Wells Fargo's Commitment to People with Disabilities

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, to all of our guests in the United States and around the world. You know, speaking of around the world, We have listeners in 17 countries and it keeps expanding. I cannot thank you enough. China, the largest listening audience, but you know, I don't care if there's one person, like that one person in Iceland, one person, you can make a difference and spread the news to everyone else. You are helping change quality of life and educating people on the high value of people with disabilities. A special shout out to Richard Roberts and Gang-young. Uh, Gang-young from Seoul, South Korea, and Richard Roberts in Japan, in Okinawa, are with the State Department, and two great disability rights leaders. Now, a few weeks ago— this is so exciting— we had our first ever radio show with the embassy in Japan, from Japan. And guess what? We had the translators on, you know, Japanese to English, English to Japanese. Historic. We've never done that before, and we're going to do it again in January. We're going to have one in February with Tunisia. A special shout out to Cheryl Harris, who I just did a program, 3 different weeks for Tunisia. So get ready. And then Gangneung in South Korea. So thank you, thank you, all of you for faithfully listening to the show. Then a special shout out to my friend Yoshiko Dart. And Yoshiko, thank you for making everyone, you know, that you know in Japan aware of that show. By the way, before we go any further, You know, you can go to voiceamerica.com and listen to a show on demand. So if you're listening now and you want other people to hear the show, because many people can't hear the show in the daytime, uh, make sure you send them there. Or you can go to Apple and/or Spotify and subscribe to Disability Matters with Joyce Bender. Voiceamerica.com so you can hear all the shows, or go to benderconsult.com. But you can hear this show on demand. Make sure you tell that to everyone you know so that they get to hear this great show. Again, thank you to Highmark and to People's Natural Gas and to the Employment Options for sponsoring the show, and To Wells Fargo! Thank you to our superstar I'm going to be introducing right now. We have— wait till you hear this— talk about two stars. We have Regina Hayward, Senior Vice President and Head of Supplier Diversity and Supply Chain Management, and Kathy Martinez, Senior Vice President, Disability Market Segment and Strategy, but you may remember her as the Assistant Secretary for ODEP, the Office of Disability Employment Policy. She spoke all across the country and other parts of the world. I'm sure that you all remember Kathy. So I have to start with— I call her the Queen, just so you know that— Miss Regina Hayward, Senior VP. And let me tell you, this woman is all about supporting people with disabilities. And by the way, her show, the last time she was on, was one of the, one of the most listened to shows, and you're going to see why right now. You got to tell everyone about this show. I love her. She is awesome. Regina Haywood, welcome to the show.

Good afternoon, Joyce. I am so excited to be with you and your listeners today. We're going to have a fabulous conversation. I have one of my key colleagues at Wells Fargo Wells Fargo. We've worked together on so many opportunities to advance the people with disabilities community, and so I'm so pleased to be here with Kathy Martinez. We're going to share with you exciting work that's underway at Wells Fargo, how we are taking a leadership position within both our internal operations and organization as well as our supply chain to engage people with disabilities and disability-owned businesses. So thank you so much for the opportunity, and thank you for your leadership, Joyce. It's so important in this 30th anniversary year of the Americans with Disabilities Act that we celebrate you for continuing to be a passionate advocate, a leader, and a change agent that has driven so much positive progress. So excited to be here and looking forward to the conversation.

Well, you know, you're just one of my favorite people. Regina, and so that everyone knows both of these guests. But you know, a lot of times you'll hear a business person, an executive as she is, from a company, and they say all the right words, but I wanna tell you what, she walks that talk. She is the real deal. And so everyone should follow her, Regina Hayward, H-E-Y-W-A-R-D. And Regina, how about if we start by you telling our listeners around the world a little about your background and personal story, and that way they can replay it from the State Department in those countries.

Absolutely. Well, Joyce, I love to start with my roots. I am from a small town called Thomasville, Georgia, and I grew up in a family of girls. I often think about how my dad survived in a household full of women, but he did a great job. Both my mother and my father were big advocates for education and hard work, and they raised us with an appreciation for our community and a sense that in order to, to really be successful, we had to find ways of giving back to the community. And with that, I've had just a wonderful opportunity to work for some dynamic companies in my professional career, ranging from General Electric to Capital One to MeadWestvaco Baco, which was a global forest and packaging company, and now at Wells Fargo. And what I've been able to do and experience through those various corporate roles that I've been in is really the power of building strong relationships, of providing access to business leaders, and then strategically expanding circles of connection within communities. And in fact, that's what I'm most proud of when I think about my advocacy and influence for the people with disabilities community. I do serve as the vice chair of Disability:IN, and I have an opportunity to work with some great leaders like Jill Houghton and the staff over at Disability:IN. But in addition, you know, this work really is about looking inside Wells Fargo and finding ways for us to push ourselves forward when it comes to engaging people with disabilities people with disabilities in all of the opportunities that we have, both operational, business, marketplace, and community. And so when I think about, you know, what drives me and what I'm really passionate about, it really does take me back to those roots of Thomasville, Georgia. I've had an opportunity to work in great places like Asia. I know you have a lot of listeners who are over in the Japan area in Asia, but I've also worked in Latin Latin America, and Europe. So I bring that broad understanding of multicultural communities to the work that I do, and I really seek every day to help Wells Fargo to win, not only within its business strategy, but also in the broader way that we approach stakeholders. And I just love to tell people, when you hear me say y'all, that does orient back to a great place of Thomasville, Georgia, where I got my roots and, and got my beginning.

Well, I'll tell you what, I can see you came from a family of hard workers, and you have not stopped all these years. And a great civil rights leader. You know, I'm involved with, uh, Reverend Dr. William Barber, the head of the Poor The People's Campaign, and we're all about how COVID has impacted Black people with disabilities. Black disabled lives matter, and he is so focused on that. And Regina, I want to compliment you for your commitment to civil rights and everything that you've done.

Thank you, Joyce Bender.

Well, I'm going to skip over here now, uh, so that we can hear from both people. We can go back and forth. But my friend Kathy Martinez, I have known for a long time, uh, and Kathy has always, by the way, been supportive of me and the work that I do. But we have something in common— we are both all about employment and accessibility, because you can't work anywhere if in fact they are not using accessible websites, internal applications, et cetera. But she has worked as a national, international leader, and then, you know, Wells Fargo was lucky enough to be able to get her. And as Regina mentioned, Kathy, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act this year, and just last evening we had a Zoom for Disability Mentoring Day kickoff with Tony Coelho and Dora Bush on. It was so exciting, but I wonder if you could share your experience regarding advancements this law has made for you and people with disabilities in general, uh, both as a consumer and as an employer.

Well, I certainly can. It's great to be on the show with you again, Joyce. Thanks for inviting us back. It's always an honor for both of us to be on the show. So, regarding the ADA, many of you know that the ADA was our pivotal legislation for people with disabilities, a nondiscrimination law that basically said that we can't be discriminated against based on our disability. For me, I happen to be old enough to have worked before the ADA, and I will say that before 1990 and, you know, a few years after as we ramped up our ADA efforts, the onus of getting anything done was on the person with the disability. So, you know, When I was growing up, people would say, well, what's Kathy gonna do? How is Kathy gonna handle that? And it was how was I going to survive in the world? How was I going to make things accessible so that I could participate? What the ADA has done is it has split the difference in many ways in that society is obligated to take a role in making itself accessible, and I would say usable, by people with disabilities. So now, since the ADA has passed, our physical world is very different. We see ramps. We see Braille elevators. Before, when I would travel, There was nothing on the doors to indicate what room number, you know, what room number was on the doors if you were in a hotel. Now I can check in and find my own room. And I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but it is a big deal. The ADA has allowed me to be much more independent. It has allowed me a broader, I would say, a broader set of options. In terms of what I would like to do, what I would like to read, what I would like to participate in. For me, as a blind person, I guess I probably— excuse me— I probably should say that I'm blind. And so, for me, it was lack of access to information. That was a big barrier, in addition to not being able to drive and other things. But for me, just lack of access to visual information and the printed word. Now, I am so lucky to have access to lots of different newspapers, magazines, information. If I want to read ingredients on a grocery product, I'm able to do that. And it's the things that I think non-disabled people take for granted all the time. You know, being able to get up a curb, being able to, you know, to know what bus stop you're at. So, the ADA has done a lot. It also has helped to change attitudes. Now, we can't legislate attitudes. We know that, right? But what it has done is allowed people like me to be a part of our communities, to contribute to our society. To contribute to the workplace. I've been at Wells Fargo for 5 and a half years, and if it wasn't for the ADA and other legislation and regulations, I really wouldn't be able to work. So, it has allowed me to contribute to my community, to contribute to my team at work. It's allowed my voice to be included. You know, I feel like I'm— I'm more and more invited to the table instead of being on the menu, as they say. So, I think the ADA has made a considerable difference in my life as an employee, in my life as a customer, and just in general as a person who lives in the community.

Wow. Yeah, you know what, Kathy, people that maybe aren't so pro-accommodations and accessibility, as you said, don't realize what they have right now. And, you know, that was so true what you said. Well, Regina, I want to move back to you here. Companies that, as you know from being the vice president of the board of disability in, you know very well that there are companies interested in diversifying their supply chain. I wonder if you will share how companies can go about including disability-owned business enterprises.

We're going through a point in time where accountability and action is very important, and at Wells Fargo, we understand that to be successful, the company must be as diverse and inclusive as the communities that we serve. And as Kathy mentioned in her personal experience, it's why we promote diverse representation via our employee population, our supplier population, and it's why we push ourselves to have a culture within the company that is inclusive of people with disabilities. A key priority of Wells Fargo's business inclusion strategy includes striving for full inclusion of businesses within the US economy. That means we have to really think about the barriers and the conditions that are present within the economy and then work with our peers in financial services and other industries to remove those barriers. It's very important to us that we hold ourselves accountable, as I mentioned, and over the past 5 years, we have measured our relationships with disability-owned businesses, DOBEs, certified organizations that are coming through the Disability IN organization. We've spent over $13 million with disability-owned businesses. And when we think about actually leveraging businesses, just as your organization, Joyce Bender, has done very value-added scopes of work with our company, it really is about finding the best and brightest, sharing what our supply chain opportunities are, investing in building capabilities. We have programs where we will invest in sending disability-owned business owners to programs at Stanford and Dartmouth. We have scholarship programs through historically Black colleges and universities and other major types of scholarship funds. And we also are very present in the Disability:IN organization. In fact, we had the first business accelerator program in conjunction with the Disability:IN conference about a year and a half ago. And Joyce, we were really excited to have your team be a part of the facilitation and the training that was provided to those businesses that attended the accelerator. So I hope I'm painting a picture that we're in a period of time where we have to hold ourselves accountable, but we also have to take the right strategic actions, and we have to measure our progress. It's really key that we understand how we are doing in our business relationships and our employee relationships, and that we continue to set more and more goals within the organization to, to achieve progress.

Yes, and you have been. As you mentioned, I am a disability-owned business enterprise, and not just me, but throughout the organization Regina has worked to bring aboard disability-owned business enterprises. You know what I always say? If you want to show everyone that you have diversity, this woman is your example to follow. Regina Hayward, Wells Fargo. Kathy, I really am excited to talk to you about the Office of Federal Contract Compliances because of the mandates that have helped increase employment offers— opportunities at companies that are federal contractors. Now, I know we still have a ways to go here, but could you talk about that? —so that our listeners will understand it.

Sure. Yeah. So, I had the pleasure of working with a very large team, including Joyce Bender, to help establish the executive order, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act. And this executive order says that federal contractors must strive for a utilization goal of 7%. So we're looking at having 7% of people identify as having a disability within these federal contractor companies, of which Wells Fargo is one. You know, when we— so when I— let me just say that when I helped get this executive order passed, You know, I never dreamed that I would one day be implementing this regulation, but I have to say it's one of the best experiences I've ever had because, you know, I gained a better understanding of what it takes to implement a regulation. You know, it's easy to pass a regulation, but I think it's actually much harder to implement it and really move the needle. However, at Wells Fargo, we have a very large cadre of passionate people who believe that disability absolutely should be a part of the diversity agenda at the bank. And we have made efforts on many fronts to to make— to move the needle regarding hiring, retaining, advancing, promoting people with disabilities. So we have developed a recruitment effort, a recruitment community of practice. We have people in our HR department whose specific task it is to recruit qualified people with disabilities. Once we get folks on board, we have to make it possible for them to do their jobs. So, you know, we focus at Wells Fargo on basically raising all boats. And we focus on physical accessibility, digital accessibility, because as Joyce Bender said earlier, websites have to be accessible. We have to have accessible internal applications to do our job. But not only those. I think one of the most important things that we've done is to work on our cultural accessibility and how welcoming is our culture. And, you know, how comfortable does somebody feel identifying as a person with a disability, not just when you come through the door,, but even if you've been an employee for 20 years and you have a non-evident disability, is this a safe place for you to come out as being a person with a disability? How are our hiring managers being— how are we raising awareness with regard to what questions can be answered or asked during an interview, or What happens when a person with a disability comes on board and their team has a lot of questions? Who should answer those? Should it be the person that they hired, or should we be able to provide the team with some awareness tools and some disability etiquette information? So all this goes into creating a welcoming and accessible place. It's got to be physical, digital, and cultural. Well, and— Can I just say one more thing, Joyce Bender? Yes, please. And we're proud to say, we're very proud to say that from 2015, you know, we have moved the needle quite a bit, and we're now at over 11,000 people that identify as having a disability. And we know we're not there. We know this is a marathon, not a sprint. But our goal is to just keep getting better.

Wow, that, that is absolutely, uh, congratulations. That's awesome. You know, because you know what I always say, where the rubber meets the road is competitive employment. That says it all. That's how you change the workface of America. Uh, you were talking, Regina, about Adobes and the Disability Business Enterprise. Where can they go to get training to better understand how to put themselves in front of larger companies like Wells Fargo? Because speaking of employment, there are people with disabilities that choose to become entrepreneurs, uh, and you know what, then you can hire people with disabilities as I have. As you become larger and more successful. But what if, Regina, you have no idea? You're new, you're new disability-owned business enterprise certified by Disability:IN. What can you do to learn more?

Yeah, and this really gets nicely back to what Kathy was just saying about moving the needle. One of the things that we recognize at Wells Fargo is that in order to have a pipeline of disability-owned businesses within our supply chain, we have to invest upfront in helping small businesses to grow and scale. That includes small disability-owned business enterprises as well as established organizations that are currently doing business with Wells Fargo. We invest more than $3 million a year through our Wells Fargo Foundation in specific programs. We call them capacity building programs that are designed to help businesses to grow and scale. We have really deconstructed the process of growth to understand what do small businesses need. We know they need access to capital. There's no organization that has more expertise than Wells Fargo in that area. They also need access to networks, people who can provide them helpful information on business process, people who can provide them access to markets, people who can help them to negotiate the contracting process and provide technical assistance. But we also have found that businesses need a little bit more nurturing, and so we invest in programs that help with mentoring. Wells Fargo has several capacity efforts where we bring experts out of other corporations, out of industry, and partner those those experts with diverse businesses who are looking to grow and scale. And then lastly, access to information. As we have gone through the COVID pandemic and had new programs introduced into the marketplace, like the Paycheck Protection Program, Wells Fargo made a concerted effort to ensure that we were outreaching to organizations. Disability:IN was one of our key outreach partners. We were able to to reach in a 7-week period of time over 30,000 businesses across the United States through webinars and virtual sessions where we brought experts in from our small business team, from our wealth and investment management team, people who could answer questions. We made sure that any emails that we received from folks who needed specific assistance were handled in a timely manner. And it made a significant difference. And now we know that there is more to do, especially on the recovery and the restoration front of businesses post-COVID. And so we are already working very closely with our Wells Fargo Foundation around special programs like our $400 million Open for Business Fund, where we have committed to provide all of our fees earned as a part of the PPP program to nonprofits who help small diverse businesses. And so what I would advise people to do is to make sure you're connecting with the small business resources in your area. Disability:IN certainly is a significant resource on the national level. Disability:IN has local affiliates across the United States. So visiting the Disability:IN website and really finding the regional affiliate that's closest to you would be very, very helpful. Also, the Small Business Administration has set up organizations across the United States to be helpful to small businesses who are looking to develop. So check into that SBA network. And then lastly, this acronym of CDFI has become very important as we have gone through programs like the Paycheck Protection Program. But that stands for Community Financial Development Institution. Wells Fargo has very strong and enduring relationships with CDFIs across the country. We have special programs like our Diverse Community Capital Program where we're providing capital into CDFIs who work very closely with diverse businesses within each of their communities. Visiting Wells Fargo's small business website is also very, very helpful when it comes to locating CDFIs in your area who are participating not only in Wells Fargo's program but more broadly in opportunities to help small businesses. So this is just a time when there are a lot of resources and taking time to really investigate who those go-to resources are in your area would be very helpful. But I always orient back to Disability:IN because I know the team over at Disability:IN is so super helpful when it comes to figuring out resources and how to navigate. And I think that's really the key. I agree with you.

I just want to say you should definitely look into Disability:IN if you are a person with a disability, you know, running a business, no matter how small you are, if you're, you know, getting going and, you know, you're making headway, but you wanna do more, you are not gonna believe the network of people at these Disability:IN conferences. And one of them is on the phone with me right now. Thank God I was blessed to meet Regina. And guess how that happened? A Disability:IN conference. So, you know, I always tell people, you've gotta invest, You've got to, you know, it's not going to come to you. You know, someone's not going to come knocking on your door saying, hi, here I am, you know, I'm going to work with you. You've got to get out there. You've got to become known. That is, you've got to get a network. You've got to get a network. I'm telling you, that is so important. So, Kathy, you have been at Wells Fargo. I can't I can't believe you've been there 5 and a half years. Wow. Seems like just yesterday you told me you were going there. Oh, wow. So you could talk about your Wells Fargo journey now with over 11,000 employees who self-identified as a person with a disability. Let's hear about your journey and also something very important at every company, which is the ERG group.

Oh, well, my journey was— I will be very honest. You know, when I came to Wells Fargo, I had been in the, quote, disability bubble for most of my working life, at least the last, you know, 15 years. And when I came to Wells Fargo, I have to say it was one of the the best and hardest years of my life because, first of all, I had to learn at a very quick rate how to better use assistive technology so I could get my work done. And I had to learn about the financial services industry, which, frankly, I had no clue about. So, the first year was a real kind of learning-through-a-firehose year for me. One of the things that I was tasked to do was begin developing an enterprise-wide strategy. And that included our philanthropic work, really having a focused philanthropic approach rather than kind of a scattershot approach. It included developing a marketing strategy, how— what were we going to celebrate, what organizations What organizations were we going to sponsor? Of course, it included mitigating risk, developing an accessibility, a digital accessibility strategy. We created what we call our Enterprise Accessibility Program Office, which is kind of our focal point for enterprise work. So, for example, anything that has kind of an enterprise— and touches all businesses and functional organizations, the EAPO helps to coordinate. We're kind of a focal point. Wells Fargo is a really big organization, and while lines of business may not do everything exactly the same, you know, it's really a good idea to have somebody coordinating processes, standards, you know, and just kind of keeping track of how how the organization is moving and making sure we're moving in the right direction. So, you know, this year we were proud to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We're having a celebration of National Disability Employment Awareness Month on Thursday with one of our leaders, Sol Van Beurden. And so, you know, like I say, it's It's a marathon, not a sprint. And I think we're moving in the right direction. We certainly have more people than ever as part of our affinity group, our Disability Team Member Network, not only people with disabilities, but allies. You know, people are, I think, are learning how to be Allies. And so that is a very helpful vehicle for people to network. You guys talked a lot about networking. That has been super helpful for people, you know, to learn about what type of services we offer, to learn about our Disability Resource Center for our employees, you know, to learn about how to ask for an accommodation and what that process is like. So, you know, the ERG is a super— it's a convener and a connector and really just helps our team members, you know, network and it allows people to bring their whole selves to work, you know, if they're just disabled and they're part of multiple, they have multiple identities, you know, if they have intersectional identities, you know, it's a very supportive environment for people at Wells Fargo.

Yeah, and how important is that? You know, just as you said, I always tell people about this intersectionality. Doesn't matter color, sexual orientation, you know, female, it doesn't matter what it is, there is intersectionality across the board. So in other words, I can be Black and have a disability. I can be from the LGBT community and have a disability. Do you know what I mean? I can be a female and have a disability, and people forget about that. That's why when I go to a company and they say, oh, we have, you know, not hired people with disabilities before, I always tell them, oh yes, you have. Yeah, they're here right now in your company. Bipolar disorder, depression, MS, epilepsy like me. It's just that they don't want to tell anyone. And that's why it's so great to have a a company like Wells Fargo that is doing so much for inclusion. And I'll tell you what, Regina, this is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. But you know what I call it? I call it Disability Employment Month because I always say, okay, we've had the awareness, now let's start hiring people. And another thing about it is it isn't just one month. Month. It isn't like you can say, okay, this one month I'm gonna, I'm gonna have National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Big deal. This has to be year-round. So, uh, Regina, your advice for companies, how can they prioritize disability inclusion throughout the year?

That's right. And Joyce, I, I go back to the two words that I used to start this this podcast, action and accountability. One innovative way that Wells Fargo has put action behind employment of people with disabilities is our supported employment program, and I'm really excited about what the team at Wells Fargo has done to stand this program up. Our efforts actually started back in 2017 when we launched the first supported employment program to hire people with people with disabilities through our third-party vendors, through our corporate properties team. And so as you think about that, Wells Fargo certainly does have a wide breadth of facilities, both administrative and retail, across the United States. And so our team identified our corporate properties construct as a significant way that we could begin to match people with disabilities within our network to jobs. And so what we've done is we work with third-party service providers and local vocational agencies to match candidates with physical and/or mental disabilities to job openings. And we do that in a variety of ways across our locations. One site, we have job coaches that support associates who are receiving prevailing wages for the positions that they're working. We also have created innovative job structuring so that if we have one role but there are two people who can work inside of a day, maybe one person is able to take the first 4 hours of a day and another person can take the last 4 of a day. We certainly do try to be innovative and creative in order to, again, get people engaged and working within our operation. We initially started the program by filling just 3 positions in a single market, and that was back in 2017. But as the team became better at our processes and as we had success, we scaled that program. And in fact, in 2020, we're on track to target having more than 60 candidates with disabilities employed across our 17 markets. And we're leveraging over 12 certified supplier partners in order to make that happen. So again, that is an example of holding ourselves accountable, but being very focused on action as we seek to reach a higher level of employment for people with disabilities, not only within our company, but Joyce, we know how important this is globally for people with disabilities to have the same opportunity as others to engage meaningfully in the economy., and that certainly does carry a big opportunity there around jobs and working and using the skills and talents that one has been given in order to produce value. So we're excited about that supportive employment program.

And you know what?

And Joyce, I want to— yes. I just want to just point something out that Regina said that is very important. We pay prevailing wage. I think we have to just stop and make sure that people are very clear that we are not paying subminimum wage and that we respect the whole concept of supported employment and we value the contributions that these workers bring to our company. Mm-hmm.

I'm really glad you said that. That, Kathy, because we all know about places where there is some minimum pay, which is absolutely horrible. I mean, horrible. And I, and I know at Wells Fargo you have very competitive employment salaries and compensation, but I'm glad that you brought that up. I really am, because I feel that is So important. Well, Kathy, we have had, and this goes along with that actually, centuries of exclusive practices in the U.S., such as employment discrimination, that has resulted in a society where people of color with disabilities, as we were talking about, particularly in the BIPOC community, have, and the Latinx community, are at a particular disadvantage financially. Just as I said when Reverend Dr. William Barber was on, the number of people living in poverty with disabilities is horrific. So what community solutions do you have that you feel should be prioritized?

Wow. Well, I think that it would be very helpful for everyone. Let me just talk about my community and my experience. I'm Latina. I was born in a very large Latina family. And, you know, when I grew up, I was lucky to have a family that, you know, that was very supportive and really encouraged me to participate and didn't let me or my blind sister— so there's 2 blind people out of 6 kids— they didn't let us sit on the sidelines. I mean, they pushed us very hard to participate and to contribute. But I did have a whole bunch of relatives. Both parents have come from very large families who really didn't see disability in the same way my family did. And there was a lot of shame and blame. And I think I would like to see the disability community and the social justice community work more closely together. Because we know that people of color experience a higher incidence of disability. I can tell you in the Latino community, the jobs that we Often do, like construction, farm work, meatpacking, are very high-injury jobs. So we often, you know, acquire disabilities, and we're not connected to the disability service delivery model. And then— and so that is— I'd like to see that happen. And with all communities, African American communities, Asian communities, that especially folks from Indian Country. You know, all of our BIPOC communities have very high incidence of diabetes, which results in secondary disabilities. Obesity results in secondary disabilities. Lack of knowledge, you know, poverty is both a cause and a result of disability. So, I think, you know, bringing our big social justice movements. And I think our corporations can be an example as well. But bringing our communities together, because, you know, the leadership of the disability community, the disability leadership is primarily white. It is changing, no question about it. But there are, you know, the disability rights movement was definitely is ultimately founded on a kind of a white middle-class model. I think that there is more awareness around the situation of people of color with disabilities. And I would like to see us just, our movements are, I'd like to see the disability rights include more people, movement include more people of color and the social justice movement include more people with disabilities and be prepared to, you know, to really embrace people with disabilities.

I mentioned before, and I agree with you, passionately I agree with you. I mentioned before about Reverend Dr. William Barber, who I'm sure many of you have seen on MSNBC or NBC or CBS or ABC. He's on everything. Being that he is also the chair of the Poor People's Campaign. And his daughter, Sherelle Barber, is a Harvard graduate social epidemiologist and teaches. She's a PhD at Drexel. So, she was on my radio show, and as a social epidemiologist, she is very schooled in this area. And Kathy, she talked about something that you mentioned in this conversation, and that is that many people of color or Latinx or other minority groups are and were essential workers during the coronavirus. This is when she was talking about systemic racism, that there are are people who are poor all living in one home, and of course congregate settings explodes with COVID-19, or they are relegated to the jobs such as at that plant. You remember that meatpacking plant? The people on the front lines— Oh, the turkey. Turkey plants, right? Yes. And also people who are personal care attendants, grocery store, we could go on and on and on. But my point is, if you are the essential worker and you are being exposed to COVID, of course that community would be ravaged, not to mention, you know, you know, lack of nutrition when you were talking about diabetes. And this is really, um, you know, and then you add disability to that. Oh my goodness. I mean, this is why we all have to be awake. We all have to be awake to see what's really going on across the country. I so agree with what you just said. And Regina, I I must ask you, you are so passionate about all of this. May I ask you where this came from? I mean, I really am interested in knowing where this came from because obviously there are many executives that are not like you and they do not see us. So where did that come from?

From with you. And Joyce, what I was sharing is that as an executive, I think it's super important that you use your gifts and your talents to help make life better for someone else. And I have learned so much from Cathy Martinez and from others within our organization and from around the country about the issues and the opportunities. And I made an intentional decision to sow into making things better. And so I'm so thankful for the $13 million that we have spent with disability-owned businesses, for the supported employment program, for the continued investments that we're making in growing and scaling disability-owned businesses. But I know that we are not done. We are going to continue to raise the bar on ourselves. And as a leader, I'm personally holding myself accountable for creating creating positive outcomes. But that's where it comes from for me, Joyce. It really comes from understanding within myself that in order to be a successful leader, I have to help others to also be successful. Thank you so much for this opportunity today. This has been a wonderful conversation.

Oh, Regina, it's always a pleasure to have you. But I do have one other question for you. Can we have you back on on next year, both of you?

Absolutely, for me. And I'm raising my hand and nodding my head, so absolutely for Regina Hayward. Yes.

Oh, we'd love to have you both back on at— in the first quarter of next year. Everyone get ready for them. We end every show— the show went way faster, I didn't even know how fast— but we end every show with a quote And here we go. Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization, said Gandhi. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Happy ADA 30. Talk to you 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.