Community Independent Living Fund

Community Independent Living Fund

Since retiring from Wells Fargo, I've focused my time and energy to eliminate work disincentives in the current Social Security Disability Programs that inhibit people with disabilities from being employed. Given the current political environment, an entirely new approach may be required. Please read the following and give me feedback.

Currently, there are two separate Social Security trust funds, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund pays retirement and survivors benefits, and the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund pays disability benefits. These funds are funded by employers and employees through payroll deductions. I suggest a third fund is needed.

The Community Independent Living Fund will fund personal assistant services, on-going therapies, durable medical equipment and maintenance drugs for workers with disabilities. This Fund will be used by any employee requiring these goods and services who cannot get the services covered by any other program.

By creating a separate funding source for independent living services, health care costs and healthcare insurance premiums should be significantly lowered. Expenses associated with pre-existing conditions should be defrayed by this Fund. Many Social Security Disability recipients stay on Social Security for fear of losing these critical services. By eliminating this fear, many people with disabilities will find employment. Social Security Disability will be able to return to its mission of providing a safety net for people with disabilities who truly cannot work. As more people receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) find employment, the costs of these expensive programs should decrease.

As with the two current Social Security trust funds, the Community Independent Living Fund will be funded by a payroll tax. This new payroll tax will be levied after an employee's annual salary exceeds the Social Security cap. Initial funding of the Community Independent Living Fund will be sought from philanthropy. While no one wants new taxes, it is surmised that people will recognize the value of this new fund.

Many details regarding the Community Independent Living Fund must be developed and negotiated. A thorough analysis of the Fund's effect on healthcare, Social Security, the debt and the overall economy must be carefully evaluated.

How can the concept of a Community Independent Living Fund be advanced?

Denise's Keynote Address

Boker Tov! Good Morning!

As I begin this keynote, you'll notice I have a unique way of speaking. Two reasons for it: First, I was born and raised in The Bronx, New York. Second. I have a disability--Cerebral Palsy or CP—which I've had since birth. CP mainly affects the part of the brain that controls voluntary movement, as with Neil and myself. But it can also affect area of the brain that are responsible for sight, hearing, cognition, and speech, depending on how the brain was impacted. There are several different types of CP, and no two people will have it the same way.... But getting back to my speech, it may take some of you a bit of time to get used to or comfortable with my accent. And that's okay. In the end, I always get my point across..., unless I'm arguing with Neil!

Today, I like to share with you my experience with Jewish Education both as a child and as an adult. Growing up, I didn't get a formal Jewish education. I never went to Hebrew or Religious School. My family weren't Synagogue Jews. My father went to High Holiday Services and, when a close relative died, he'd go say Kaddish during the year of mourning... My mother only went to say Yizkor for her mother. And to be honest I think my parents just had their hands too full raising two little girls, one of which, me, had a disability. Looking at the big picture, Religious School wasn't that important anyway, since only boys in my family had B'nei Mitzvahs... I remember my parents did send my sister one year, but she was never into it. I, on the other hand would have loved to go—but in those days, it was just an accepted norm that kids with disabilities weren't integrated into activities with children who didn't have disabilities.

So, how did I learn to be Jewish? Where did I get my Jewish identity? Well, from my family, of course! My father's parents emigrated from Russia/Poland to escape the Pogroms in the late 1800s. They were Orthodox Jews and remained so all their lives, so I knew that they didn't do certain things, like use the phone or ride on Saturday—on Shabbos. My father was less observant. I think because he often had to work on Saturdays. As for my mother's side of the family, both her parents were born in the United States. They prided themselves on being Americanized, hardly even spoke Yiddish. Yet, the maternal side of my mother's family kept their Jewish rituals. So, in the home I grew up, in we kept kosher, we lit Shabbos candles; my mother recited the prayer she had from her mother—with a few of the words, as I later learned, mispronounced.

In my informal Jewish upbringing, I learned about observing holidays—Rosh HaShonah, Yom Kippur, Chanukkah, Pesach. The stories. The food. The culture. The dos and don'ts. I remember going the Bar Mitzvah celebrations of all my male cousins on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons, not even knowing they had been called up to the Torah on Shabbos morning. As a matter of fact, I don't remember even hearing the word “Torah” ever referred to when I was young.

I was always curious about knowing more but whenever I asked questions, I just received cursory answers. “Why don't Grandpa and Grandma ride on Shabbos?” “It's a sin!” “Why can't they turn on the lights?” “It's work!” The answers didn't make much sense to me. Neither did why only boys got to have Bar Mitzvahs! So in my mind, I grew to view Judaism as restrictive and very patriarchal.

When I moved to the West Coast in my twenties, I'd be invited to a Seder for Passover or a friend would drag to a High Holiday service, and although I would never admit, I longed to belong to a Jewish community. But I never felt like I fit in. I always felt like a stranger. No one was friendly. They were uncomfortable around me, so I was uncomfortable around them. It seemed like the very people who are inherently taught to remember their history of oppression and prejudice, were all too ready to exclude me. It didn't seem very Jewish to me!

So, nu, what happened? How did I get here—of all places?

Well, for one thing, I became a parent, and since Neil and I lived 3,000 miles away from our families, we wanted to make sure our son David got a sense of being “Jewish.” We enrolled him in Religious School.

I was definitely out of my comfort zone. David learned things that I had no clue about: Tzedakah boxes. Parshat. Havdalah.

Luckily, in the Reform Synagogue, Temple Sinai, where we ended up, there were enough congregants, clergy, and staff—just a handful, at first—who made us feel welcome. Rabbi Chester didn't bat an eye when we showed up the day of registration. He introduced us to Brunetta, who worked in the office; she nonchalantly asked if we wanted help filling out the forms. Barbara from the membership committee came to our home to welcome us as congregants. I met people who truly understood how to role model Jewish values. I was fascinated by a Judaism that centered around building community, a Judaism that requires us to show up and learn.

I began to attend services, take classes, become active and, speak up about accessibility. And I found out I wasn't alone; there were others in the congregation who spoke up, too. I began to get called on to join committees. The more I got involved, the more I broke down physical and attitudinal barriers toward disability along with other members of the congregation. Not all. It might never be all. But eventually, I felt a part of the Temple Sinai community.

Somewhere, along the line, Rabbi Chester put the bug in my ear—actually from the bimah at David's Bar Mitzvah—that I should have a Bat Mitvah of my very own. After thinking about it for a couple of years, I started to study Hebrew, began taking voice lessons, and set the date. I led the congregation in a Shabbat service one July morning in 2005, with a few accommodations. If I had it to do over, I'd give a shorter Drash!

But let's go back to Jewish Values. If you think about it, the great thing about Jewish Values is that they don't discriminate! That's why, as Jewish educators, you have a unique opportunity when you have kids with disabilities in your classroom because you're in a position to mold behaviors that foster confidence, community, and Jewish Values for every student. You can teach them that everyone has worth and ability, that everyone is made B'tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. And it's not just your students who will benefit; it's their families as well. Parents of children with disabilities often feel isolated from other parents. They can experience being just as left out because of assumptions made about their child because he/she has a disability. They are used to having their child perceived as different in the secular world. But you have chance as teachers to educate, to be facilitators and role models of inclusion.

Isn't that the real beginning of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world?

Thank you.

What We Can Learn From “Special Ed”?

Thank you for inviting Denise and me to today's conference. I'd like you to consider whether the way we teach children with disabilities should be the way we teach all children. I will contrast my school experiences attending a segregated public program for children with disabilities and an integrated Jewish education after school program. I will also discuss the importance of setting high expectations for all students and why I think it is the most critical factor in education.

I grew up in the 1950s in Brooklyn New York. I attended a public grammar school that was an hour bus ride from my home. The school had a quote health conservation unquote program for children with disabilities that was in the basement of a school. My classmates and I yearned to be with the quote normal unquote kids who were upstairs. We wanted to go to school in our neighborhoods with the other kids who lived on our block. As my classmates and I grew older, we became strong advocates for mainstreaming.

The only time I was with non-disabled kids was in religious school. The after-school program was 3 long blocks from my home and on the 2nd floor of an inaccessible building. The school bus would drop me off near the after-school religious program. My Mom would meet me there and drag me upstairs. 90 minutes later she would return with my 2 wheel bicycle that had training wheels, and I would pedal home. I wasn't allowed to have a wheelchair until high school, and I wasn't allowed to have a powered wheelchair until I went to Grad School at U.C. Berkeley.

As I age, I often wonder whether my advocacy regarding mainstreaming was backward. Instead of integrating children with disabilities into normal classes, should we integrate children without disabilities into special education? Should special education be the norm?

I need to quickly point out that I am biased by the fact that I had the same excellent teacher from the fourth grade through the eighth grade – Mrs. Diane Cantor. Mrs. Cantor saw the potential in me, pushed me hard, and often told me that I needed to be better than normal kids. She taught me to excel at what I'm good at and not worry about what I can't do. She explained that the main idea behind special education was to find the strength that each child has, exploit that strength ensuring the child will be able to live as independently as possible. I acknowledge that many people that went through special ed think their education was inferior to their non-disabled peers. They feel they were not adequately prepared for quote real world unquote. However, shouldn't the education I received be the goal for all education?

The children that attended the segregated special education program were indeed my peers. We all had disabilities. We went to therapy. We went to special segregated recreation programs. We played together, and we had a common goal – to be like the kids upstairs.

In hindsight, I wonder whether I would have done as well if I was the only disabled child in a regular education class. I wonder if I would have known how to play with non-disabled kids. Most importantly, I wonder if the teacher would have had the same high expectations of me. In the after-school religious program I attended, I never played with the other children. We never hung out together. The teacher did not have any real expectations for me. Occasionally I'd deliberately mispronounce my Hebrew to see whether the teacher would correct me. They never did.

Expectations are the most crucial success factor in education and inclusion. We usually live up to what people expect of us. If we expect our students do well, they will. If we expect our students not to do well, they will do that too. If we expect someone to be friendly and fun, they probably will be, and if we expect them to be boring and hard to understand, we'll be right about that too.

One of my favorite rabbis, Rabbi Berlin, tells a story that illustrates the importance of having high expectations has on inclusion. Her family, which included a brother with a developmental disability, did not feel welcomed at their old synagogue. Although her family was active at their old temple, there was no role for her brother. The rabbi at the new synagogue immediately asked her brother to please turn the lights off before Havdalah and turn the lights back on at the end of the service. Her brother was thrilled! From then on he had his job. He knew he was needed. He and his family knew they were wanted. The rabbi had created an environment where everyone was expected to contribute and where everyone felt valued.

Working for a profit-making business also illustrates how having high expectations can lead to feelings of inclusion. Although big banks and big corporations have received bad press lately, working for Wells Fargo was terrific for me. Working there, you really understood that if you did well and contributed to the bottom line, it didn’t matter what sex you were, what religion you practiced, what color you were or even what you sounded like. There were many nights when there were system problems. They would call me and inevitably find a way to understand what I was saying – because they needed to! I was expected to do well. One of my favorite stories happened near the beginning of my career before there was online computing, The system crashed at 1AM. My van was in the shop, Trains in the Bay Area don’t run all night. Wells Fargo sent an armored van to transport me, and my 300 pounds powered wheelchair to the data center.

My favorite Torah story is God's denying Moses's request not to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt. God expected that with the right tools, Moses, with his speech impairment, would be a great leader. Sure enough, with tools including a rod and a Communication Assistant, Moses was a great leader.

After 29 years of working at Wells Fargo, I retired as a Sr. Vice President to start a disability-focused employment company that specializes in consulting on staffing and placement issues. I quickly realized that there are systemic problems that intrinsically inhibit people with disabilities from working and being productive. Our society holds meager expectations for individuals with disabilities. Defining disability as the “inability to work”to receive disability benefits is an inherent disincentive. I am dedicating the rest of my retirement to see that these old policies are changed. I am doing so by working with The World Institute on Disability where I am leading an initiative called CareerACCESS.

My request to all educators is to please have very high expectations of all students. Discover what they are good at and help them make it great. Discover what causes the gleam in their eyes to sparkle and help them focus on that as much as possible. Discover what makes them angry and what they want to change. Help them find strength in their anger turns it into actions. Help students learn what tools they need to succeed and how to acquire them. Most importantly, teach students to have fun. These are the ideas behind special education. These are Jewish values I most appreciate. These are things all children need and deserve.

Thank you for listening and Go! Go! Go! 

Embrace Change - Torah Reflections – Feb. 2017

Beshalach

Our world is going through a major change. We are exiting the Industrial Age moving into the new era of the Information Age. We are moving from an age where many people worked in factories and well defined 9 to 5 jobs. We are moving to an age where robots are better able to do many jobs people do and where more and more people work independently. We are moving into a global economy. We are moving into a world where communicating with people half way around the world is often easier than communicating with ones next door neighbor.

This week's Torah portion continues the Exodus story describing the long journey through the desert from slavery in the land of Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. It describes how many of the people yearned to go back. Many pleaded their desire to return to a place they knew rather than a place unknown.

There are many similarities with today's environment. In the last U.S. Presidential Campaign , a majority of voters on both sides voiced a strong desire for change. Voters made it very clear that being in the desert is difficult. Things needed to be changed. Unfortunately, both sides promoted their desire to go back instead of forward. Both sides advocated bringing factory work back. Both sides advocated solidifying old laws, processes and procedures that may not be applicable in the new era.

February is Jewish Disability Awareness Month. People with disabilities are also wandering the desert, exiting one era but not quite ready to enter the new era. In the old era much progress was made. Wonderful laws, such as the Americans with Disability Act, helped make the physical environment much more accessible. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act helped guarantee that children with disabilities in the U.S. get an appropriate education. Even though the U.S. has not yet signed the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it has more than 160 signatories globally. It is helping people with disabilities throughout the world engage with their communities. Yet in many ways people with disabilities are still slaves to their disability and to antiquated laws designed to take care of them. The unemployment rate of people with disabilities in U.S. remains over 75% - the same as it has been in the 1950's when I grew up and before any of the laws mentioned above were passed. Federal law still requires people with disabilities to prove they cannot work in order to receive services needed for survival.

Today, programs such as Supplemental Security Income (S S I) are viewed primarily as safety nets. They protect people who supposedly are unable to work. In the new era, these programs will hopefully change to provide services enabling people to optimize their abilities. Today, we may encourage people with disabilities to do their best. In the new era, everyone will be expected to fully live their lives. The tools and services required to function optimally will be available to everyone. Today, medical equipment, personal assistant services, and other human support services are viewed as services that help for people with disabilities. In the new era, they will be viewed as enablers available to all people. Disability will be viewed as a diversity asset rather than a health issue. Personal assistants will be viewed as good jobs in a large job market. Special education will be the norm available to all children enabling them to reach their potential.

Neither personal or societal transitions are ever easy. 5 years ago I went through a personal transition. I went from being a very independent person with a disability to a person who needs personal assistant services for almost all my activities of daily living. I used to be able to get out of bed whenever I wanted, eat when I wanted, drive a car when I wanted and do almost everything without assistance. Now I rely on attendants. I prided myself for knowing how to be a person with a disability. I was shocked at how difficult the transition was and continues to be. I was amazed at how difficult it was to rely on people for my everyday needs. I too yearned to go back. There is, however, no turning back. For me, my transitioning reinforced my understanding of how truly wonderful people are. People do amazing things when asked. I learned to ask for what I need. I also learned to value time and focus on things that are most important to me. Yes, transitions are difficult. They cannot be avoided.

In this week's Torah portion we read about how many Egyptian soldiers tried to pull the Jews back and how many Jews wanted to go back. We see that today. Many people want to go back and many people are trying to pull us back. What I find most exciting about Bashalach is that the Jews did not turn back. The Egyptian soldiers weren't able to bring us back. Similarly today, there can be no going back. Wandering the desert is, and will continue to be, difficult. We will get to our destination! It took the Jews 40 years to cross the desert. No one knows how long it will take us to cross our desert. There is one thing we do know. We must Go! Go! Go!

Inclusion: Leaving Our Comfort Zone

 My wife,  Denise Sherer Jacobson , had this blog published in the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ) website.

Inclusion: Leaving Our Comfort Zone

I remember the day I first entered the Temple Sinai sanctuary. At once impressed by it's amphitheater-like magnificence, complete with dome ceiling and stained-glass windows, I was, at the same time, totally overwhelmed by the sizable throng of adults along with their noisy, rambunctious children attempting to settle in the pews waiting for Religious School orientation to begin. With my seven-year-old son David beside me, I maneuvered my power wheelchair through the human 'sea of reeds' and found an empty spot on the aisle where David could sit and I could park alongside him, leaving enough room so that I wouldn't block the slanted pathway. While parents chattered with other parents, and children with other children, no one seemed to pay my son and me any mind. Although I must have engaged David in some kind of chit-chat (as the conscientious good mother I always tried to be), I felt my skepticism growing. Was this really a good idea? Why did I think it was so important to give David a Jewish education and be part of a Jewish community when I never had that sense of belonging? In that moment, in that beautiful sanctuary, I was way out of my comfort zone!

Having grown up with cerebral palsy, I had the life-long experienced of being seen as “the other” by a nondisabled society. My disability was obvious—my arms and legs affected by incoordination, my speech, slow and labored. Most people assumed I also had a cognitive impairment. Only when they got to know me did they realize I was pretty self-reliant, easy to understand (if the room was quiet and they exerted some patience), and I had a wicked sense of humor and could easily slaughter them in a game of Scrabble, to their chagrin! By the time I was in my thirties, I had become a successful disability advocate, writer, peer counselor, and teacher. I had given disability-related trainings and lectures throughout the country and the world to college and medical students, educators, social service professional.

But I stayed away from Judaism, the religion and culture of my birth. The few times I ventured into a synagogue, I felt unwelcome. People stared or looked aside. I never saw a warm smile or a friendly face. I came away feeling disappointed and rejected.

I could make sense of the aloof reaction from society in general, but I expected more from the Jewish community. Jews, of all people, knew first hand about oppression and prejudice. Almost every Jewish holiday I celebrated as a child, Pesach, Chanukah, Purim, reminded us how we struggled for our freedom and right to exist. Although the men in my family were mostly High Holiday Jews and their sons became B'nei Mitzvahs, Judaism was central to my family's tradition. I remember hearing nightmarish stories about the horrors of The Holocaust from my American-born relatives, and my mother would talk about the restrictions Jews faced—barred from joining social clubs, the unfair quotas limiting Jews entrance into medical schools. We were a people who championed the Civil Rights Movement. I had thought that because of our Jewish legacy, welcoming me as a Jew with a disability would be a no-brainer, but that was far from my experience. So, if the Jews didn't need me, I certainly didn't need them!

And then I became a parent, a Jewish mother, if you will. With my husband's family, as well as my own, living 3,000 miles away, I wanted David to learn the richness of his Jewish heritage, which led us to the Temple Sinai sanctuary that morning.

Twenty-two years later, David has long since graduated from religious school and Midrasha, yet I'm entrenched in my Temple Sinai community. It's where I've learned and studied Jewish texts and values, had my Bat Mitzvah, served on committees, chanted Torah, and formed friendships. I've also educated our congregation about disability and access, sometimes getting into heated debates about the importance of having integrated seating in the sanctuary (so those of us in wheelchairs don't stick out in the aisle like a sore thumb and can sit with people we know) and the need for Braille prayer books, among other things.

I've also learned that not everyone in the congregation has to accept me or be comfortable around me, just as I won't feel warm and fuzzy toward all of them. But by allowing ourselves to experience individuals who our different from us, we are challenging ourselves to be better human beings. Had I given in to my temptation to return to my comfort zone that morning twenty-two years ago, I would never be writing this article.

Judaism, as a religion, teaches us the values of rachamim, chesed, tzedek, Tikkun Olam (compassion, kindness, justice, bettering the world). It encourages us to venture outside our comfort zones. Inclusion give us a chance to practice what we are taught, to go out of our comfort zones, but within the safety of our very own backyard.

Strive for Ideals – Torah Reflections – Feb. 2016

I presented this at Temple Sinai on Saturday February 13th 2016.

T'rumah

“Let them make me a sanctuary so that I may dwell among them” comes from this week's Torah portion. It is also inscribed on the front of the ramp on Webster Street. The Torah portion goes into great detail as to how the tabernacle should be built. Indeed, one can wonder, how can anything be built so grandiose and beautiful so that God could and would want to live in it? If God is one and we are all part of God, what does it mean to build a sanctuary for all of us?

Clearly, Temple Sinai is beautiful! When we planned the new building, a great deal of thought went into trying to make it accessible to all people. The preschool area was designed for small children. The quiet room in the chapel was designed for children unable to sit through an entire service. There are no steps or pews in the chapel that prevent those of us who use wheelchairs from sitting wherever we like. We have prayer books in braille and we have hearing devices for people who are hard of hearing. We will soon have an adjustable height lectern in the Chapel that will enable some people to more easily lead services and chant from the Torah. Yet undoubtedly there are people who are not comfortable being in our community. I imagine people with intellectual disabilities may be very alienated attending services here. I know that people with environmental illnesses (EI) and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) have difficulty being here especially when people come here wearing perfumes and colognes. People with print disabilities, including people with visual disabilities and people who have difficulty handling books and paper, do not feel very welcomed by our continued reliance on paper handouts.

However, knowing that it is impossible to ever build a sanctuary that everyone can dwell in is no excuse for not continually trying. Indeed that is one of the Jewish values I treasure the most – the idea that just because a goal may seem unattainable is no reason not to try to get as close as you can towards the goal. For me, this Jewish value can be summed up as 1) appreciate what you have, 2) be proud of what you've done, 3) know what your priorities are and 4) work as hard as you can to attain your goals even if they seem impossible.

February is Jewish Disability Awareness Month. This year, as I thought about disability awareness, I was struck by the overlap of the Jewish values I just described and the lessons disability teaches. As a person with a disability, I am very appreciative of all that I have, especially all the great people in my life without whom I literally wouldn't be here. I am proud of what I've done. I have a beautiful, wonderful family, home, friends and community. I'm even proud of having designed the 1^st 24 by 7 banking system in the U.S. for Wells Fargo. I've always been clear about my priorities. Currently, I'm focused on getting a program called CareerACCESS tested. Career ACCESS programs will be created by changes in federal policy aimed at significantly increasing the employment rate of people with disabilities by expecting young adults with disabilities ages 18 through 30 to work. CareerACCESS will provide required support and services recognizing that disability benefits are offsets to the high costs of disability rather than subsidies for the inability to work. I'm not sure I'll be able to change the entire Social Security disability program in my lifetime, but I am definitely trying!

Often, as I sit in our sanctuary, I am awed by its beauty. When I look at the ramp to the lower part of the bima, I am proud of what we did. As I look at the steps to the upper part of the bima, I am disappointed that we were not able to make that accessible, but I believe that some day someone will figure that out. As I look at the steps leading to the ark, I wonder what it will take to enable God accessible to all people and to truly have a world that we can all dwell in.

Please join us on February 23^rd for a mini film festival that will show 3 short films about different aspects related to disability. Please note that on February 24^th and 28^th, there will be a very exciting program for our religious school students which includes a recorded Skype interview with Judith Heumann, a longtime disability activist and presidential appointee currently working on disability issues worldwide for the U.S. State Department. Judy is one of the most acclaimed people with disabilities in the world who I have been friends with since I was in kindergarten.

For the last few months I have participated in a Temple Sinai task force that is looking at the Temple's mission statements and the need for a vision statement. As I prepared for the task force meeting Thursday evening, I wondered whether the quote inscribed on the ramp may be the basis of the vision statement. Imagine building a community where everyone is welcomed, included, needed and wanted!

Shabbat Shalom and Go! Go! Go!

The 40th Anniversary of the Computer Technologies Program (CTP)

 The 40th Anniversary of the Computer Technologies Program (CTP)

Let's get it together!

Forty years ago several executives from IBM went to the California Department of Rehabilitation with the idea of starting a program in California to train people with disabilities to be computer programmers. IBM had started such a program several years before that in Virginia. In that program, people with disabilities lived in a rehabilitation hospital for 9 months where they learned programming and then returned to their home community and tried to find a job. The California Department of Rehabilitation thought it was a good idea, but to their credit, they thought it would be better for the students to live independently rather than an institution. They decided to give the Center for Independent Living (CIL) in Berkeley a grant to start the CIL Computer Training Program.

Ed Roberts was the Executive Director of CIL. He wanted to hire 2 people with disabilities to run C T P. Scott Luebking, and I were the only people with disabilities he could find that had any kind of background in computers, so we were hired. I was 22. Scott, who was 23 years old, was my elder, so he became the Executive Director, and I was his deputy. We had 90 days to put the program together. This included finding and renting space, finding students making sure they had housing and transportation, finding equipment including a keypunch machine and a business to allow us to run student programs on their computer, and working with the Business Advisory Committee preparing the curriculum and ensuring there would be jobs for graduates. It was 90 days. that I'll never forget!

Having grown up in a segregated school program just for children with disabilities, I saw myself as an advocate against segregation. It was strange finding myself as the director and teacher of a program for people with disabilities. I knew that the technical part of computer technology students could get from books, college or trade schools. My focus as a teacher was more on the human side, learning how there's always a way to accomplish anything one sets their intent on. I used computers as a metaphor for this. With computers, there's always a way to make that machine do exactly what you want it to do. When it works, you feel great and proud of yourself. When it doesn't work, you know there's always a way to make it work. There are always multiple ways of doing anything and everything. I think I was a hard teacher. Besides having to listen to me lecture 90 minutes a day 5 days a week for 9 months, students had to work on their assignments 5 to 8 hours a day or more. I hoped that they believe that if they could survive C T P, they could do anything!

After 4 years at C T P of telling students about how great it was to work in the quote the real world unquote, I thought it would be good for me to go out there for a few years. I intended to return and be able to say unequivocally that the business world is a great place. My assistant at C T P, Terri Davis, had gotten a job in the Wells Fargo H R department. She helped me get hired as an assembler / COBOL programmer. Planning to be there just a couple of years, I stayed for over 29 years, climbing the corporate ladder slash elevator to being a Senior Vice President.

Today Wells Fargo will be giving CTP a check. Wells Fargo has been a great supporter of CTP from the very beginning. Besides providing financial support, people from Wells Fargo have served on the Business Advisory Committee, lecturers, reviewers, mentors as well as members of the Board of Directors. I am very proud to tell you that the current president of C T P's Board of Directors, Tali Bray, is someone I hired at the Bank, and is one of the best things I did for Wells Fargo.

Along with all these great things, are the lessons we learn from Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo reinforced my belief that it doesn't matter what you look like or where you come from or even what you sound like. If you can get the job done, there's a need for you. Wells Fargo taught me that if people need the skills you have, people are very adaptable. Computer operators quickly learned to ask yes and no questions when one of my systems crashed in the middle of the night. Before they had online access, Wells Fargo sent an armored truck in the middle of the night to transport me to its data center. Wells Fargo reinforced the idea that anything and everything is possible. Given the opportunity to architect the very first 7 by 24 banking system was difficult but lots of fun. Designing and implementing one of the first mobile banking systems was a real kick. These and many other projects proved again and again that there's always a way to accomplish your goals. Wells Fargo also taught me that failing is OK, as long as you don't do it too often. These are the kind of essential lessons that partnering with a great company like Wells Fargo can provide for C T P and its students.

So here we are forty years later. C T P is still thriving. We have wonderful laws like the A D A that protect the rights of people with disabilities. We have a beautiful building here at the Ed Roberts Campus. Technology, like the app I'm using to speak to you with today, is making life easier for people with disabilities in many ways. What is next? Don't worry. There's plenty left to do. The reality is that the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is no better than it was 40 years ago. Many young adults with disabilities are unable to go to work for fear of losing essential government benefits including Personal Assistant Services. We must change antiquated laws preventing millennials with disabilities from reaching their potential. Forty years ago, accessibility was easy to see and fix. Steps, curbs, narrow bathrooms, inaccessible buses are all apparent. Today, although advances in technology are wonderful for people who can access it, for many, advance technology have created new barriers. Most websites, for example, do not pass accessibility standards. Even Personal Assistant Services are changing. We understand that people with physical disabilities need Personal Assistant Services to eat, dress, drive, etc. Do we know how Personal Assistant Services may help people with intellectual disabilities or people with mental health disabilities be employed? These are some of the challenges facing CTP today.

To the graduates, get out there, find great jobs, work hard and stay connected to C T P. To Alex and the great staff, keep up the wonderful work and create tomorrow's environment that will enable more people with disabilities to work. To the Board of Directors and the Business Advisory Committee, be there for Alex and CTP and continue assisting them in creating tomorrow's environment. Most importantly, whatever you do, have fun and Go! Go! Go!