Joyce Bender Reflects on 20th Anniversary of Disability Matters

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.

Well, hello everyone and welcome to the show. To everyone in the United States and around the world. As I always say, thank you, thank you, thank you for not just your dedication to this show, but for impacting the lives of other people with disabilities, uh, by just sharing it, just sharing this news, sharing information about the show. So thank you so much. And again, to our listeners around the world, I mean it, I appreciate you so very much. Yoshiko Dart, I got your birthday card. Yoshiko, you know I love you. Oh, that card meant so much to me. And I will be doing this as long as I'm on this show, Yoshiko. Also, hi, Mark. What a great company. They are the sponsor, and I, you know, I— David Holmberg was just named one of the most influential healthcare leaders in out of 100, 100 of the top leaders. David was one of them, and isn't it great that he also is committed to the employment of people with disabilities? So Thank you so much. Well, we have a little twist here today, and that is that many people ask me, would I do a show and have someone ask me the questions? So I decided that yes, I would do it, and I could think of no one better than the newscaster you all know, and CEO of Disability Rights PA and a national disability rights leader and my friend, Perry Jude Radesik. Welcome, Perry.

Joyce, uh, thank you. Uh, it's always wonderful to be your news anchor, but it's even more of an honor to be able to ask you the questions on the other side of this microphone today. So As you always say, boy, do we have a show for you. And yeah, we have a show for them. Joyce Bender.

I am the guest, and I am also honored, Perry, to have you as the person interviewing me. So, uh, take it away.

Well, thanks, Joyce, and welcome, Joyce, to Disability Matters. You know, so many of us as listeners get little bits and pieces of your life that you share with us during the show Disability Matters, but we want to delve more into who you are, what has had a profound impact on you as you you've done your work. So let's begin with this, Joyce. I want to ask you to tell all of us, all of your listeners, just about yourself and your background.

Okay, I would be happy to do that. So I grew up in a rural area, New Galley, Pennsylvania, and my home was the home that had that my mother grew up in. Of course, they did a lot of work and a lot of remodeling, and it was— the house was given to my mother. I loved my childhood. I loved growing up in a rural area. Then I went on to Mohawk High School and then to Geneva College. I must tell you, Geneva College had a big impact on my life. They are one of the top engineering small schools. They're also faith-based and really brilliant teachers there. I was a proctor to the head of the psychology department, and he was a clinical psychologist. So just everything about it, it being faith-based, a Christian college, but a Christian college, but not— but I will say it this way, and yet very civil rights oriented. So, I am very proud of, you know, of my education. And then ultimately I ended up moving to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was not my choice. My husband had a job, so we left. We now lived in Newcastle. We had moved from New Galilee to Newcastle. But we moved to Pittsburgh— this would be way back in 1979— and guess what I started doing? Search recruitment in information technology and went on to own my own company, Bender and Associates, before I founded in 1995 Bender Consulting. But the interesting part of that is a lot of people that do what I do come out of the not-for-profit world, but I came out of the private sector. So having this background in employment, you know, I knew what it took to get a job, keep a job, how corporate America works, and I really feel that that background had an impact on the success of Bender Consulting Services.

Joyce, tell us what inspired you to start Bender Consulting Services and tell us a little bit about the mission behind Bender Consulting.

Sure. Well, when I grew up, as a teenager, I would occasionally— not meaning maybe just once a year— faint and be, you know, faint and unconscious for a couple minutes. And my family used to think it was low blood pressure, or I had a virus, or, you know, whatever. And then Uh, when I got into my 20s, I started to have them more often, but now they changed. Now I would get this horrific feeling in my head, and I would know, oh no, that thing's going to happen, that thing's going to happen, uh, you know, where I am unconscious. And sure enough, uh, that is exactly what would happen. You know, I would get this feeling and then I would be unconscious, you know, either fall down or be in a chair or be in the bed, wherever it was. And then I would have horrific vomiting afterwards. And off I go to the doctor with my husband. I explain all this and my husband told me it found me unconscious and the doctor says Oh, it's just some female hormonal problem. You're fine. Which is why I tell all women, I tell all women, if you ever have any doubt about what the doctor tells you, get another opinion. Obviously everyone should do that, but for some reason in the medical profession, women either are— it's in their mind, it really isn't bad, they're being emotional, they're, you know, worrying too much, they're in the past hysterics, hysterical. But he was wrong. And one night in 1985, I went to see the movie Amadeus, and at the interview of the movie— I, I mean, I'm sorry, at the intermission of the movie I went to— out to the concession stand, and then I— my husband went to the men's room, and I had a seizure, and I hit the floor so hard that I fractured my skull, had an intracranial brain hemorrhage, broke the bones in my right inner ear. That's why I'm also hard of hearing. And along comes the doctor in the intensive care unit and says, um, oh Joyce, you're taking Dilantin, an anti-seizure medication. You have epilepsy. Now when I did faint suddenly— and no, it wasn't a faint, it was a seizure, but identical to the faint. In other words, I always had epilepsy. See, Perry, everyone thinks If you have a seizure, you have a convulsion, which in the medical world is called a tonic-clonic seizure, known to all of our listeners most likely as a grand mal seizure. But what people don't know is more people have complex partial seizures or absence seizures or temporal lobe, whatever it is, than a grand mal seizure. I'm one of those people. And because I did not say that magic word convulsion, you know, I was misdiagnosed. And Perry, I can't tell you how often that happens still today. But I got a call— well, I got back to work in 2 months, back to my search firm. And then I received a call from a friend who was a partner at Deloitte and Touche. That's what it was called then. Of course, today it's Deloitte. And she said, hey, I want you to meet this, this ED, Executive Director, from this 13-month program called the Institute of Advanced Technology. They're teaching people with disabilities how to be software developers in COBOL. We want you to go teach them how to interview, how to write a resume. And of course, I was happy to do this. So off I go to the school. I could not believe it. No one would get an interview. No one was even calling anyone. And you know what, Perry, like today, many of these people had college degrees. But because they couldn't find employment, they went back and took this 13-month program thinking, oh, well, if I take this and it's IT, you know, then I'll get a job. So for the next 9 years, I did volunteer work because no one could even, as I said, get an interview. No, they— no one was hiring anyone. And you know what? After 9 years, I said, that's it. And that is when I started Bender Consulting Services, headquartered in Pittsburgh, in 1995 as a for-profit company for 2 reasons. Number 1, I wanted a rich benefits program because of what I went through and my husband you know, when I had this brain surgery. And the second reason is no pity. People with disabilities need paychecks, not pity. So I had, you know, brain surgery because I had an intracranial brain hemorrhage. But as I said, here I am, I had this miraculous recovery. But, Perry, being that you're a leader in the disability community, do you know what I mean about no pity?

Absolutely, absolutely, Joyce. I think that's critical because we all want to be judged on our own merits and get a job because of that. And, you know, we don't need patronizing people in our lives or employers who are patronizing. So, I do know what that's like, Joyce, and what that means. But Joyce, let me ask you this. So, here you start Bender Consulting, and you want to place people with disabilities in real jobs without pity for real wages. And so, you start doing that. But Bender is so much more than that now. How has it evolved over the years? And it's so much bigger than that.

Yes. Well, you know what you said about that competitive employment? That's our corporate motto. Competitive jobs mean freedom. Because you are never, ever, ever free in this country until you have employment. Can't buy a house, can't get a car, can't live the American dream until you had employment. That's why Marca Bristow, when she passed away, wow, what a legend, you know, what an icon, her and Judy Heumann. But Marca used to say, disability and poverty go hand in hand. Many times that is true. That is the way it is. And the reason competitive employment is— Perry, when I started, the majority of people that got jobs, it was working at a pizza shop, janitor, bagger at a grocery store. That's it. And so when I started, The first 6 people I found employment for, it was in IT. And that's— I've only done IT, engineering, procurement, you know, all the business disciplines, because people with disabilities should be treated like everyone else and give the same opportunity and pay wages that everyone else is paid. And that is why in 1999, Perry, I received the President's Award at the White House from President Clinton, which is the highest honor given to one American. Wow, what an honor that was. It was because I was really the only person working in the area of competitive employment.

That's a terrific honor, Joyce, to be given that by a president for doing what, what people with disabilities want, which is just a job and a real wage. And here you are helping to facilitate that, and you've had success stories of individuals who've benefited from those services provided by Bender Consulting on, on your show. But you still must have to overcome misconceptions or stereotypes about people with disabilities in the workplace.

Yes, and I'm sorry I did not answer your other question. Let me back up for one moment. Bender Consulting Services is a national company. We work across the United States. With, you know, Fortune 500 corporations. We have worked with the federal government. I am so proud of the fact we had a 10-year contract with the National Security Agency where we sent them 200 candidates a year. We did this, the recruitment and the whole vetting process. We put the resume together in the federal resume standard, and then we would send these to OPM. And guess what? Their backgrounds had to be STEM. So, these were people that were either engineers, mathematicians, you know, IT, But it did include linguists because at the NSA, you know, people are trained in different languages to know what's going on from a terrorist perspective around the world. I am so proud that we worked with them 10 years because the late Governor Thornburgh, when he spoke at New York Law School, he said, Joyce Bender is a company I love in Pennsylvania, Bender Consulting Services, and they place people at the NSA. So here's my question. What's your excuse? I mean, to work for the NSA, wow, 9-month security clearance check and then lifestyle polygraph test. So the question is, if they're hiring people with disabilities, Why would you not be able to have an, hire an entry-level computer programmer or an entry-level accountant? We also worked with the Office of Personnel Management and sent them 200 people a year trained in specific areas they ask us for, like accounting, IT, customer service, and same process I just told you about. And what would happen is they had to be Schedule A. So, we would make sure they were Schedule A certified, send the resume. Now, if you're in the federal government, you know, to hire someone, looking for someone Schedule A is quite a process. But there was this OPM shared list that it was funny because a lot of people called it the Joyce Bender shared list, but they would be able to go to this data— database, find someone knowing, yes, they have a Schedule A letter, and they would be able to bring them on board. So we work with them. Then we have a group that does digital accessibility, and that digital accessibility is that a group called— that is here, a division called High Test, where we go and make sure websites are accessible and VPATs and, you know, internal applications. Very busy in that area. Then we have a group that does management consulting that is growing in leaps and bounds, where we go to companies and make sure they are accessible, whether it is onboarding, you know, HR, or their website, whatever it would be. Then, and how to make the company succeed long-term in employing and keeping people with disabilities and providing equity. I also am the part owner of iDisAbility, which is a software product with almost 50 modules training companies how to work with and communicate with people with disabilities. And these modules are only 15 minutes in length because, you know, a lot of people don't have hours of time to take a training. So this would be like How to accommodate a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder. How to interview someone with autism. So, you're right, we do do a lot of other things. And later on, I'll talk about the Bender Leadership Academy. But that's the heart and soul. Yeah, we're going to get to the leadership. Yeah. The heart and soul of the company is employment, but we have all these spokes to the wheel.

Yeah. Joyce, it's just an amazing company doing amazing things. But what's even more tremendous is that you don't stop there. Like, so here you are being honored by the White House, and you move in policy circles, too. You must have had a role in things like the Americans with Disabilities Act and building other policy initiatives. So, you know, many people with a disability sort of just try to manage their life, right? Here's my life. It's enough for me to get up, go to work, come back, and all the stresses that are associated with that. And here you are, not just a person with a disability, but managing this major company, a for-profit company. And tell us about the work you do around policy?

Well, you know, I'm very honored to be the vice chair of the American Association of People with Disabilities, and AAPD is a membership organization that is policy-driven. So my— I, I was on the board for many years, then I became the chair of the board, then I left the board When I left, Ted Kennedy Jr. was going to be the chair, and he called and asked me if I was going to go back, which I did. But, you know, whether it's 14c or digital accessibility, you know, we work in all areas of policy. And then even I'm the chair of the Epilepsy Association of Western and Central PA, and we are right now working in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania to get legislation for more awareness of SUDEP, sudden unexplained death in epilepsy. So, we really— I work with the World Institute on Disability and we deal with some policy issues there. You know what, Perry, I've been on so many boards where we work on policy issues that it is really an honor feeling I am a disability rights advocate. That's where it's unusual. I'm in the business world, but I'm also a disability rights advocate. So, Andy Imperato used to tell me, "Yeah, that would make you so unique. I don't know anyone like you that's both." But this is it. I'm on a crusade.

Joyce, you are, and you do amazing work, not just on the boards that you've mentioned, but you're on the board of Disability Rights Pennsylvania as well, and many other organizations, and you give back to the community too through your board service. And it's— we're so lucky to have you in Pennsylvania To have you working on national boards and to be representing the disability community in so many circles. I see photos of you when President Biden has a disability event at the White House, and there you are, not just representing Bender Consulting, but all the other organizations that you serve. It's amazing to watch you. And to cheer you on when you get invited to these high-level briefings and policy activities.

Well, thank you, Bud. That is, you know, that is important to me. I always feel that the disability community, we have silos, and silos will not break stigma, or improve employment or policy or equity. So, I am on many boards. And you know what, one other thing, the ADA Amendments Act, I worked so much on that with Tony Coelho, but also Cheryl Sensenbrenner, who passed away. You know, it was bipartisan. Republican and just a most wonderful person. And why I'm telling this story is you can't create change like that without everyone in the disability community getting on board, whether it's epilepsy, the deaf community, autism, no matter, independent living, no matter what. We all have to get together for policy change.

We do. And with that, Joyce, you know what time it is?

Time for our news break. Well, let me guess, let me guess. Might that be our news break on the half hour with Perry Jude? And guess what, Perry? I have you right here. So what is the news today?

Joyce Bender, we need action from all of the listeners of Disability Matters related to the US Census Bureau. So we have an action alert here. So first I'm going to tell you about the American Community Survey. This is a very vital tool that's used by the US Census Bureau to collect and provide essential data about America's population. And our characteristics. So it's conducted on an ongoing basis by the US Census Bureau, and it gathers information on various topics like age, race, income, education, housing, and disability. There's always a set of questions on there about disability. So this is a comprehensive survey that helps government agencies, policymakers, researchers, government and the business community make informed decisions and allocate resources. So it's really important to the disability community, the American Community Survey. So it's a snapshot of our demographic landscape. And so for us in the disability community, the American Community Survey, specifically the disability questions, is just It's one of a very few sets of data that we have from the federal government about our population in the United States. So here comes September of this year. The Census Bureau proposes changes to the disability questions they've been asking in the American Community Survey that we think, as drafted, could negatively impact the data collected. So, and we're concerned that there could be an undercounting of the disability population. And if there's an undercounting of the disability population, it could lead to then reduced funding for critical federal programs and the loss of this critical data to demonstrate the needs of the disability community. So currently, if you ever have participated in the American Community Survey, When they ask you about disability, you answer with a yes or no answer. Those are your only two choices. So like, do you have a disability, yes or no? The proposed questions would now ask us to assess our functional level. So it's not as clear-cut as a yes or no answer. Now, the concern is that these changes, proposed changes, these were done with no involvement or consultation with the disability community before the US Census Bureau released these proposed changes. Now, we know advocacy matters. The US Census Bureau released this information in a public notice through the Federal Register, and comments are due to the US Census Bureau by December 19th. So now is the time for our community to say, hey, hold on, don't make these changes yet with the American Community Survey until you have consulted with the disability community to know the impact that is going to— that you might have on the disability community. So the National Disability Rights Network has made it easy to provide comment to the US Census Bureau. NDRN has created an action alert with some draft language that you can use to send your comments to the Census US Census Bureau. It's an easy link. You click on the link, you type in your address, look over their suggested language, and you can change it if you want to and— or keep their language and send it off for the public comment to the US Census Bureau. Now, where do you find this? You go to disabilityrightsPA.org. That's disabilityrightsPA.org. Click on today's Advocacy Matters segment. There you'll find the Action Alert from NDRN and the Federal Register notice that was released by the U.S. Census Bureau. So please go to disabilityrightspa.org.

On our—

to the middle of the page, you'll find the Advocacy Matters segment for today and click on it, and that's where you'll find the Action Alert to provide your comments by December 19th. And Joyce, it's really important that All of your listeners, go there now and fill out that comment to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Okay, so Perry, one thing is if we're underrepresented, just as you said, we could let— get less funding. What do you mean about the functional part? What do you mean by that? So, you know, that they may ask you to go over this.

Yeah, so what the Census Bureau would do instead of saying yes or no to a question like, do you have a disability, they might ask you— and I've not seen the questions, I just read a paragraph about what the questions are going to do. That's what was released in the Federal Register notice. Instead, they might ask you a question like, what is your— ability to do something or function in a way. And then you would see maybe what is your ability to hear, what is your ability to see, and there would be more than just a yes or no. So that's my understanding of it, Joyce Bender. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't because I've not actually seen those questions. A summary of what those questions would be like.

Well, may I say to everyone, you know, don't wait. See, these are the things that if you don't take action on, okay, those things Perry talked about could happen. So you've got to do it. You've got to do— okay, disabilityrightspa.org, go to advocacy, matters, because it does, it does matter. Uh, thanks, Perry, for, for the news. Perry, how long have you done this?

Oh my gosh, we're into our 5th or 6th year, Joyce.

Wow, that is awesome. And you are awesome, Perry. I'm proud to have you as my newscaster.

Well, thanks, and it's great to be on this side talking with you, uh, and interviewing you. Now, you know, we've You've touched on a few things like 14, and you've also touched on the Joyce Bender Leadership Academy, which we're going to get to. But let's stick with employment of people with disabilities. Joyce, 14, my gosh, there are still so many people with disabilities who make less than the minimum wage in most states across this country. What do we do about this? How can we make more opportunities available for integrated competitive employment?

Well, you know what, Perry, it's terrible. To me, the people could be paid— in case you all don't know this, the companies are permitted, like a Goodwill Industries, and I use that as an example. If someone would go to them and say, um, we're giving you a contract to make all of these widgets, whatever it is, for the Department of Defense. They can say, we have people, employees working here, but they have very significant disabilities. So we're going to evaluate for you what we feel that under those circumstances, their productivity value and performance would be. And I got news for you, there are people that have been paid— I'm not talking about Goodwill, I just used that as an example— at companies, 10 cents, a dollar, definitely beneath minimum wage. And when you tell people that, they don't even— they can't imagine how this is possible. But it is possible. And in the United States, we are working to try to eliminate that. The big problem is that people will say, Then they won't have a job. What's going to happen to my child? They won't have a job. But in Vermont, they did this as a pilot that became, you know, their way of life. You cannot believe the high percentage of people that now have jobs that are above minimum wage. And Perry, I know you've seen this also. Yeah.

Absolutely. And, you know, the other question that gets asked a lot and where some of this fear is coming from is, well, will my son or daughter, my child, make enough money that they won't get their benefits? And maybe, you know, they get home and community-based services, and if they make too much money, they'll lose it. Well, the answer is that there are people out there. It's called a WIPA program by the Social Security Administration who will provide advice around— or will provide benefits counseling so that the parents and people with disabilities can overcome their fear of making more than a minimum wage and staying employed in integrated competitive employment because you can work and be on Social Security. But you need to be educated about that process and how to make that happen for yourself. So, you know, that's the other thing I hear, Joyce, is like, I don't want my son or daughter to lose their benefits. Well, that's not always going to happen and not be the case. And so, people just need to be educated about that.

Mm-hmm. Well, so what are we doing about it? The disability community is getting together and fighting this, and one of the groups leading the way is AAPD. So stay tuned with NDRN, Disability Rights PA, AAPD. Keep in tune. And of course, when something does happen, we will bring you that news from Perry. But there are people fighting this.

Joyce, let's talk about the Bender Leadership Academy. It also, as I've observed it, really grown over the years. And who did you start the Bender Leadership Academy with, and why did you start it?

Well, over 22 years ago, I had a customer in Delaware. Computer Sciences Corporation, and they were a big customer. And so one day— hiring people with disabilities from us. So one day, uh, the HR liaison called me and said that the schools in Delaware had gone to her and said Will you work on some school-to-work program? That person, you'll never believe who that person was. Leigh Ann Thomas, who is today my Chief of Staff. Because when she retired, yeah, I grabbed her 10 years ago, and she is awesome. But anyway, I said, sure, I'll do this for 1 year. Well, here I am. Way beyond one year. And so I designed this program. They would first, before they even meet me, they have to be prepared at the first class to present and give a one-minute speech on what does it take to be a good employee. Everyone, no excuse, everyone has to get up there. And speak in front of the group. Then we teach them, you know, in that class about initiative and how initiative is so important in the world of work. And then a couple of months pass where they do homework. They come back and now they're going to give a speech on initiative. And now we spend a long time working on either We either make this the bullying class or the work preparation class. And I gotta tell you, that's what did it with me. These kids, these students to start telling me how brutally they're bullied. And if you don't know, students with disabilities are one of the largest groups in the United States bullied. And Perry, I am working with Jason Maida, who worked before for HRC, and he now has been on a retainer to our company. He does event planning and a lot for AAPD, for example. And he has introduced me to different leaders in the gay community. Wow, the intersectionality. Yeah. The number of people who are gay that also have depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, you know, through what they went through, you know, in their life is so high. That intersectionality across the board. We have partnered with the LGBTQ community on, on the mental health work we do, which I'll tell you about in a minute. But again, this is why the bullying is so high. That's what I was getting to. Whether it's cyberbullying, physical, I mean, just brutal. There are 10-year-old girls and boys that have taken their own life because of how much they were terrible. Terrible. It is. So when I saw that, I said, okay, that's it. I'm going to keep doing this. When they— when— because when I said, well, who has been bullied in this class? Every hand of 25 people, every hand went up. And I thought, oh my God, this is terrible. So we have A class then on preparing for the world of work. Our last class is only part of the day on volunteerism and how you're going to give back. And then we have the graduation ceremony where the students come up front and we give them a gift certificate. I mean, a graduation certificate. And you would think that they are graduating from Carnegie Mellon. So proud. Oh, and this whole class is no pity. Probably figured that out by how I told you, uh, we run this. So I did this in Delaware first with the Delaware school districts, then in Pittsburgh with the Pittsburgh Public School Districts, and I always have it at a company to give the, uh, student the feeling of the going to work. So Pittsburgh Public School District at Highmark, uh, Beaver Valley School District at Calgon Carbon, and we used to go to Covestro for Fox Chapel, but it's easier for them to go also to Highmark. So both schools will be at Highmark And those classes I myself still teach. Now, during COVID for example, obviously we couldn't go, so we did all of this Zoom, by Zoom. And they actually videotaped me and would show videotapes of me talking about all these different, you know, issues. One of the things I tell them in every class is to remember how awesome They are. And my favorite part is where on the count of 3 you have to yell as loud as you can, "I am awesome." At Perry, they are awesome. So, I continued doing this, and in 2018, now, see, we started doing this at other schools, charter schools, virtually. So, Scott Hammerstrom runs the program. So there are more companies and more schools involved. Those original ones are the ones I still go to, to teach. But we have so much going on because in 2018, we became a 501, and we have a fantastic board of directors. We give out scholarships, the Linda Dickerson Scholarship., of $1,000. They write a story about Linda and how she impacted their life. You know, I know you know Linda, but she was very close to me, and when she passed away, that day, that very day, I started the Linda Dickerson Scholarship. Uh, we also have a Sam Miller Award, which is a young man that was brutally bullied that was close to me, and he took his life 10 years ago. So if you have a student that's a big disability rights leader, they receive that award. But the hardest for me is when Mary Procker died. I can still hardly talk about it. She was the president here. You knew her very well. She died 2 years ago in a hiking accident. And Mary lived for 40 years with depression. You know, no one understands this because she's fireball. Like I used to tell her, Pink wrote that song "Get the Party Started" for Mary because Mary was get the party started. So we started the Mary Brooker Mental Health Initiative. And right now, for our listeners, We have a national campaign. I should talk about this actually on every show. It's called #NotAshamed. Where that came from is I asked Eve Hill, a well-known disability rights leader in the mental health area who's the chair of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. I asked her, what do you think is the biggest issue? She said, oh, Students with disabilities, stigma, living in the shadows. I said, oh, okay, hashtag not ashamed. So what we do, Perry, is if you go to benderleadership.org, you will see people like Valerie Jarrett to a country star to all these high school students with disabilities to all these disability rights leaders and You just get your phone. If you do have a mental health disability, you can go on and say your name and say, "I live with depression. This is what I do for a living. Not ashamed." And then we have people that are celebrities, but what we wanna do is make this big so that we can get this across, you know, national, trying to impact nationally to fight this. Terrible stigma for high school students. So again, benderleadership.org, if you go there, it tells you exactly how to make that video.

Joyce, that's just amazing work that you do with the Bender Leadership Academy and with how it's grown and, and how it helps students with all disabilities. Really find their power so that they can be effective leaders in our communities and get a real job with real wages. It's amazing work you do, so thank you for that.

Oh, honokō.

So how does Joyce Bender stay up to date with what's going on in in disability rights and the employment with people, of people with disabilities?

I have to give credit there to the friends of mine in the disability rights community like you and the boards I'm on like Disability Rights PA, which I'm honored to be on that board. And of course, when you're on these boards like AAPD World Institute on Disability, Epilepsy Association of Western and Central PA. I'm an advisor on the FDR Legacy Memorial and many other boards. But when you're on, especially— I mean, I'm also on the board of the CLO, but 90% of the boards are disability organizations. And when you're on these boards, You know, you are hearing nonstop of what's going on in the community, and I so appreciate that education from being on those boards.

Well, Joyce, we're so pleased to have you a part of our organization, and I know the other nonprofits that you serve are, are pleased to have you in it. Again, I know we talked about this earlier, but the way you give back to the community through your board service is very impressive, and is needed because you do have a national picture through all of the work that you do and are critically important to the work we do on employment of people with disabilities. Joyce, you tell us what your hopes and goals are for the future of disability employment and inclusion in the workforce.

You know what, Perry? This year, once again, I'm going to be doing the Bender-Cuello Initiative Consortium, asking companies, would you hire 10 people by the end of the year? Now, I've got to tell you, there were companies gung-ho, like this coming year, ADP, uh, last year wanting to do a lot was Applied Logic, and Applied Logic hired 15 people. But I also, of course, Highmark, let me just mention, Highmark will be hiring 34 people from Bender to celebrate the 34th anniversary of the ADA. But you know what? There are companies that said no. That have hundreds of thousands of employees. But I'm friends with Kristen Welker, the new Meet the Press person, Manish, who used to be MSNBC, Jonathan Capehart, MSM. And what I want them to do is I want them to do some following or some story about this of why you can't find employment for 10 people with disabilities You've got to be kidding me. So, you know, I'm going to just keep pushing through. But you know what I need, Perry? The CEOs. When I have C-suite, CEO or C-suite, it happens. But if I don't, it's very hard. It's very hard to make happen. So that's what, that's what I'm going to be working on.

Joyce, that would just make a world of difference if those media personalities that you talked about were able to follow through and provide that— lift the voices up of people or follow people with disabilities who have success in the workplace. You know, Joyce, you always ask your guests what message or advice we would like to leave with your listeners. So I'm going to turn that on you and say, Joyce, what message or advice would you like to leave the listeners of Disability Matters with Joyce Bender today?

Hire a person with a disability. That is where the rubber meets the road. You can talk about this forever, but hire someone. That is what makes all the difference. You know, Perry, I travel around the world with the State Department— Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Indonesia, Panama— and you know what? I gotta tell you something. They're asking me, "Oh, how does the United States do this?" And believe me, we're 50 years ahead of them, but we've gotta do far better. We can't have 70% of people with disabilities not counted in the workforce. We've got to do better. Perry, I know we're coming to the end of the show, but I got to tell you what, you're a good interviewer.

Well, you make it easy, Joyce Bender.

Yeah, but I bet you never thought this show would go so fast.

No, it has flown, and you've been a great guest, and I hope you come back.

As a matter of fact, I'll be back next week and so will you. Well, this was Perry Jude Radesik, CEO Disability Rights PA, and on the half hour bringing us the news on Disability Matters. Uh, and before I go, yes, I have a quote for the day, and that quote is, "Paychecks." not pity. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. And in the words of Mary Brocker, when you go out today, 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 talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.