Tony Coelho: 32nd Anniversary of the Signing of the ADA

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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.

Hi everyone, welcome to the show for everyone in the United States And around the world from China to Australia, thank you so much for following and listening to this show. It means so much and it is a way for us to let everyone know that people with disabilities count and have quality of life. Also, special shout out to Richard Roberts, Gang Young Cho, Vinyamin, and Cheryl Smith All with the State Department, from Japan to Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Panama, all of you countries I've been to. And this year on Zoom, Nigeria and Libya and Tunisia. Thank you all so much. You guys at the State Department are helping me go around the world and change lives. And hi, Mark. Our lead sponsor. Thank you. Wow, what a day is this. What a day. July 26th, the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We have all this month celebrated Disability Pride Month from Maria Town to Senator Harkin to King Jordan, and now for the grand finale, the perfect person to have on today, the author of the Americans with Disabilities Act, former congressman, just the most wonderful person, and what an honor to say, my friend, the Honorable Tony Coelho. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Joyce Bender. It is a happy birthday in effect today for the ADA. It's a great time to be on the call with you.

And I know we have a huge listening audience today. We do every year on this day. So this is my gift to you, having the author of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the show. And Tony, you've been on the show before, but now, boy, Tony, see how we've advanced. This is year 20, and now we have 17 countries with listeners. So I want everyone to know your story now that we have international and so many more listeners in the United States. I think this is so important. Would you mind sharing your story from the beginning with our listeners?

Thank you, Joyce Bender. A comment before I do, and that one of the goals has been always that we would take the ADA and export its principles around the world. And you are helping do that by the 17 countries that you have as listeners. So I want to thank you, and I want to thank the 17 countries for their participation in your show and spreading the word that disability matters., and those of us with disabilities want to participate in society like everybody else. So across the world, thank you very much. I love seeing the spread of the ADA. In regards to my story, it started when I was 16. I had an automobile accident on my family's dairy farm in Central California, and I hit my head, and nothing happened for a year. I just had a headache. And then a year later, I was in the barn milking, and all of a sudden, um, I woke up and I was in the house in bed. My brother had— I fell into a feed bin, and my brother picked me up and carried me to the house. And when I woke up, there was a doctor there. He was talking to my parents. I couldn't— they hear that well and I couldn't speak, but I knew that I was there. And, uh, and so my parents said afterwards that they didn't know what it was, but it was the beginning of the stigma, which I always say is the cross that those of us with disabilities must bear. My family felt that if you had epilepsy, which the doctor told them that's what he thought I had, if you have epilepsy, that you're possessed by the devil. And this goes back in many cultures, so it's not something particular to my family. The Catholic Church in, in 400 AD said if you have epilepsy or possessed by the devil, you can't be a priest. That sort of built through the years, and it was a combination of both, and I'll get to how that impacted me later on in my story. But the— I then went to two other doctors. They said the same thing. In those days, that was 1959, the doctors didn't talk to kids, youngsters. They only talked to parents. And, and so we had no idea what was going on. But these doctors all said to my family it was epilepsy. So then they took me to 3 witch doctors. And at the— I could tell you particular stories about that, but I won't take the time here. But it was a strange and interesting experience for someone who was 17 years old. Um, and after the last one—

excuse me, excuse me, Tony, I want you to tell people what happened with the witch doctors, so go ahead.

Well, the witch doctors would take you into a private room, lights off, candles on, and pour a hot tea or some, some mixture liquid on your forehead and on your, on your chest and have a candle burning on the chest and then pray or whatever they were doing in some different tongue. And, and it would be, you know, for half an hour or so. And it was a disturbing experience. I didn't know what was going on, although this is what my family wanted me to do. And I grew more and more negative about it. The last witch doctor I went to said, put a raw egg under your arm, in your armpit, hold it there for 30 minutes to an hour. If it turns, uh, dark, that means the witches have left. If it doesn't, then it hasn't worked. Needless to say, it didn't work, and to some extent was more— even more embarrassing, I thought. But I then said, no more. And that started the process of even further separating me from my family because of their strong beliefs and because of my, uh, being upset about going through this. Then I continued having what I called passing out spells. I— my high school superintendent felt that I should get away from home, so I went from Central California to Los Angeles to college, Loyola University, which is now Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, run by the Jesuits. I grew to love the Jesuits, continued having my passing out spells. I was class president my sophomore year, social chairman in my junior year, student body president my senior year, Outstanding Senior when I graduated. But I made an announcement that when I graduated that I wanted to become a Catholic priest. I was giving up my girlfriend of 6 years, but also not going to law school, but I felt that my ministry was to go into the Jesuit seminary. And to become a Catholic priest. But I went to my physical, and the doctor said to me, have you ever heard the word epilepsy? I said no. So then he said, after tests, he said, that's what you have. He said, the good news is that you're 4F, which means you can't serve in the military. That was 1964, so Vietnam. And then he said, "The bad news is, is that you can't become a Catholic priest because canon law established in 400 AD," as I indicated earlier, "says that individuals with epilepsy or possessed by the devil can't be a Catholic priest." So I was denied entry. I— didn't bother me much because the doctor prescribed medicine to control or to lessen the severity of my seizures. I was pleased with that in that I knew what it was and I could move forward. And I had all these job opportunities. So I called my parents to say I now know what is going on. And their reaction to me immediately was that no son of ours has epilepsy. And what I found out later is that they felt that if you had epilepsy, um, that you were possessed, but that God was punishing the family— not necessarily me, but the family— for a major sin that someone had committed. So it was a heavy burden on my family. I didn't appreciate it or understand it at the time, but it further divided my family and I. I then went to these job offers, filled out the application, and the word epilepsy was on all of them, and I never got an interview at any of them because of that. I then started drinking, and I was drunk on a hilltop in, in Los Angeles. When you're drinking, you think that hilltop is really a mountain, but it wasn't. But I was drinking on the day I decided that I wanted to commit suicide. I heard a voice, and the voice said— there was a merry-go-round at the bottom of the hill, and the voice said, "You're going to be just like those little kids getting on and off the merry-go-round. You're not going to let anybody or anything stopping you from doing what you want to do." All of a sudden, I got my mojo back. I've never been depressed since. I'm 80 years old now. I drink, but I don't get drunk. Um, I, uh, felt good about myself again. I then had an opportunity to live with Bob Hope and his family for a year, and he became like a father to me. Um, and he suggested one day, he said, uh, you think you have a ministry and it only can be practiced in a church. 'Where you're wrong is that true ministry is practiced in sports, entertainment, government, but you belong in politics.' I had not thought of it, except I was, of course, in high school and college politics, but I didn't think of national politics. But I thought it was an interesting idea. I wrote a letter to my congressman, who I didn't know. He happened to be looking for someone with an agriculture background who was young and and so forth. I got the job and I worked for him for 14 years. He became like a father to me. I, I still had my seizures periodically, which I still do to this day, um, but when I had a seizure, he knew what to do and he would tell people, "It's okay, Tony will be fine once he comes out of the seizure." And, uh, it even made me stronger because of his attitude and the way he handled things. And since then, I've always been involved in fighting the stigma. And the way I handled it was to be very open and honest about my epilepsy and discuss it and not only meet with different groups that have disabilities as individuals, but I got on the Epilepsy Foundation board and became a strong advocate it for us to talk about it and was in TV PSA ads, public service ads, talking about my epilepsy. And I've been in newspapers and magazines, People magazine at one time, talking about my epilepsy. So I think as I became very comfortable with my epilepsy, the stigma is not there because I will not let it be there. And I don't wear a neon light on my forehead saying stigma stigma, but I just understand it. And I know that I can do things better than some people, and they can do some things better than I can because I can't do them because of my seizures. But I think that I think that all of us with disabilities need to look at what we can do, and the general public needs to give us the chance, I always say, to fail. Because if you don't give us a chance to fail, we can never succeed. So that's my story. I decided to run for office when my congressman that I worked for retired. He encouraged me to run. During that campaign, my opponent raised my epilepsy in a dinner one night to his people. He said, "Tony is a very sick man. He has epilepsy. What would you think if he went to the White House to argue a critical issue for us?" such as water, which in Central California is the issue, and he had a seizure. Well, people at that dinner that night, several of them called me very upset about him bringing it up. A reporter called me the next day and asked me my reaction to it, and I said, well, you know, in the 14 years I was a staffer in Washington, D.C. I knew a lot of people who went to the White House and had fits. Um, at least I'd have an excuse. Well, the reporter loved it. It's been in print many times. Um, but it, uh, that individual never, uh, accused me of that, of course, again. And I beat him handily.

That is so good.

I've been reelected since over 6 times, and, um, and it hasn't stopped me at all in my career after Congress. So that's my reasoning for running, Joyce, and my story.

And you became the whip in Congress. So I was thinking to myself You went from—

I became the majority whip, which is the third highest ranking position in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Right. You went from pre-Merry-Go-Round days to the whip in Congress, which is unbelievable and so inspiring. For so many people. Now, before we go further, I have something I have to tell you. I always tell Tony he's 80 years old going 80 miles an hour. So you may think, oh, Congressman, he retired. Oh no, he never retired. Never, ever, ever, ever retired. And he's been involved in so much that impacts Americans with disabilities. From getting on the census, getting people with disabilities on the census, to the ADA Amendments Act, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act. Of course, you know, we're going to talk about the ADA, but I'm talking about after. He never stopped after, and still to this day, he is out there fighting the fight. For people with disabilities still today. He is unbelievable. So I just want all of you around the world to know that. So Tony, you did overcome this feeling of stigma. And just for one minute, what advice do you have for young people living with epilepsy that are dealing with this stigma. And as you know, Tony, of course, I live with epilepsy, but many people do not want even to disclose they have epilepsy. So what advice do you have for young people living to the— listening around the world that are dealing with that stigma?

Let me answer that in a minute, but because you have people from all over the world on your show listening today, One of the fights that I'm currently on that affects people all over the world is that the internet is not accessible to many people with disabilities— sight impaired, hearing impaired, but also folks that are physically impaired and other impairments as well. And so, The— I believe strongly that the ADA does cover the internet, and a case went all the way to the Supreme Court, the appellate court before that, and of course in the U.S., the appellate court ruled that it did. Supreme Court refused to take it when the pizza company that had filed the lawsuit tried to take it to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court stuck with with what the appellate court says. So, from that angle, it is part of the ADA. But other companies have filed suit, so other lawsuits are pending. So, it is not clear yet. So, with that in mind, I've been very involved with 181 different disability groups to, to go after the Justice Department to write rules and regulations that in effect say that it's covered, the internet is covered by the ADA. So we're now working with the Justice Department, the HHS, Health and Human Services Department, and the Education Department, who are all doing these regulations. And we expect those to be finished sometime in next year. And that would then finalize that. We are also, however, working on some legislation that should be introduced today that would change the law or establish a law that says that not only is the internet covered, but the people who set up, who develop programs, they would be covered. So that when a college or a business wants to go ahead and have the internet accessible, this would— the developers would have to develop a program that permits people with disabilities to be included. We're doing all that stuff right now. I'm sort of strategizing for the different groups to make this happen. I think it's as significant as the ADA. So this would impact people throughout the world, of course. And so I'm, as Joyce says, I'm very involved with that. And I'm optimistic that we will be able to get it done. So let me go back to Joyce's question. And that is what advice I give people with disabilities and people particularly with epilepsy. It's really a little bit strange, but it works in that I say that those of us with disabilities, in order to deal with the stigma, have to decide that we love ourselves. If I say go to a mirror and talk to that person in the mirror, that person in the mirror is the only one who knows the truth, nobody else. Your parents, your loved ones, your husband, your wife, whatever, doesn't know the truth, but that person in the mirror does. And you talk to that person, and I mean talk, don't just think with that person. Talk to that person in the mirror and say, you know what, I don't like the color of your eyes. Well, get lenses and change them. Um, I don't like the way your hair looks, change it. Um, you don't like the color of your hair, change it. I don't like how short you are, how tall you are. Sorry, you have to accept that. I, uh, anything else, but just be honest with that person in the mirror and end up saying, you know, you're okay. And, and basically, uh, that means that you end up loving yourself. If you can do that— I've done that, I've recommended it to many people— uh, if you can do that, uh, you will handle the stigma, because by loving yourself, um, you then project that to other people. So, um, that's my advice, Joyce Bender. Uh, it has worked with several people, has worked with me, and I feel strongly about it.

I agree with you. And I want to get back to something, Tony, about the internet. If that is introduced, would that be like an executive order, or would that be something they have to vote on, or how would that go?

In regards to the, to the regulations, those would just be sent to the White House, and the president would approve them with an executive order. In regards to the legislation, that would have to be voted on by the House and the Senate. I think that something like that would get through the House. And the Senate might be a little different. You have Senator Duckworth, Senator Casey, and others who are supporting this legislation. The good news is that Senator Casey is working with the veterans in regards to veterans who have disabilities and have a hard time getting to the internet. He's also working with the aging community because A lot of elderly people have problems getting through the internet. So, if you think about that, you have the Education Committee, the Health Committee, and all working— and the Aging Committee— all working on this legislation. That would include Republicans. In cases, in the case of veterans in particular. But the interesting thing is that that's a broad cross-section of people in the Senate, and that might be an easier way to get it done. I think that some businesses will fight it, and we'll have to see what that impact is. So, if the Republicans this November, take over the House and the Senate, it may be a little more difficult to do, but that doesn't mean we'll stop. We'll keep pushing. It probably can't get anywhere in this Congress, because there's very little, very few days left in this Congress. The last couple weeks here in July, and then August recess for the whole month, and then you come back in September. And then, at the end of September, they leave to campaign. So, not a lot of time to get hearings done and to get something like this through the House and the Senate. So, we recognize that, but we're putting in the legislation in order to tell people that this needs to be done and set the stage for the Justice Department to move on their regulations as well. So, That's the, what we're doing and the status of it.

Oh, it's so exciting. Well, it's still a warning, a warning light going out right now. It's already going out. This is a warning, it's coming. So that is a good thing. Well, Tony, talking about the Americans with Disabilities Act, you were involved in that fight that led to the signing. I wanted you to share with our listeners, I know that wouldn't have been an easy thing, probably an impossible thing today, but would you share with our listeners how hard was that to get it passed?

I think the thing that your listeners need to know that it was 32 years ago and that The political climate was much different then. So that when I introduced it in the House, I ended up having over 50 co-sponsors, Democrats and Republicans. In the Senate, you had Senator Weicker who introduced it, and he had— and he was a Republican. He had several co-sponsors. Including Senator Kennedy, Senator Harkin, and Senator Bob Dole. Now, the session— that session of Congress ended, and so we had to then reintroduce it in the next Congress in '87. And basically, it moved through in legislative terms rather rapidly. It went through the Senate because Bob Dole, who, everybody knows, senator from Kansas, had a disability, an arm, basically he couldn't use it as a result of a war accident. Not a war accident, he was shot. But he had a strong disability as a majority leader. Senator Ted Kennedy had family members with disabilities, including his son who had cancer and lost one one of his legs, and sister who had a disability. And then you had Senator Harkin, who had a brother with hearing impaired. And then you had Senator Hatch from Idaho— Utah, I'm sorry, from Utah, who was a Mormon, or is a Mormon, he's still alive, is a Mormon., and the Mormon Church feels that if you have a disability, you're an angel of God. So, those 4, being 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans, were in strong leadership positions in the Senate. So, it got through in this new Congress with Senator Harkin being the author rather rather easily. On the House side, I introduced it in the next Congress, and I had at that point over 100 co-sponsors. And it was interesting, people would come up to me and say, "Tony, I see that you're introducing this bill on disabilities. I don't like the way that my husband, my wife, my child, or my next-door neighbor, my aunt, my uncle, my father, my mother,, who has a disability is treated. So I want to go on your bill. Now, they hadn't read the bill and know anything about it. They just knew that people with disabilities, uh, were being mistreated. And as some of you may know in your own countries, but in the United States at that time, if you were sight impaired, you went to a restaurant and asked the waiter to tell you what was on the menu, they could kick you out just because you were a bother and a nuisance. If you went to a movie theater in the United States during that time before legislation was adopted in 1990, they could kick you out because you were fire hazard, they felt. So the law— I mean, there was no law that covered us, and so the discrimination was rapid. And, of course, after the ADA, it changed. But as we went through the House, I was the Democratic Whip, as was said earlier. And so, I had been elected by my colleagues to that position. But the Speaker called me in and said, "I think your bill is too broad. It covers too many areas." 'And if it gets adopted, the public will revolt, and we'll have to repeal it,' and so forth. 'So, I would suggest to you that you break it up and do it in parts.' And as I said, I was elected and he was, and I said to the Speaker, 'No, I'm going to push getting it through.' as is. It has to be together. And so, what we did is, was go forward. Now, what he did then was to refer it to 7 different committees and about 15 different subcommittees in an effort to slow it down and bog it down. But what we did strategically was to take the committees and subcommittees and determine which was the easiest. And we determined that a subcommittee in the Labor Committee by— the chairman was Major Owens from New York City, who was a big supporter of ours. And so, we went to him first, and that got it out of that committee, subcommittee. Then the full committee, it got out of there because the chairman was an individual from Michigan. He was a big supporter. So, it moved out of Education. Then we went to the next committee and the next committee. And there were different things that happened that made it possible. An interesting point was that we were in trouble in the Commerce Committee, and John Dingell from Michigan was chairman of it, long-time chairman, very powerful. and he had lots of questions. So one night I was at a dinner party at the home of Robert Altman and Lynda Carter. Lynda Carter, as some of you out throughout the world know, was Wonder Woman. And so we were there, 3 couples, and the issue of the ADA came up, and Robert. And Linda said to John, and he had said some that he was concerned about X, Y, and Z. And Robert and Linda said, John, this is Tony's bill and we love him and we need to get it through. They had two children with a disability. And so we were lucky in that he looked at it differently and we got it through there. Then it went to Judiciary. We had some ruffles there, but we finally got it through. The chair was good friends with the Speaker, and he tried to slow it down, but we basically got it through. But then our real problem was the Public Works Committee, and that committee handles all transportation and so forth. And Greyhound, which in the United States is one of the big buses from— that go throughout the United States, And so, they spent a lot of money trying to defeat it. And a quick story on that was that the chairman of it was a Japanese American from California, good friend. We did a Japanese Reparations Act, basically apologizing for the fact that in World War II, we put all Japanese Americans in and camps and took them out of their homes, and they lost their homes and jobs and everything else. But we put them in these camps because we questioned their loyalty to the United States as opposed to Japan. A very sad moment in our history. But what we were doing then is that we were passing this bill, apologizing, and paying a a small amount of money to all folks involved. And the congressman, the Japanese American congressman, was from California, and his family were put in these encampments. So I helped him get legislation through, and at one point the speaker said, "We don't have the votes, you gotta pull it." He came to me and said what the speaker said, and I said, "I have the votes." "don't pull it because you won't get it back." There are people who oppose. I have the votes, so let's move ahead. He did. So, when there was problems in his committee on the ADA, I called him and I said, "Lookit, the ADA is my reparations act." And he understood. We got it through that committee on a 21-20 vote. And, of course, then after that, We worked out the compromise with the Senate, and it went to the White House, and George H.W. Bush, President Bush, was the president. The interesting thing there, he had a daughter who died of a disability, and he personally was very supportive, and of course his wife Barbara was, but the Chief of Staff was opposed. But when I called the President, he said, "Don't worry about it. I am going to sign it," even though the Chief of Staff was recommending a veto. And so that was the struggles. It was not easy, but we got it through in a record amount of time, and it is one of the most significant civil rights bills in the last 30, 40 years.

Yes, it is. It changed— it's the big civil rights bill, uh, and Tony, it's just so awesome. One thing about you, you never give up. You never give up. Uh, and, ah, thank you. Americans with Disabilities Act changed lives for everyone, quality of life for everyone. And you are a national— no, international treasure for what happened. And you do— you did have— well, you still have a close relationship with the Bush family, but you were really close to President George H.W. Bush, correct?

Yes, I, I call him Papa Bush. Uh, his daughter, I introduced her to my chief of staff in the Whip's office, and they got married, and I was at the wedding at the White House. But I was very close to both Papa Bush and to his wife, Barbara, and close to the family. So, and I got closer to him as time went on after it was signed, and his daughter, Joe Doro did a biography on the president, and in the biography, it quotes President Bush as saying that one of his most significant legacies was the signing of the ADA. And when we had trouble with the ADA Act, his son was the president, and there was opposition We passed the ADA Amendments Act quickly because the Supreme Court had ruled that the ADA did not cover all disabilities. And so, we adopted legislation to say it did, and there was trouble in the White House. So, I called— I went down to Houston because Papa Bush was retired now in Houston, and I explained to him that there was problems in— to sign President Bush's office. On the ADA Amendments Act. So he said, where is it? And I said, well, I can't tell you for sure, but the rumor I have is that it's locked in Vice President Cheney's office. He said, okay, let me— he picks up the phone, calls the White House, and he says to the Chief of Staff, he says, I just want the President— meaning his son— I just want the President to know that this issue, issue is the L word with me, and I want him to know that. So as he said that, I became very concerned because I thought the L word meant liberal. And so when he got off the phone, I said very sheepishly, I said, Mr. President, uh, what do you mean by the L word? He said, legacy. I hate that word, and, and I don't want people to think that something about my legacy, but it is that, and I don't like to say it, so I use the L word. I said, okay, that's good. But we got it through, and the son signed it. So you have the father signing the ADA, and you have the son, both presidents, then signing the ADA Amendments Act.

That is unbelievable. And you know what, Tony? I've heard you tell this story. I never knew why he said the L word.

Yeah.

Now I know. That is so funny. Well, I had the great pleasure, only because of Tony, to meet Doro Bush Cook. And Doro, if you're listening, I just want to tell you how much I love you. And I know Tony does. But, You know, we'll never forget your father, what he did. What a great man. What a great man. And you're— everyone, so you know that's true, if you go buy the book My Father, My President, there's a part in there about the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act with Tony mentioned, and Doro has said many times that that was her father's greatest triumph, signing the Americans with Disabilities Act. So, Tony, I wanted to save a little time here before the end of the show to talk about the Coelho Center. For our listeners, you know, if you could start with when you, you know, founded it, why you founded it, and like what's going on right now.

Well, Joyce, after Congress, I went to Wall Street and a money management firm, and I was the CEO of it. And we took it from about $300 million when I took it over to $5 billion, and then it was sold. So I, I made some good money then, and then I— other investments and so forth. But I felt that this whole fight that I'm involved with on disability is my ministry. It's my passion. It's what I do every day and believe in and want to make a difference. And so I decided that I wanted to put together a Kuelow Disability Center. And I interviewed 5 different universities, but I decided on Loyola because Loyola is the one who helped me when I was in trouble, 'cause it was one of the priests there who introduced me to Mr. Hope. And Mr. Hope is the one who in effect told me to get into politics, which then created my opportunity to be successful, not only there, but on Wall Street and other business ventures. So I decided I wanted to put it there. The Dean of the Law School is considered an international disability expert. He's written several papers on it and so forth. And he is the head of the center. The executive director is a young Hispanic woman. She's a law professor at the law school as a result of the center being placed there. She's a very passionate person with a disability and runs the center. So, I chose it and I'm very happy with it. We are flying— actually, I flew out on the 16th, just a couple weeks ago, to Los Angeles and the graduation of one of our classes and the introduction of the new class. And what it is is that we've developed Quelo Fellows. And these are all individuals with a disability of all different ages who are interested in going to law school, or we try to get them interested in going to law school. We help them getting in, and we then follow their careers. My goal is to get them in corporations, get them law firms. The primary goal is to get them on state courts and federal courts.. And this year for the first time, we have 5 individuals from countries throughout the world. And we'll be doing more. But it is basically to make sure that we get people with disabilities in places of influence so that they can impact what is going on. You know, when women have got their rights, they get in the— have gotten into these places of influence, and it's changed the dialogue in regards to what really matters with women. Same thing with people of color, gays, and so forth, but not with disabilities. And so, we're the only place in the United States that is doing this, and it is exciting to We see these young people get engaged and involved. We have one of our graduates is running for office. Several of them have been involved in— just announced around the 13th, I think it was, of July that they were involved in an executive order that was issued by the White House on disabilities. And one of our fellows was very involved. In getting that done. So it's working, and I'm excited about it. It was tremendously rewarding to be out there and see these people personally and congratulate them in what they've accomplished and what we hope they accomplish. And the fact that there are 4 of them from different countries tells me that we may have an impact in several countries throughout the world in regards to the same thing I am trying to get done here in the United States. So, I am very excited about it. In October, we are having a big event in Los Angeles and to raise money for the Center, but also to celebrate my 80th birthday. So, it is an exciting time for, for us and for the Center, and I am thrilled with it.

Well, it is so exciting. And so right now, listening to the show, first of all, you know that this show is on demand, meaning if you're listening now and you think, oh, I wish this other person had heard it, they can. We have a big listening audience on demand— Spotify, Apple, VoiceAmerica.com, BenderConsult.com. And share this because you know what? I want people listening to the show, business leaders, well, anyone for that matter, to consider donating to the Cuello Center. I always say to people, Tony did all of this for us. We can support him. So Tony, if someone wants to donate, what do they do? And by the way, Kat Perez is fantastic.

Yeah, Kat Perez is the Executive Director of the Center. I don't have the, the line to, to make the contribution, but it's the Quello Center at Loyola University Law School. And the thing I forgot to say is that one of the things that I have insisted upon there on the they have agreed to, is it's just not the law school, but that all 7 colleges at the university, their deans are on an advisory committee for the Center. And that we do things with the engineering school and the Center, with the library and the Center, the political science department and the Center. So, We're across the university in regards to issues dealing with disabilities and opportunities for people with disabilities. We have interns from these different departments involved with the center as well. So, it's really exciting what's happening there, but I appreciate the fact that anybody would want to contribute. It would be helpful.

Yeah. You can follow the Cuello Center @TheCuelloCenter on Twitter. So that will be a good way to get you right back to the Center and just go to the icon button that says donate. So, Tony, thank you so much for being our guest today as we celebrate the Americans with Disabilities 32nd anniversary What a special gift to have you on the show today.

Thank you, Joyce, very much. And for your listeners, you should know that I love Joyce for what she does. She places people with disabilities in top-performing jobs, and we need more of that throughout the country, but also in countries throughout the world., and I applaud Highmark for their support for Joyce's program. Thank you, Joyce.

You're welcome. And we end every show with a quote, so today the quote is, "Work gives us dignity," said Tony Coelho. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters at voiceamerica.com. And today, in the words of Mary Brooker, 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.