Tim Hindes: Business Professional and Advocate for People with Disabilities

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 the show are solely those of the host, guests, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, this is Joyce Bender. Welcome to Disability Matters on Voice America. I am so happy and delighted to see all of you. And you know my little thing I'm doing, little trivia thing, so that at the end of the year, we're going to have a drawing. Now, this is sort of like, sort of Halloween-ish because this has an outfit on. Yes, it's a duck. A purple duck with a little outfit. So there you go. I gave you the clue. I gave you the clue. You have it. So, um, make sure you follow up. Well, I have to first thank all of you. Oh, such great listeners. 22 years, 1,000 episodes. And you're still there, growing, faithful. I love all of you that listen to the show and go to YouTube. You're just phenomenal. Um, and I want to thank the countries— 73 countries with listeners. 73. I have said it before, I'll say it again, it doesn't matter if you're one person One person can make a difference. One person can change the world. One. And Yoshiko Dart, special shout out to you, Yoshiko. I hope you are having a great day, and thank you, Highmark. Such a great company, so disability friendly. And you know what? They are the sponsor of this show. So let's get started with our guest today, Tim Hines, who is the founder and CEO of Trailblaze Creative. Tim, welcome to the show. Now, you know, our listeners always ask, tell me more about this person. So I'm going to let you tell your story to our listeners.

Oh, I love that. Thank you, Joyce Bender. First, let me say, with, you know, your background, body of work, and all the incredible guests and the listeners that you have, that it really is an honor to be with you. So thank you for having me first and foremost. So as you said, yeah, my name is Tim Hines. I am the founder and CEO of Trebleous Creative. We are a disability-owned marketing and communications firm that helps mission-driven organizations amplify their message. We also help them build authentic brands and engage their communities through marketing and communication strategies. So throughout my journey, I've really felt that it was valuable to be a utility player. So, you know, a utility player is someone that can do a lot of different things, right? A lot of different spaces. So I really wanted to add my value in that way. So, you know, I started in high school focusing on graphic design and print media, working and serving on my high school newspaper. Then in college, I went on to digital communications, became the general manager for my campus radio station, and helped launch our college's closed-circuit TV station. And my mindset was always to diversify my skills and to stay curious. My first job out of college was with a nonprofit organization. So that really taught me the importance of doing good and going home at the end of the day and recognizing that, you know, you've had this positive impact that you made in the world. So I really wanted that to be woven in my values throughout my entire career. So I, I've spent my career working with nonprofits, for-profit organizations, ended up in in economic and workforce development, helping to support and grow regions, attracting job seekers and opportunities, building brands for, for, for regions and cities. And then throughout a fortunate— a series of fortunate events, I was able to start my own firm called Trailblaze Creative. We actually conceptualized it in Alaska 10 years ago next month, so we're celebrating an anniversary. And I really carried that utility mind player mindset with me, utility player mindset with me, and I wanted to make sure that was part of the culture at Trailblaze. So that really helped to infuse our team, and I leveraged all of our experiences and passions throughout that experience in building the organization that we have now, which is really to serve those mission-driven organizations and help them communicate the great work that they're doing.

That is so exciting because how the heck did you start in Alaska?

It was completely by chance. Uh, I had been working at my previous firm. I was serving a client, uh, who was having a conference up in Alaska. My previous firm didn't want to have that client anymore and sent them a letter letting them know so while they were on their planes. And I was there waiting for them and said, I have a solution. I think that we can, we can find a solution and you can be my first client. So that's how it started, was, you know, just having, having an opportunity to serve and staff a conference that was in Alaska and then made a couple of calls while I was up there and was able to build a business just from, from that opportunity.

Grizzly bears. Did you see grizzly bears? Of course, of course. Not close, I hope, right? I would love to go to Alaska. I have seen grizzly bears, but it was at a distance at Yellowstone National Park. Uh, but so beautiful, I'm sure. I haven't been there. I plan on going there sometime, but Did you have a hard time getting accustomed to the darkness and the light?

At the time of year I went, it was not an issue, but I did have to go up there a couple of times to pre-plan for this conference, and there were times whenever I was up there and at 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night, the sun was still blaring through my hotel windows and it was difficult to sleep. So I did have an issue with that. But it was a great experience and it's a beautiful place, a beautiful part of the country. And every single stop, you think you've seen something that's the most beautiful, beautiful mountain, beautiful sunset, then you walk around the corner and there's something even more beautiful. So highly recommend it.

Wow. It sounds exciting and beautiful to me also. So what What led you to do this in the first place, Tim? Everyone takes this career path of something they really like. Why marketing and communication?

Yeah, so I think back to whenever I was 15 years old, I was working at a summer camp and it was my first year at this summer camp and I was really homesick. I was struggling. I missed my, my family. I missed my dog and missed that environment. It was a new environment to me. But by the end of that year, that summer, I had started to really make some solid foundations and friendships. Over the course of that summer, I started collecting memories. And at the end of that summer and for the next few summers, I started putting together a yearbook for the staff. All of these memories compiled together using my creativity to kind of capture these experiences and showcase them in this, in this designed piece. And the best part about that wasn't the graphic design components or having, you know, putting it together. It was the emotions that that gave to the people that were viewing it. You know, that was something that was special to them. So it really taught me how storytelling and emotion can be woven together and it really made an impact on me. And that was something that I wanted to be sure whenever I was deciding on a career that I was able to have that level of support and impact into the work that I did. So I carried that into college. In college, I added a little bit more disruption. I was a little bit more creative and daring in some of the communications work that I did and used creativity to shift some perspectives and spark some conversations as one does. And, you know, I was thinking, this is really cool. I can do some disruptive things and, you know, have fun with it and people can get upset and have emotions and experiences and actions. And that's whenever I was really excited about marketing and communication. So that's really how we approach our work at Trailblaze too. So we believe in the power of disruption in order to grab attention. You know, disruption leads to thoughts and actions and ultimately change. And I say to my team all the time, and I encourage them to be curators of, hmm, like, hmm, like you're thinking, you know, hmm, because I want that in the work that we do. I want the work that we do to create emotion and to create the thoughts. So I think storytelling is just a really powerful tool and really helped frame the work that I do and the journey that I've had.

Wow, that is really neat. I mean, how you started that and then you just realized you loved it and you had a knack for it and You just moved on in that, you know, direction. Where did you go to school? Where did you go to school?

I went to college in Meadville, Pennsylvania at Allegheny College. It's a small liberal arts college with about 3,000 students, I think, at the time. So it was exactly right for me and where I needed to be at the time, and it really helped shape who I am.

Yes, I too went to a small college. I graduated from Geneva College, and it, you know, I loved it. I like being in a class where there are not 300 people, you know what I mean?

Yeah, you're a person, right? You're a person. You get to have an identity.

Yeah, yeah, I liked it a lot. Um, and did you major in marketing?

It was called Communication Arts, and then we also had to pick a minor, and my minor was— it was all the rest of the things put together, so it was called Society, Art, and Science. So it had a little bit of everything, but I, I think it gave me some pretty diverse perspectives. You know, I did some— I wanted to study culture, so I did some pop culture courses. I did some women's studies courses. I did one of the most interesting courses that I did was called Death and Dying in Western Culture. And it had to deal with just understanding how we understand death and how we can communicate about death. And I'm actually applying that to some of the work that I'm doing today, believe it or not, in working with some funding partners that deal with end-of-life care. So it's just fascinating how these different experiences throughout your life tend to influence what you get to work on.

Oh yeah, I know some national companies, you know, that work in that area. So I can see how, you know, that background would be very applicable, very interesting. And every country is different when it comes to that, you know, how they view death and dying. Uh, well, then you got yourself into corporate America. How did you do that, and where was it at?

Well, yeah, so I've always been trying to, um, I mean, I was in corporate America and then that really, uh, I, I used those experiences that were in corporate America to, to put towards myself becoming an entrepreneur. Uh, so, you know, I, I try to, to leverage those experiences, uh, learn from hurdles, you know, and I use the term hurdles, not barriers. There's something I learned last week from a colleague that, you know, a barrier is something that cannot be overcome and a hurdle is something that can be overcome. So, you know, using the term hurdle, so just using all these and absorbing these experiences, I learned what I did not want to have in a traditional work culture. And I really tried to apply that to building, you know, the team and the culture that I had. And that was really what the beauty of becoming an entrepreneur and leaving corporate America or quote unquote corporate America and becoming, you know, my own business was, that's what was intriguing about it.

Well, what did you do when you were in corporate America?

I, I was in consulting. I still was doing marketing communications. I'm still working for a— it was a private company, but, uh, you know, we were doing economic development consulting, workforce development consulting, and I was providing the marketing communications support, uh, creative, uh, and, uh, you know, driving some of those innovations, uh, in, in that space.

You know, I'm going to tell you that when people say to me, oh, you know what, I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to be an entrepreneur the way you are, I, I tell them, you know what, it is the greatest thing. It's so exciting. It's your company and you're helping people get jobs and doing things, and it's wonderful. But you have to really understand what it means to be an entrepreneur because it's 24/7. It's all you think about. You have to deal with attorneys, marketing, insurance, everything. It's— and get customers, you know. And if you can do that, but you got to know before you get into it, you need a customer. So you, why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

Well, you know, I had all these experiences that I did not love in my, you know, in other jobs that I've had, you know, little things. Perhaps it was an HR thing or it was a way that items were framed or messages were framed. I remember one time I had a former supervisor boss say to me that it's not about quality, it's about quantity. And that was something that stuck with me as someone in marketing communications, that I want the work that I do to be quality. I don't want it to be all about quantity. And that was really a turning point. So I never—

Yeah, that's a bad thing. That was a bad statement.

Yeah, it's a red flag. And I knew that I never wanted to lead a team where cutting corners were acceptable. So I was able to apply that to a culture. You know, you said a lot of things about being an entrepreneur that I share those burdens, you know, having to be up late and doing invoicing or HR or payroll or some sort of administrative task that isn't doing marketing and communications in the core about what we do. But, you know, it's the ability to create and mold a culture that has been really exciting about being an entrepreneur that I can put those things that I don't like about all those other jobs and put them into what's great about Trailblaze. So, you know, I don't say things typically like my team, you know, because we're all in this together. So I say things like our team, we're all on the same mission and respect starts with building those inclusive places. So, you know, and on top of that great culture that we get to work with, we get to do and support clients with impactful projects. And if you have that great culture internally, that translates into great work that you're able to complete. So I think that's what's most sparking and exciting about being an entrepreneur is that ability to create a culture and move a team forward in that way. But it takes a team around you, as I'm sure you know and can appreciate as well. It takes great people around you to be successful as an entrepreneur. And that I'm so grateful for the team that I have around me.

Yeah, there was a very successful CEO in Pittsburgh. He has since, you know, sold the company, but he was very successful. And he used to say when he would speak, when they say, well, what are some of your assets? What has helped you? He used to say, I lose all my assets at 5 o'clock. When all the employees leave the company, that's when I lose my assets. And I never forgot that. And I thought, wow, you know, such a— I agree with you. I believe in servant leadership. You know, I believe that you're really a smart person when you get smarter people. Working for you. But, but you— the ego has to go, you know. Uh, you, you have to treat everyone with dignity and respect equally. And I always tell people, I'll say, you know, my employees would do anything for me. If I told them, hey, I need— it's very critical, I have to get to a 4-hour drive from here, they'd say, what time do you want me there? You know what I mean? And you know why that is? Because I'd do anything for them. So please, if you are a manager, a CEO, whatever you are, remember you have people that watch everything you do, that you either inspire or just nothing. You know what I mean? And lukewarm is as bad as nothing. So, you know, you have to remember that. And I know— oh my goodness, we have a great leader right now that has joined us. As everyone knows, every week on the half hour we have Mathis on the mic, Jennifer Mathis, and she is brilliant. And so is the CEO of Bazelon. Holly O'Donnell, who I just love, uh, and is a blessing to all of us. And you know, Yoshiko, I know for a fact you're going to be watching this show. I, I forgot to mention, Yoshiko, see that tree with that hat? Yes, I bet you've been beaming. That is a replica of Justin Dart's hat. And all that tree— Yoshiko, you're on that tree because on that tree are photographs of disability rights leaders. Holly, you're on that tree. The tree in my office, yes, all disability rights leaders. And we changed the tree, like fall is here soon, it will be the Halloween tree, you know. So every throughout the year, this tree's been up a couple months because I love it so much, but it was put up in July for Disability Pride. Month. And one thing I'm proud of is to be on the board of Baseline. And we have our own Holly O'Donnell, who is fabulous as Mathis on the Mic. Take it away. What news do you have for us today, Holly?

Thanks so much for having me, Joyce, and thanks for letting me substitute for Mathis on the Mic. Jennifer says hi to all your listeners, and she will be back on September 16th. Here's what we want to share with everyone today. As many of you know, Congress is back in session. As Congress works on appropriations legislation, funding for the Protection and Advocacy agencies is at risk. Jennifer has talked about this before on Mathis on the Mic, um, pretty recently actually. For those of you who have not heard of Protection and Advocacy agencies, The Protection and Advocacy system has been around since the 1970s, and it's a network of agencies in every state and territories that advocate for the— to protect the rights of people with disabilities. This includes addressing abuse and neglect in institutions as well as disability discrimination. The P&As began actually with protection for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and eventually expanded to include protection for people with mental illness and then people with all types of disabilities. It also expanded to include advocacy to protect the voting rights of people with disabilities and other issues. So they're really important, um, and they have like different names, um, so Disability Rights California, Disability Rights Pennsylvania, but those are the protection and advocacy agencies, um, and it's collectively known as the P&A system. So you might hear that used, um, and that's how it's widely known. And it's been enormously important and has been the main driver of legal and non-legal advocacy to protect the rights of people with disabilities. The Bazelon Center and many other organizations work with them all the time. So, um, the current administration has proposed severe cuts to the P&A system that would prevent it from functioning as it currently does. The president's budgets proposed a cut to the mental health part of the P&As by two-thirds, eliminating what's called the PAIR program, Protection and Advocacy for Individual Rights, which covers people with all types of disabilities, and to eliminate the Protection and Advocacy for Voting Accessibility program. Under which the P&As work to ensure that voting, the voting process, is accessible to people with disabilities and doesn't discriminate. So these cuts would devastate the P&As and make it nearly impossible that for them to do much of the important work that they do. Congress does not have to follow the president's budget. And often departs from that budget when it enacts appropriations. It's really important for people, including all of your listeners, to contact their members of Congress and tell them not to enact these cuts to the P&A program because it's so critical for people with disabilities. Now, Congress has started working on appropriations. And the initial signs look encouraging, but we need to keep letting Congress know how important the P&As are. So I'm going to take you back to July. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a budget bill for Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Education. That would keep the funding of the P&A programs that fall within these agencies at the same level of funding as last year. This is a victory. Just a few days ago, the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on— I'm feeling very Capitol Hill in Washington right now, um, Uh, for Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education passed an appropriation bill. The tricky piece of this is that this bill does not include the specifics of how much was appropriated for every program. So it's not clear yet what the funding level is supposed to be for the P&A programs. So we and other of our partners are cautiously optimistic based on the overall numbers that we see, but we really don't know at this point. So what we want to encourage people to do again is to contact your members of Congress, contact them via phone, contact them via email, to let them know how important the protection and advocacy agencies are.

And I just want to say, you— if you don't know about those protection and advocacy groups, which, you know, there's one in every state, of course, but do you know, like, say your mother was in skilled nursing and she was being abused. And somehow, you know, she was able— one of her friends or family member was able to get that information to, uh, one of the NDRN or one of the protection and advocacy groups. They are the only group that does not have to give any warning to march right in and, you know, find out what's going on. They can go to a school if they think there's restraint going on. They can go into the school without, you know, getting permission. Same thing with a prison, any institution. So think about if that was your child or mother or, or you, how terrible would that be, and how great it would be to have protection and advocacy. I mean, this is going to have a horrendous impact if it is damaged as much as Holly said. So what Holly said is so important. You've got to make that call. You've got to make that call. Call your congressperson and tell them, support me in keeping this going. Don't cut this. You've got to call. And Holly, I know with your family political background, that you know that even one call makes a difference, right? The people calling the office, it makes a difference.

I also— my brother for many years answered the phones, um, in Senate offices, and so it really does make a difference.

Yeah, so don't underestimate yourself. Get on the phone, take action. Don't do this though— don't sit back and say, oh, this is so terrible Act. Do something. Do something today. Before I let you go, you have something coming up in not that long from now. Uh, do you want to talk about that for a minute? I would love to.

Thank you so much. So on September 17th, which is a Wednesday, the Bazelon Center is hosting its annual awards. We are having it at the Press Club in Washington, DC. We honored Joyce Bender last year, and we have 4 excellent awardees this year, including Congressman Hoyer and Senator Blunt Rochester and, uh, Stephen Rosenblum and Karris Myrick. And we are thrilled. We have tickets available. We have, um, all the information on our website. At www.bazon.org.

You've got to go. All right. If you're in D.C., I mean, I am telling you, this is fantastic. It's so fantastic. And you have some pretty famous anchor people that go to that.

We do. This year, like last year, Amna Nawaz, who is co-anchor of PBS NewsHour, will be hosting. And she's wonderful.

And you have this other person that comes from Meet the Press.

She will be doing a special video appearance. Unfortunately, she's not going to be able to attend this year, but it's special what she's going to be doing.

It is. You gotta go, you've gotta go, gotta go. basilone.org if you want to go. If you want to make a donation, everything counts. Thank you so much, Holly.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you. We'll look forward to Mathis on the mic next week.

Bye.

Bye-bye. Holly's so awesome, you know that? She is the best. So, um, Tim, isn't that amazing, Tim?

That's great. That sounds like a great event. I checked my calendar right away to see if I was available and where I would be.

Oh, that's great you checked that.

Wonderful.

Yeah. So disability, how has disability impacted your life, Tim?

Yeah. So I am a person who was recently diagnosed with autism and neurodivergence as an adult. And I don't know, Joyce, are you, are you an animal person? Do you like cats or dogs?

I love dogs. Oh, I am animal across. I am animal person. Sure.

Sure. And I'm a dog person too. But I have to admit that years ago, like if I heard a colleague say that they needed to take time off because their cat was sick or, you know, that they weren't thinking clearly that day, that I probably would have rolled my eyes. And, you know, I probably, I would not have understood those situations. And, you know, I think the irony is that at the same time that I might have been hearing some of those same conversations and maybe rolling my eyes, I was experiencing similar struggles myself. Just not realizing it. I didn't have the awareness or, you know, that language to be able to identify them. So, or even, you know, the courage to request for accommodations in any way. Right. So, so I learned so much more about, you know, you know, kind of navigating this through really with my therapist and others, you know, just understanding how people think, emotions, just how overall mental health, just something that wasn't on my radar before. So It really gave me that general awareness and it helped me find empathy with the team and it's changed how I lead. So building that more open culture, transparent culture that really carries into how we approach, you know, that client work with, you know, the ability to produce something that is more thoughtful and authentic because it really comes from, from that space. So We also, as a team, do something called dignified storytelling, and that's where we make sure and ensure that those stories of impact of individuals that may have disabilities or in other spaces, that, that those stories are told from the voices who are being represented, and they're being told without bias, and they're being told with authenticity and consent. So these sorts of concepts would have not been on my radar before had I not gone through this journey of kind of self-discovery. So those are good things I feel that my disability has led me to find, you know, in a professional sense. But that hasn't always been easy. So, you know, I have to acknowledge too that there were difficult times that, you know, I've been held back socially. I've tried to avoid conflict. I would not and still probably do not advocate for myself in certain ways. So, you know, it's all part of trying to learn and understand something that I've experienced, but it's still new to me. So it's a very interesting time for me personally, but it's also, I think, transferred into this development of such a great culture that I'm able to apply lived experience and cultural understanding to the work that we do because we are working in those spaces where we're dealing with underrepresented communities or communities that have hurdles that they're trying to overcome. So being able to apply that lived experience in that way, I think, adds to why people like working with, with us in this way.

Well, I think that is— do you have a dog now?

I do have a dog now. His name is Elliot.

Oh, what type of dog?

He is a rescue dog. He is a, he's a mutt, part Chihuahua, Boxer, and Terrier, and he likes to steal socks.

Oh yeah, been there, done that. You know what, I have Yorkies, okay? But you know what, you want to know what I say about all pets, especially dogs? They are like kids with long hair. So that's why you understand now why that person got so upset when they told you, you know, about their cat. That is a— that's a great story. Now, if you're a young person listening to the show and you think, because I'm autistic, you know, I'll never make it, I won't be successful, whatever, here you have it right here. Entrepreneur, successful. So he's the CEO of Trailblaze, and you can make it. And to those of you able-bodied, don't discriminate, okay? Don't, don't do it, because guess what? 1 in 4 people have a disability. You know, I always tell people, you are the temporarily able-bodied. You can join up, Tim and me, you can join our group at any time. But you know, I hate that when people do that because kids in school with disabilities are so brutally bullied. And I often wonder, where's that come from? And why aren't their parents telling them about this? So, you know, stand up, be someone not ashamed when you have a disability. Stand Up. And Tim, Trailblaze— I realize we didn't even talk about Trailblaze. What is Trailblaze Creative? Uh, what do you do, in case someone's listening and they're interested? And also, why did you choose that name?

So the name itself is both a noun and a verb, right, if you think about it. So as a noun, A trailblaze is a trail marker. You know, it's a piece of— it's a painted strip on a tree or maybe a rock, or maybe it's a little shield that might be attached to a tree or a rock. And it's a guidepost that kind of shows you that way forward on a trail. And we see our work in the same way, helping organizations navigate those challenges and finding clarity and communicating their mission. If you think about trailblaze as a verb, It means cutting new paths and doing something bold and different. You're cutting a blaze through, through land that creates a trail, and that really reflects our approach. So we don't just settle for that expect, you know, kind of those things that are expected. We want to find those creative ways to spark that connection and impact, all about that disruption, right, that I thought about back in college that really was like, oh, this is cool. You know, those, those are the things that really help to shape our brand and what we do. So we help guide organizations on their journey while helping them do things a little bit differently, you know, deviating from the norm in order to help propel their organizations forward. And that's why we often say, and we're in a shirt that says it, disruption is essential. So we believe that moving people towards action, sometimes you need to step off that beaten path to do things a bit differently. And, you know, I think that especially in the time that we're in, we just heard about, you know, we need that more than ever.

I love that. I love that shirt. I love that saying, and I believe that. I believe that with all my heart. We need disruption. You know, there's that social justice. With social justice often comes disruption. Good, good disruption. But I love that. I love your shirt.

Uh, I will get you a shirt. I will get you a shirt.

Oh, good. I will look forward to getting that shirt. So that's what Trailblaze is. Now, let's say I would call you. I'm a company or a business. I'm listening to this show and I'm thinking, what all could he help me with? What do you tell companies? Like, what are your services?

Anything that a marketing department can do, we can do. So we work with organizations and companies in a couple of different ways. We work on projects, so start and end date, you have a campaign, you have a website, you want to do a new brand, a new logo, new messaging development, we do all of that. We also work on call for folks whenever they need us, we're here. In any marketing and communications capacity. So that comes in handy a lot with crisis communications and situations that, that may arise. Our core offering is something that's called Marketing in Residence, and we will place someone within an organization that sits in the team meetings, listens to communications and marketing potential, and then brings that back to our team. And it's just like snapping in a full marketing department for that organization. So sometimes having that third party listen into the organization helps identify that communications potential. And that's a, that's a third way we work with organizations. And then the fourth way is organizational development. So we'll work with boards in developing some strategy, boards of directors in developing strategy. We'll work with, in some cases I'm serving and doing program work, I'm doing, I'm serving as the executive director for an organization. So any other capacity needs that organizations have, we call it creative capacity. We identify those gaps in capacity that organizations have, and we try to support that with creative ways and creative people.

Well, you know, when you're saying all this, I'm thinking of all the nonprofits I'm involved with, but of course there are many people listening to the show that are disability leaders or are in my industry, and I often tell people in certain areas, You know, if you can't hire someone, outsource it. And this is something you could do. They could outsource marketing work to you on an as-needed basis, because you know the budgets are small for a lot of these organizations. And I would keep that in mind if I were you. Just when he was talking, I was thinking about how many organizations would benefit from this because right now budgets are tight, employees overhead is costly. So that's good that you do all of that, Tim. Even— I'm sorry, go ahead.

You, and you think about it, you know, if you're in an organization, you have to hire someone to do the website, you have to hire someone to do the graphic design, someone to do the email campaign, someone to do fundraising, You know, and those are very niche specialties that require some special skills. So that's often difficult to find in one person, and organizations don't have the budget to hire 5 people to do those jobs and oftentimes don't have the budget to hire one person. So we're trying to meet organizations where they're at and providing them the capacity. So if they need Maybe they need strategic, maybe they need tactical. Depending upon their needs, we try to provide the support that's necessary to have them recognize that communication potential.

Well, that's a great service, you know, and if you are a disability rights leader or just a person with a disability running an organization, I believe in supporting businesses. With people with disabilities. So now you know. What is your website, Tim?

Uh, the website is trailblazecreative.com.

Trailblazecreative.com. You heard it. So if you have this need, so many areas he covered, uh, that you could get involved with. And one thing you did that— oh my God, when I read this, I did not know that you worked with at with the synagogue, the Tree of Life, after that horrible, horrible thing that happened there. You know, what was that like for you, you know, working with hate crime towards Jewish people? What did you do for them, and what was that like?

Yeah, so October 27, 2018, uh, was the, the largest anti-Semitic attack on on U.S. soil at the Tree of Life Synagogue here in Pittsburgh. And I was helping a friend move in a neighborhood that's right next door to where the shooting happened. I heard the sirens. I heard, you know, police whizzing by. I didn't really think much of it. I live in the country. That was in the city. And, you know, I thought that, you know, there was that kind of noise that happened all the time. I had to leave that, that helping my friend. I was, and I was going home and I saw what had happened on the news. Sat down on my couch at home to do a little bit of work. And before I did, I just started doodling on my computer and created what's become known as this, the Stronger Than Hate symbol. So that is, it looks like the steel symbol, the symbol for steel with three hypocycloids, red, yellow, and blue. People know it also as the Pittsburgh Steelers logo, and replaced the yellow hypocycloid with a Star of David and the word "Steel" or "Steelers" with the word "Stronger Than Hate." And I posted that to my personal Facebook page privately, and a friend of mine saw it and said, this is really nice. I'd like to share it. Can you make it public? And I did, and it was then shared across the world. It was painted on the John Lennon Wall in Prague. It was hanging from banners in Israel. It was— I had photos and letters and notes from people all over the world telling me about how much this symbol meant to them. And it was really something that was, you know, as they say, lightning in a bottle, represented by, you know, Pittsburgh is, as you know, Joyce Bender has such a huge diaspora. There's all these people from Pittsburgh that are all over the country and the world that always feel this tie back to Pittsburgh in some way. And if you have those people all over the world that see an image and it relates back to their hometown in some way, and their hometown is is dealing with this, this pain and this struggle, you know, really connected with a lot of people. So, yeah, this, this image went viral. I worked with the Pittsburgh Steelers launching a campaign to put it on some t-shirts and raise money for the Jewish Federation in Pittsburgh. I think we raised $70,000, I believe, at the time whenever we presented the check and have just continued to do work. I have not taken been any money from, uh, creating that. It was something that I've done on my own. It wasn't done for work. It wasn't done for, uh, anything other than just being a citizen of Pittsburgh, a human, uh, in a, in a town where, you know, gun violence occurred, uh, and horrific attacks occurred. And I did not want this to be reflective of my community. So that incident happened on, uh, I think it was just before 10 o'clock in the morning, and that image was posted at noon. So it was that quick that it was created and posted. And that's really the definition of resiliency. When you think about community, when you think about resiliency, it's that speed to act and quickness to act. And I think in addition to the diaspora and the people from all over, from Pittsburgh all over the world, I think that that's Another piece that contributed to it is just how quickly it was able to be representative of our community, have our community stand up and have a symbol that we can all relate to, kind of represent how we were feeling in that moment.

You know what, Tim, that is awesome. And I will say you are a good human that you did that just out of the goodness of your heart. Uh, I just applaud you for that. I'm honored to have you on this show knowing that you did something like that. That is— think how many people that impacted. Because I'll tell you, even right here in Pittsburgh, that was terrible. I mean, that was sadness, sadness. But all groups got together, including the Islamic community working with the Jewish community. I mean, that was— hopefully we won't see that again, but, you know.

And I, and I'll add that what I've loved about, uh, this experience too is, in addition to just the outpouring that I've seen of love, uh, in sharing the image and so forth, is Pittsburgh's response. Pittsburgh did not want to be known for this incident. They wanted to be known for the response to the incident. So there is a, there is a conference that happens, global conference that happens every year where they share best practices about trying to eradicate hate-fueled violence. It is called Eradicate Hate. It is coming up in 2 weeks, and we help support that as a, as a, as a company, you know, now, and provide the branding and website and overall vision for the, you know, for the graphic division for that event. So we're honored to continue to be working in that space and supporting, you know, supporting that commission and Pittsburgh's response to be known for the, not the act itself, but the response to the act.

Oh, that is, that's wonderful. When is that? Where is that conference?

The conference is at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. And it is happening on September 15th— I'm sorry, 14th through the 16th, I believe.

Oh, that's really great.

Yeah, eradicatehateglobalsummit.org. Yeah, it's a great— it's a great event.

And in addition to that, you also worked after we had that terrible train derailment in Palestine— I mean, East Palestine. I mean, that I, I don't know, that was a really horrible thing that, wow, took so long to remediate. But how did you get involved with that?

I, I find myself in these situations, huh? I mean, so we were working with a, a development disability provider in the town of East Palestine, Ohio. They happen to be the largest employer in the town. And the— but no one knew who they were. We were helping them rebrand. We were going to build a workforce attraction campaign to help them attract direct support professionals to continue to help them. And we had rebranded them, built a new website, and we were ready to launch this workforce campaign. And the train derailment happened. And it's kind of tough to attract new employees to your town whenever the national image is black pillars of smoke that were, you know, billowing from the town. It's not very attractive for people to move there. So we had to change our strategy and we used it as an opportunity to bring the community together. We created whiteboards and had people, went around town and had people write on them what they love about their community. And we posted them all to social media to really try to elevate the, the great assets that the community had. And part of that, a strong part of that, because of the organization that was leading this effort being a development disability provider, it was the disability community and the disabled community that were right there with the businesses showcasing what they love about the community too. So that campaign, it was called EP Voices. It got us a lot of notoriety, especially in the development disability space. And we've since, especially throughout the state of Ohio, worked on quite a few organizations and helping them rebrand, recognizing that the strength of the rebranding and what that means and messaging and all of those, those pieces that help shape and help us communicate what the great work and impact that organizations do. So, so we've, we've been able to really expand our work and work working with organizations that support individuals with disabilities because it comes from that lived experience. You know, it comes from my lived experience and what I've put into Trailblaze. And whenever we work with those organizations, people say, you know, you get us, you're our people, you understand us. So, you know, to your point in working with, you know, firms with disabilities, if you are, you know, a DD provider or others in that space, it really does make make a difference in being able to apply that lived experience to the work that you're doing.

Well, Tim, you're such a nice person, such a good man. So someone had to impact you. Who is your role model?

My role model, uh, briefly, is my father. Um, he's the one that drives— gives me drive. And I— it's still in his 70s, is he's incredibly active and difficult to keep up with. So he's the one that motivates me on a personal level and on a, yeah, on a personal level. But, you know, I would also have to say that I'm motivated most, and especially in this moment, by the next generation. You know, they really have an opportunity here to change the status quo and we need them. And I'm really looking looking forward to finding a role model within this next generation that I can look up to and follow their lead and, you know, not have to look backwards, but look forward.

Me too. And there are some great young leaders out there. There really are. Well, Tim, thank you so much for being on the show. And everyone, remember, this is on demand. You can go to YouTube, Spotify, Amazon, almost every social media platform, and you can share this show with another person. So make sure you tell everyone about it. Uh, what message do you have to leave with our listeners, Tim?

I'd say that every person has a story, every story matters, and to the point where you're able to disrupt a little bit, but that can be a good thing and lead to some good action. So I'd encourage everyone to, you know, whether in our workplaces or our communities or our personal lives, really try to do that. And I think it would all be a better place.

Me too. Well, I end every show with a quote, and I changed the quote, Tim. I changed the quote in honor of you. So the quote today is, "I am different, not less," said the great Temple Grandin, the number one autistic champion known around the world. I love that quote, "I am different, not less," and that applies to all people with disabilities. And then in the words of Mary Brooker, Remember, tomorrow when you go out, choose joy. It'll be a better day. Have a great day. Hey everyone, talk to you all next week.

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.