the elderly neighbors that lived down the street, and they introduced me to this young lady who lived across the street from them. We didn't know each other, and we lived 8 houses apart. Well, we started walking, this young lady and I, and 3 weeks after, I asked her out, and I had our first date. And a month in— and she was 32, I was 29, so we were older—

Yeah.

But I knew she was the one. Joyce, I remember walking from my house down to her house. I was going to tell her about my vision, my sight, and that I am going— I'm legally going to lose my sight. I remember stopping 2 doors down in front of the neighbor's house and this big oak tree, and I looked up and I said, "God, I can't do this on my own." I tell my wife, My girlfriend at the time, and she says, "We'll figure it out." The reason I share that is, again, 26, thought because of my sight loss, my life's gonna be a certain way. Well, fast forward 29 years, and we're best friends, we're happily married, we have two wonderful kids who are young adults now, and again, All of this being said, sometimes you just never know how things are going to work out. About 9 years ago when I was at Fidelity, I had the opportunity to be introduced via email to someone at Fidelity who was blind. Now, I need to highlight that growing up, I did not have anyone who was blind or low vision in my life. So this was the first person, and I had all this wonderful family support and personal support, but I didn't have any professional support. Alicia, to this day, we talk every Friday at 7 in the morning, but she helped me to find my inner voice and to recognize that my sight loss that I felt was a weakness and I was allowing to be a vulnerability for myself, she helped me realize to flip that around change what I'm putting between my own two ears and realize that my sight loss is a strength, not a weakness. That helped me to go from being, over time, from allowing myself to feel like a victim of my own narrative to now being a director of my own narrative. With Alicia's help and the support of my regional phone center in, uh, here in Cincinnati, the leaders there, we started an employee resource group for colleagues with disabilities. Started with 6 of us, and there's now over 8,000 employees who are active members of Fidelity's ABLE Disability ERG. And in our little phone center of 3,000 people, there were 9 other colleagues who had RP, this relatively rare eye disease. They felt like they were alone and didn't know anybody, and they're also hiding it and so forth. With that learning of the disability dimension of our own work— our own employee base. We built a business case. My colleague Hale Pulsipher built a business case. Jean Raymond, the executive sponsor at that point, had the opportunity or made the opportunity to get an hour meeting 20 different times with 20 senior leaders. And we got— every time we would share about the accessibility capabilities of our platforms and so forth, they would say, "You mean we're not doing this already?" And in very short order, we launched this Office of Customer Accessibility and then went on to create a procurement program where we asked questions about the accessibility capabilities of the thousands of products that we were buying each year to make sure that all employees and our customers could use them. I went from being an individual contributor for 22 years to now in this leadership position and building all these amazing relationships, not only professionally, but getting to know folks personally. When you share a disability and we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we suddenly realize that everybody has something. It might be a disability, it might be something that makes them feel, in my words, less than. Even Ken and Barbie, the Barbie doll figures, they have something.

Mm-hmm.

But when we get below the surface and we realize that what makes us different makes us stronger, and it brings in this diversity of thought, it's an amazing thing. To fast forward a little bit, Fidelity had this wonderful buyout opportunity, and it was the perfect time in my life. So I accepted the buyout opportunity, and this amazing organization called Disability:IN. Disability:IN. I was working with them from the corporate side, and, um, they have something called the Disability Index, which I didn't know disability in. I was doing some Google searches years ago to see what best-in-class companies were doing around accessibility and disability inclusion, and I came across that index, and I used that as a roadmap to advance the accessibility capabilities. One story I love sharing in the global footer section of a website, a ticket to play is to have an accessibility help link that no matter what page you're on, it's always there in the global footer. It took a year and a half to get that established on Fidelity, but I kept waiting for someone to say— and keep in mind, I'm an individual contributor, a financial planner on the phones. I just happen to have an opportunity to be on loan to Margie and our accessibility team I kept waiting for senior leaders— Gave me the roadmap to just know what to do. With that being said, Disability:IN reached out and I have been for the past 4 years and 8 months, had the opportunity to serve as the first-ever Chief Accessibility Officer at Disability:IN. This amazing organization that helps business advance disability inclusion. There's over— there's hundreds of companies that are members of Disability:IN, and I had the opportunity, this amazing opportunity, to work with the accessibility leaders and the teams of the world's greatest companies and global companies. And Joyce, what really happens at Disability:IN competitors in business become collaborators in accessibility. There's this cross-company, cross-industry, cross-functional collaboration that goes on that when the conference every, every July— it's July 23rd through 30th this year in Dallas, Texas— there'll be thousands of corporate people there. And every year the main comment is I have never been in a corporate environment where so many people have shared so much about where they failed, what they're working on, where they're having success, and what their aspirations are for the future. It's just this amazing thing that happens. So I have an announcement, and that is I have the opportunity now to take all of these learnings of thousands upon thousands of interactions with customers at the financial firm, and all the hundreds of interactions I've had the opportunity to collaborate with the accessibility leaders around the world to create the next, to create the next phase of my accessibility journey, and I'll have more to share very shortly on that. Joyce, it's just been a wonderful journey. Along the way, I've met so many amazing people, and I wanna say thank you to everyone who is working on accessibility. Oftentimes we just have our heads down and for, you know, we just need to hear it. What you're doing is kind of like God's work. You're empowering individuals to be effective, efficient, and competitive. You're allowing customers to feel like they found their people. Keep pushing that boulder up the hill that feels like it keeps getting steeper, but know that you are making a positive difference. And Joyce, I want to share with you one of the things you asked about, what barriers did I face throughout all this and continue to face?

Mm-hmm.

The first is embracing my own vulnerability. I fought it like it's human nature. You know, I like to ask everybody that's listening, either now or later, do you like to feel vulnerable? The answer is no, right? It's a human instinct. We hide that vulnerability. And I believe that when we do embrace our vulnerability, it's when we find our greatest advancements, both personally and professionally.

Mm-hmm.

And I'll wrap up here by saying also, the human brain does not like gaps of information. So it fills in those gaps of information with fear and anxiety. Imagine an acute disability or a degenerative disability. There's a lot of unknowns about our future. It can seem overwhelming. And so that barrier of not having the information does create a lot of fear and anxiety. There's also unintentional inaccessibility. A developer, designer, executive admin who's sending out a memo with a beautifully crafted picture and everything's perfect on it except it doesn't have alternative text on it. These are things that are unintentional, but to quote my friend Sam Latif, who's head of accessibility at Procter Gamble— I love it when she does presentations— She'll say it's okay if you're a developer, designer, if you're a senior leader and you didn't know, that's okay, it was unintentional. But now that you know, if you continue to do it, it's intentional. Kind of puts it on its ears. And then I'll share two resources that really changed my trajectory, Joyce. One is navigating and continuing to be independent. I still have some sight to lose with this degenerative eye disease. But there's something that I use in the professional world that I also use in the personal world that helped me to navigate, and that's called Aira. It's a subscription service. It's basically FaceTime with a trained agent. But that has helped me so much to be able to navigate airports and find the Uber or Lyft when they're coming in that whole line of people. All these things that I would stress about, I don't waste any mental energy on it now. There's other tools, but that's just one of them. And then the other thing is the smartphones. I know not everybody is into technology, but the smartphones, oh my gosh, it's so incredible everything that it can do. But the other thing on the iPhones and the Android phones, it normalizes disability. Everybody has an assistive technology device now. All these things tied up together have brought me to where I am with you today, Joyce.

Wow, what a story. One thing you talked about early that I think is so important and was key in your success is that positive attitude, the Zig Ziglar mentality. I say that because, you know, I always say, blessed is he that expects to fail, he won't be disappointed. You know, it's up to you. Attitude is a choice you make, not someone else. No matter what the circumstance is, no matter how difficult it is, it's your attitude. It's what you think and what you do. You know, as a man thinketh, so is he. So I think that that positive, attitude just had so much to do with your success. And you know what else? The way you kept relationships, such as Alicia at Fidelity. I mean, that, I think I would recommend to everyone, the power of building relationships is going to come to you. I mean, did you know Disability:IN? Did you know them? No. Did you know Jill prior to joining there? Did you—

I did. I did. So I did not ask the company to apply to take the index for a year and a half. We wanted to get kind of some certain things in order. And so I did work with Jill and Brian and Leslie and all the team. What— it's family. And so I was aware of them prior to joining and attended the Disability:IN conference for years. And then when I got the call from Brian and Jill and they, you know, we interviewed and they offered me the job, I remember exactly where I was at that exact moment. I found my people, Joyce. They were wonderful.

Yeah, well, they are wonderful. That is For sure. You know what? There's something I wanted to ask you about, and I'll tell you why before, you know, you answer the question. 1820, Louis Braille changed the world with what we know as Braille used today by people who are blind. Why— I want to know what you think about something, and that is this. If I'm talking to someone at, for example, Disability:IN, they'll hand me a card with braille and they'll say, "I believe in inclusion and accessibility." Then I go back to the office and I say to someone that works for me who is blind, So, you know, what do you think of this? And he says, well, I don't know why people put that on anymore. You know, I use JAWS or I use— not as many people use Braille that are blind. What do you think about that?

I love this question. In all of my interactions with folks and friends that I have who are blind, low vision, who know how to read Braille, I have never met anyone who says, "I wish I didn't know how to read Braille." So the first thing I would say is everyone I know who reads Braille is so glad they read Braille. The other thing that I think of, Braille opens doors and it takes you places. Think of an elevator. If you can read Braille, you can open the elevator and you can press where you need to go. Good. It'll take you places. I say that because my friend Christy is head of accessibility at Otis Elevator, and I wanted to get a plug there for the accessibility they're doing. But having information, having a skill, those are good things. Those help with employment. Those help with all kinds of cool things. Braille can connect you to your kids. I can't see the Uno cards. Mm-hmm. I can't see the king and queen and the jack and so forth on playing cards. But guess what, Joyce? Learning braille, I was able to play Uno with my kids. I was able to teach them how to play cards. They were able to teach their friends how to play poker. The business card thing. This is a Jeff statistic, so everybody double-check it, but like less than 10% of the folks who are blind, low vision, read Braille, and less than a tenth of them, my understanding is, read what they call contracted Braille, which didn't— D-I-D-N-T is did not, that's a contraction— same with Braille. There's only so much space on a business card that you can put anything on there, so putting contracted Braille is a space constraint for a very small segment of the blind population that reads Braille and contracted Braille, Intuitively, it sounds silly, right? But two things happen. One, for that population that does read contracted braille, I don't have to get JAWS out or Seeing AI optical character recognition. I have a skill. I can read that. I'm literate. The other thing is it also shares something. I don't care what anybody says. If I have a card with braille on it, guess what? That company or that individual is making an attempt. They're making an effort. And the last thing I'll share on this, Braille is awesome and I've seen it change so many lives. So that's how I feel.

Well, you know, that's good. Why do you think less people are— people who are blind are learning Braille? Why do you think that is? Just because they're young and technology is advantageous to them, or what do you think?

Yes, and there's a lot of technology that we can use where we don't have to know Braille. And I'll put it this way too. Why do I only know English and very little Spanish that I remember from high school and college? It's hard. It's effort. It takes time. I put it on us, you know, who are blind for not reading Braille. It's on us. It's a skill. I think of it this way too. There's a golfing analogy that I use. I'm not a golfer, although I might be. I met someone from the Blind Golfing League where it was just fascinating. So I might go golfing again. But golfers take a golf bag with multiple golf clubs. And the reason they do that is each golf club gives them advantages on different shots. And it's the same with us in any disability. We need a lot of golf clubs or a lot of assistive technology tools because each tool does different things. Braille makes us literate. It's a tool. It doesn't solve all of our problems, but when it's needed, it's pretty cool to have it. It's pretty cool to have a driver when you're on the green teeing off. Same kind of scenario, but it's hard. And I think that's the reason why most of us don't.

Well, that is very insightful. I just was so excited to talk to you about that. But right now on the Half Hour, it is time for Mathis on the Mic with superstar Holly O'Donnell stepping in for Jennifer Mathis. I mean, What a step in, huh? CEO of Baseline. And I just love her. You know that? I do. I just love Holly O'Donnell. I do. She is Pittsburgh. She has a touch of Pittsburgh. So that's what makes her even more awesome. But Holly, welcome to the show. It's so nice to see you. And I have been getting all kinds of accolades about this Mathis on the mic, but I have to tell you all, Holly thought of the name. She did, not me. So I give her all the credit. But Holly, welcome to the show. And what news do you have for us today?

Thanks so much, Joyce. Thanks for having me. And it was wonderful to see you about 2 weeks ago at the Tony Coelho Awards. Capitol Hill and the award to Senator Markey.

Yes, that was his. So boy, talk about accessibility. He has done so much and he talked about it so much. But yeah, I love Tony and that Senator Markey more than deserved that award. And yes, it was nice to see you also.

Yeah. Well, I am here again to talk about Medicaid.

Wow. I know.

So Minnesota has disenrolled 61% of the Medicaid providers providing services that are considered high risk for fraud from the Medicaid program. And this means that the providers can no longer bill the Medicaid program for these services. And this large disenrollment was the result of a revalidation process that Minnesota agreed to go as to avoid the federal government, the CMS, stopping Medicaid reimbursement to the state. And this is what I talked about a few weeks ago when I was also standing in for Jennifer. CMS was withholding hundreds of millions of Medicaid dollars and threatening to stop $2 billion to Minnesota due to fraud concerns. The revalidation process focused on certain kinds of services that CMS has labeled high risk for fraud, including community support services, adult mental health community services, home and community-based services for people with disabilities, personal care services, peer recovery services, non-emergency medical transportation, and other important community services. One data point is of the 5,583 providers audited to prevent fraud, 3,411 were disenrolled from the Medicaid. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] from Medicaid. Only 2,061, which is 37%, were revalidated to continue serving people. The main reason providers were disenrolled was that they didn't complete or submit accurate administrative paperwork.

Ah.

So more than 800 of the dropped Providers have filed appeals. State officials have lifted the payment suspensions for those who appealed, allowing them to continue operating while their cases are reviewed. And this mass disenrollment has left thousands of people with disabilities and their families scrambling to find new providers for disability related services. And the same situation could occur in other states as well, as CMS has directed every state to go through this type of revalidation process. And so Joyce, I know you're gonna say, what can we do? And tell your— what I encourage your listeners to do is to tell you— tell their states to make sure that it's protecting the rights of people with disabilities to get the Medicaid services that they need, and tell their member of Congress how important these services are for people with disabilities.

Now, first of all, that's terrible. Let's start there. I mean, that is terrible. How many people will be without Medicaid? In Minnesota?

I don't know that total number 'cause I only know from the providers, but I don't know how many they serve.

Well, it would be a lot.

Yes.

And, you know, people are gonna die. That's the way it is. That is just terrible. So yes, we have to do something about it. And, you know, when Mathis on the mic rings the bell, it really works. So what can they do? Like, where can they go? What should they do to make comments? What is your suggestion?

My suggestion is that they call their member of Congress.

And they just go to the website and put in their name, you know, whoever their representative is, and the number is there, as I recall.

Yes, and they could just call the Senate or the House as well.

Well, you guys, you hear it, you got to do it. I always tell people when I see people, oh, this is so terrible, this is— I say, are you doing something? Don't just talk about it. Take action. We all have to be together on this. So you heard the challenge, the call out now from Holly O'Donnell. So I mean it, you know, could be you.

Joyce, do you want me to give the phone number?

Yes.

So for the Senate, you would call 202-224-3121 and the Capitol switchboard can connect you with your senator. If you call 202-225-3121, it will connect you with your member of Congress, your House member.

All right, and you know what else you should do? You should share this show. You know, it's so easy to do. Share this show and tell others to go to Spotify, Apple, Amazon, almost every social media platform You know, and they can listen to the show or go to YouTube and see the show. Uh, thank you, Holly. Thank you so much. And we're on it. We are the army of Mathis on the Mic. Thank you. Have a great day. You too. Bye-bye. That is so just— Mm-hmm. Yeah, not good. But do you know what I mean? We all have to take a stand. We are all in this together. So the only way you can see change is if we do something just like the Americans with Disabilities Act. You know, Justin and Yoshiko and Judy Heumann and Tony and Senator Harkin, so many people. Fought the fight to get this passed. For people who are blind, what would you say was the biggest positive impact from the signing of the ADA?

You stole a little bit of my thunder, Joyce. I was going to thank, you know, I know Judy's passed, but Judy Heumann, my colleague and friend Deb Daggett from Disability:IN, yourself. All the leaders, all the folks that had disabilities or were amazing advocates for folks with disabilities, and they pulled together. And, you know, the power of one is mighty. The power of many, of many, really impacts change. So with the— you know, it's interesting, it's what, 35 years since the passing of the American Disability Act? You know, all that work really moved the needle. And I'm a firm believer that everybody's voice matters. And again, I spent most of my adult life in the corporate world, Joyce. Everybody's voice matters. Every— nobody's better than anybody. But in the corporate world, when a senior leader who has a disability allows themselves to be vulnerable and to share, exponentially, that moves the needle. So my call-out for anyone who is in a leadership position to get uncomfortable when we're— if we follow that philosophy of life begins at the end of your comfort zone, if you allow yourself to be uncomfortable and embrace your vulnerability and potentially see your greatest advancements through facing that adversity. And self-disclose. It's amazing. You may never know, you will never know the complete impact that you have, but as a leader sharing their disability, that, that's where I personally have seen some of the greatest impact within corporations. Um, I think also the European Accessibility Act that just came into effect. It had an immediate splash, but what I'm hearing is the next 2 to 3 years is where we'll really see the bulk of the impact as accessibility has to be baked into the existing products and services. All these different things really tie together to advance accessibility, but it's up to each of us with disabilities I'll talk more about this a little bit later, but our own individual voices together and finding our inner voice and embracing our vulnerability to bring visibility and proximity to disability in all of the organizations we're involved in, in our corporate world and so forth. But legislation does move the needle, but people move the needle too, Joyce.

Yes, they do. And, you know, You know, there are a couple of questions before the show ends today that I wanna make sure we address. So the next question is, you know, when I see people, speakers in the disability community, they talk about the 98% of websites that are not accessible. So two questions. Number one, is that accurate? And the second question, why the heck? Is this not being fixed? I mean, how is this possible that, you know, I started the company 31 years ago. Here we are, high unemployment. But I mean, how is this and why is this happening? So let's start with the first question. Is that accurate? False.

Ah-ha. And what I wanna share is WebAIM, the organization that is the most noted for that study, I think it's like a million homepages, in 2025, it's gotten better, it's still not anywhere near where we want it to be, but 94.8% is the number of homepages that still have some accessibility issues in them.

Oh my goodness, well, that's still terrible.

It is, it is.

Oh my goodness, but thank you. So we have it right.

And everything in life is a— I think is a bell curve, so there's always a spectrum to things. Just like most folks aren't totally blind or totally deaf, it's a spectrum, right? And mobility varies and things like that. When we think about accessibility, it's a spectrum. And what I'm trying to say is my understanding, the 3 most— not that this is not a big deal, it is, but my understanding is the 3 most common issues that they find are low contrast, so between text and background, or text in a border, things like that. Unlabeled form fields. This is one that can really be not more than a nuisance. It can really slow folks down so they're not able to be effective, efficient, and competitive, right? It's— if there's a form field and it's first name, last name, or first name, middle name, and last name, well, if a screen reader user or keyboard-only user is navigating around and they come to those form fields, they might just hear blank box or editable field. It's like, well, what am I supposed to edit in this field? A label would be first name, editable field, middle name, editable— that's a pretty big one. Um, the other would be alt text. Alternative text simply means if there is a picture or a graphic that derives some meaning that you can get visually, that is relative to the topic, not just a picture of flowers that's just decorative. It should have alternative text on there, so a screen reader user is going to hear, "Picture of 3 Christmas presents neatly wrapped underneath a Christmas tree." That's a little bit better, right, than just seeing or hearing graphic or picture. Um, critically important things, but a webpage, think how much content is constantly being updated. If there's one picture without alternative text, technically that webpage is not accessible or, you know, it wouldn't pass. And you ask why this happens? In my lived experience of working with literally hundreds of corporations over the years, it's not uncommon for even a Fortune 100 company to have maybe 7 people working full-time on accessibility. Now, the challenge with this is accessibility is a programming language, right? I mean, it's technical code to make something accessible or inaccessible. That language needs to be embedded in the processes. Until small teams get the senior leadership support, they're the ones who are pushing the boulder up the hill. And there's something that we call definition of done. In some companies, I mean, they're pushing out code every 45 minutes. Unless there's senior leadership support where the teams working on accessibility can evangelize and have a definition of done for their developers, designers, QA folks, and so forth that, hey, that code that you're getting ready to pass through, just like cybersecurity, if there are critical or high-level accessibility issues, uh-uh, it's not getting posted today. Imagine that. That takes a lot of support.

Wow.

And then can I share one— a couple other things?

Yes, of course.

There's statistics out there that show about 75% of disabilities are non-apparent or invisible. The Disability Index, that benchmarking survey, On average, 10 years since this report's been out, Joyce, still less than 4% of employees self-disclose a disability for various reasons: the vulnerability, unknowing what's going to happen if we do self-disclose. But we with disabilities have an opportunity to continually to be more efficient, effective, and competitive by sharing our voice and asking for the accommodations that will help us to be more, you know, more effective. That's what companies want. And the last thing I'm going to share on this, Joyce, because I'm not all rose-colored glasses, but I do get to see a lot of the positives of what corporations are doing. There's hiring programs for folks with disabilities. There's accommodations and things like that. So I know there's time, money, and resources put into hiring and retaining folks with disabilities. That doesn't always get the positive light that it should. Right. Should, but there's still gaps. Cross-industry, cross-company, cross-functional collaboration I think is the secret, and shows like yours to shed light on this moves the needle to help us get there.

Thank you so much. Jeff, WCAG. I wonder if you could explain to people what that is and where are we today, what's the newest version?

Sure. So around the globe, there are globally accepted standards called the WCAG. It simply stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. And they're called success criteria. And there's— the current version is WCAG 2.2 AA. AA. It ranges from single A, double A, and triple A. Triple A is like the crème de la crème. But WCAG 2.2 AA is the standard today. Many companies— Joyce, if I'm being honest, many, many companies, many organizations, they have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of web pages. 2.2 would be an amazing thing if we were all at that. 2.1 does additional things. 2.2 AA really enhances things like, if anyone's ever experienced this drag and drop, you have a phrase and then you have a description and you have to drag with the mouse that phrase with the description. Well, if you're a keyboard-only user, you might as well turn your computer off. You're not going to be able to do it. That is enhanced in the W2— the WCAG 2.2. Developers, designers, this code is out there, success criteria is out there. It's really, you know, just a matter of building it into their processes. I feel so sorry for developers and designers, project managers. They have a tough job, Joyce. There's so many priorities, cybersecurity, everything. Every business unit says, "What we have is the most important. You must do this over your next 2-week sprint." Yeah. Accessibility sometimes gets deprioritized. The companies like the Microsoft, the Amazons, the Googles, I mean, they're kind of paving the way, the Fidelities, the JPMorgans. Um, but it, it's there. It's really just a matter of us with disabilities raising our voices and senior leadership really putting support behind this. We can knock this out pretty quickly. AI, I think, will help us to, to get there. Yeah. That's what I'm really excited about.

Yeah, right. That's what I hope happens also. Well, Jeff, as I said before, you're just such a nice person and so smart and talented. But people always have an influence, you know, and I'm wondering who you consider your role model, you know, who— who has influenced you?

If I limit myself to two, knowing that there's hundreds of people that have paved the way forward and hundreds that I've had the opportunity to meet, obviously can't mention all of them. Two that have the biggest impact on my life, I would say, again, Zig Ziglar and my wife, my best friend.

Wow. That is so awesome. Well, they absolutely had a great impact on you. What advice do you have, Jeff, for people who are blind that are going to websites and they're not accessible? Because some people become just so depressed about all this, they don't do anything. What is your opinion? What's your advice?

Information is the key to everything in life. Communication is the key to everything in life. If there is a website, whether it's a company website, a just a, I don't know, any type of website, any mobile app, if there's something that is causing us a barrier, what can I learn about it? What workarounds can I find? What can I share with that company? Is there an accessibility help link? I can honestly share with everyone listening, if you do encounter a barrier, there generally should be an accessibility help link. If there's not, there's a contact us. Document, and it might seem, why? I'm not getting paid for this, why should I do this? If I can plead a case for the folks who are designing the code and so forth at that company or organization, You help them to get resources by saying, "Hey, I'm having difficulties here." These folks want to do the right thing. They just need our help in getting the emails, the comments, and so forth. That helps them get more support, both headcount but also attention of senior leadership. Each of us has a voice, and I don't think we— I think we underestimate As individuals, our voice, when we do take the 3 minutes to put feedback on there, not nasty or anything, just, "Hey, I wanna do business with you all, but I'm caused, I have these barriers," that helps. It might seem like it falls in a black hole somewhere. Sometimes it does. But of all the hundreds of companies that I worked with, that's what they ask us to do because they take that back and they say, "Look, we're getting slammed with all of this. We have this audience out there that we wanna sell product or services to." Mm-hmm. We're putting these barriers. There's a return on investment for us. Not only is it the right thing to do, it's a legal thing to do, ethical thing. Let's sell more product. Let's make this work. Our individual voices do make a difference. Don't get upset. Don't get frustrated about it. Just continually putting the feedback out there.

Yeah. When you get a chance to take the podium, speak up. That's what Tony Coelho taught me. And I do, and he was right, and everyone listening should do that. If you don't do anything, there's not going to be change. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? You do something and they don't change. But without trying, there's no chance that they will. Absolutely. So, you know, I just really hope that everyone takes that seriously, what we're talking about. Well, do you have any special message you want to leave with our listeners today, Jeff?

Do I have 5 hours? So many life lessons that I've learned. One is if you don't have a mentor with your disability that you feel is successful, find one. Mentors change lives. I think too, our goal in life should be to continue to be a mentee, to continue learning. That's always a good thing. But also, even though we might feel I could never be a mentor, all of us can be a mentor because if we're diagnosed with something, just the fact of being diagnosed with something puts us, and we've had it for a little while, puts us farther ahead of the journey than someone who is just getting diagnosed. If there's something that, skills that you picked up and have learned, or ways of just, alternative ways of doing traditional things, share those. You never know the tips and tricks that you share with others, what a difference that can make. I remember someone sharing with me who was blind who said, "Toothpaste. Get your own bottle of toothpaste." Mm-hmm. Put it on your shelf, tell your spouse or partner or kids that don't use this, this is mine. And the reason why you don't wanna use it is if you take it, take the toothpaste, squirt a little bit in your mouth, it gets the exact amount in the exact right place. No longer are you putting it on your finger when you're trying to put it on your toothbrush that you can't see or dropping it in the sink and looking for it. Simple things. It sounds silly to talk on a major podcast like this, but those life lessons, those tips and tricks, makes us all more effective, efficient, and competitive. So every one of us can be a mentor. Learn and share and never stop learning. If you're not uncomfortable, you're not learning, you're not growing. Be uncomfortable and learn and grow and find that, that time of adversity, I think, is where we find our greatest growth. This is—

What?

This is real life that can get, get us down. But 90% of what we— of our reality is what we put between our own two ears. Find ways of putting some positives in our ears, and it helps. It doesn't change everything, but it helps. That's my words.

Yes. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for being with us, and we'll look forward to you calling in and telling us what your next big venture is. We'll look forward to hearing that, um, and I will follow up with you for sure. We end every show with a quote. So today the quote is, "The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision," said Stevie Wonder. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. And in the words of Mary Brooker, When you get up tomorrow, remember, choose joy. You won't be disappointed. Talk to you all next week with the Mayor's Office on Disability from New York City. Talk to you then.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11:00 AM Pacific 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 talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.

Hello, this is Joyce Bender.