Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Anthony Corona, Host and Executive Producer, Sunday Edition with Anthony Corona https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-10-14-2026/

In this candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Kirk Adams welcomes Anthony Corona, founder of Anthony Corona Media and Sunday Edition, who was connected to Kirk by Jeremy Grandstaff and recently joined the Persons with Disabilities Media Co-op. Anthony describes his life before blindness and after blindness: he was the East Coast entertainment editor for The Associated Press when shingles in the tissues of his brain, eyes and ears left him completely blind at 40, and he says he is now 10 years in. He talks about teaching himself VoiceOver, mobility training, guide dog school, his first American Council of the Blind convention in Rochester, New York, in 2019, the internship that led to Sunday Edition, and his work at Open Doors Organization, where he was asked to head communications.

Anthony explains how Sunday Edition grew from ACB's weekly news magazine show into an independent family of eight podcasts, with 10 expected by the end of the year, plus Corona FM, its 24-hour streaming channel, and how he mentors contributors to host their own shows, including Sylvia Stinson-Perez, whose Treading the Waters of Life is going solo in January. Kirk and Anthony discuss intersectionality, Anthony's role as vice president of Blind Pride and why it left the American Council of the Blind, and Anthony's focus on sponsorships, short video content and the Double Tap Live network. Kirk closes by describing the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion, an online membership community on the Circle platform. Listeners can find Anthony at https://anthonycorona.com and Kirk at https://drkirkadams.com.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that very same Dr. Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today, I have a guest who I'm a little bit intimidated because Anthony is a very experienced podcast host himself. So we'll see how I do, Anthony. You can give me a grade at the end.

Anthony Corona: [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: But it's Anthony, Anthony Corona, founder of Anthony Corona Media and Sunday Edition. Say hello, Anthony.

Anthony Corona: Hello, everyone. I'm really glad to be here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Glad you're here with us. And I was connected to Anthony by Jeremy Grandstaff, another fellow blind guy who I have known and worked with for eight or nine years now. And Anthony attended the virtual launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion on September 1st, which I'll talk a little more about later.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But Anthony is out there doing great work in making the world a more inclusive place for people, and in particular people who are blind. And he has put together a number of really exciting initiatives, and we're happily joining forces in a couple of ways. One is Anthony recently joined the Persons with Disabilities Media Co-op, which is a group of us who share our social media platforms. So between all of us, we have social media platforms with over 200,000 followers. And through the management and direction of Aaron Di Blasi of Mind Vault Solutions, anyone in the media co-op can get a message out to all of those social media platforms at the low, low cost of $25 per message.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So if anyone listening is interested in learning more about the Persons with Disabilities Media Co-op, I'll tell you how to get in touch at the end of the podcast. So Anthony, I'm gonna hand you the microphone and ask you to tell us your life story in about 40 minutes.

Anthony Corona: [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: [laughs] Where have you been? What's been the journey to get you to this point? What are things looking like now, and what's your vision for the future? What's working well for you? Any challenges that we can help with? So the floor is yours.

Anthony Corona: Well, I kinda say that there's Anthony and/or Anthony 2.0, or BB and AB, which, you know, before blindness and after blindness. I was sighted until I was 40 years old.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, wow, okay.

Anthony Corona: Yeah, so I'm 10 years in. March 24th is that anniversary. And I threw myself a virtual party. [laughs] But—

Dr. Kirk Adams: So it was an event then? It wasn't a gradual degenerative situation?

Anthony Corona: No. I am one of those very rare statistical persons who had shingles in the tissues in my brain, in my eyes, in my ears. Had a medically induced coma, woke up three days later and was completely blind. They had to drill a hole in my skull to relieve the pressure. And yeah, the world completely... I was 40 years old, and the world completely changed access. It felt like north was south and south was north, and I had no idea how life was going to exist [laughs] moving forward.

Anthony Corona: Before that, I was the East Coast entertainment editor for The Associated Press, but I lived a bunch of lives in 40 years. Played baseball, a year of minor league ball all through high school, college. Worked in retail, worked in restaurants. My degree was in recreational therapy, so I worked in the autism community for a couple years doing early intervention, home-based services as well as ABA, behavioral analysis modification, things like that.

Anthony Corona: None of these jobs were high-flying career-paying jobs until I got to The Associated Press. And even then, I mean, the salary was great, but the perks of travel and things like that made life incredible. And then, in the space of three days, I—

Dr. Kirk Adams: So how do you move into a job like that?

Anthony Corona: I actually had always been writing. And I took a per diem job with The Village Voice, a famous newspaper on the West Coast in New York. A headhunter actually contacted me and said that The Associated Press is interested. Their arts and culture division is going through some changes, would you be in... You have managerial experience as well. Would you be interested in taking a sort of half editor, half managerial position? And I really didn't think I would get the job, so I kinda threw everything I wanted in a job at them, and they gave me everything.

Anthony Corona: And seven months later, they asked me to actually take over the entertainment division for a year or so, and clean it up and transition. Media was really changing at that point. When I first walked into that department, we had 17 support staff through researchers, secretaries and such, and there were barely four by the time this happened. And I never left. I loved it. I loved the job, I loved the fast pace, the energy, traveling around the world, meeting incredible people. There were some trade-offs, life-wise. Work/life balance was always hard, and I have a very demanding family. But I loved it. The only thing I joke about is towards the end I was getting really burned out typing the name Kardashian, and major news events in the entertainment industry would happen, and for a month straight you'd just be typing the same things over and over again, recycling the same material.

Dr. Kirk Adams: [laughs]

Anthony Corona: That part of it became a little frustrating towards the end, but I had no plans to leave or anything like that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So were you in that role when the shingles occurred?

Anthony Corona: I was.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, wow.

Anthony Corona: Folks who listen to Sunday Edition, my father passed away. It was happening all at the same time. I didn't know what it was. I was seeing flashes, getting these migraines. By the time I got to the hospital, they rushed me actually to a eye and ear specialty hospital. And that's the last time I drove, I drove myself to the emergency room. And three days later woke up in Manhattan. I was living in Staten Island, New York at the time.

Anthony Corona: And after that, I don't really remember a lot about the first year. I think the brain protects you from the harsh parts. I mean, if I sit and focus I can really bring up memories, but they're not part of the kind of fabric of my life. It kind of jumps over until guide dog and becoming involved in the organizations, and life started to pick back up and I knew I wanted to figure out how to find a way to take the skills that I had and turn them into a viable career as a blind person. We all know that—

Dr. Kirk Adams: So what was step... My retinas detached when I was five years old, so I've been blind since first grade and I went to school for blind kids, and there was just no question I needed to learn braille, how to use a long white cane. I needed to learn how to type on a typewriter so I could go to public school. So my path was pretty clear-cut. For you at age 40, the first year you say is a bit of a blur, but what was kind of the first coherent strategic thing that you did to move into living as a blind person?

Anthony Corona: And this is something we advocate for, the first couple of months I didn't get any real information, and maybe there was a little bit of it, but my brain is, there's so much going on. And honestly, they thought they could save some of the sight, so I did a couple of surgeries with scar tissue and such.

Anthony Corona: So by the time that all settled in I realized, okay, I'm gonna have to start figuring out how to live like this. I'd already figured out a few hacks and I wasn't even using a cane yet. And so I reached out to The Lighthouse in New York, and that kind of set me up on that first-year path. But even then it was basically only mobility training. I did a lot of YouTube. I taught myself, thankfully I was in a Mac environment beforehand, so I taught myself VoiceOver and had a really good visual memory of how the phone and MacBook operated. So things like that, I started teaching myself while taking mobility. And then like I said, going to guide dog school really changed everything. That's where I got so much information and got connected, and realized how much I didn't even know about Commission for the Blind.

Anthony Corona: [laughs] I was paying for my mobility services out of my severance pay. Yeah. And then I got hooked up and I'm like, "Okay, this is really expensive. I need help." [laughs] But JAWS training, more specialized skill set training, that was all those first two, two and a half years. And I sat at it like a job. They say when you're looking for a job you need to spend like six hours a day actively working on looking for a job. So I took that mindset and said, "Well, if God is good to me, I'm gonna live another 40, 45, 50 years. How do I do that?" Well, I worked to do it and I started learning the skills I needed to learn.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Hmm. And then?

Anthony Corona: And then a bunch of things happened in a relatively short time. I went to my first national convention. It was for the American Council of the Blind in Rochester, New York. And I had no plans on doing that, but I had sold a story. Got a check that was really nice, and said, "You know what? It's a train ride and a couple of nights in a hotel." And I hadn't traveled on my own anywhere at that point. I had taken Greyhound back and forth to Virginia where my family was, but there was somebody meeting me directly on the other side.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Was this like 2018-ish, 20—

Anthony Corona: 2019.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, I was there. I was there.

Anthony Corona: Yeah. And so I was really faking it until I made it. And I met a bunch of people including my partner in life. Got involved with Blind Pride International, Blind LGBT Pride, and various other Guide Dog Users Incorporated. I was a new guide dog user. I met all these amazing people. And I can only explain, people have asked and I say it like this, it feels like you're meeting these incredibly capable, talented, amazing people listening, sitting in lectures listening to people, that first time around because you're fumbling, you know? [laughs] Or at least I was. I had no clue what I was doing. Honestly, I was making it by the seat of my pants.

Anthony Corona: But all of that turned it around and a couple of months later I got an internship through the Commission for the Blind and the American Council of the Blind. I worked for them as their communications intern for a year, and a lot happened during that year. Led to starting Sunday Edition and took some contract jobs. I worked for Democracy Live for a while. Started Sunday Edition. That morphed into three podcasts. And again, life sort of started to shift. I took on leadership roles in Blind Pride, in the American Council of the Blind itself. And another great symbiotic moment, I met Eric Lipp, the director of Open Doors Organization.

Anthony Corona: And started working for them as a contractor, and they saw that... And I honestly said, "You don't want me in this role." And it was for the Amtrak compliance and training and all of that side of their operations. I was like, "You really don't want me for this role, but I'm gonna take the job because, A, I need the job, and B, I'll show you..." My father always said, "If you want the job, do the job, and eventually they'll give you the job." And I figured, you know what? I'll show you everything that I have and make myself somebody that... And less than a year later, they asked me to head communications. And at the time, Sunday Edition was really blowing up, and the other podcasts were doing well, so I had to make a decision, and the American Council of the Blind and I parted quite amicably at the time, so that I could do things with Sunday Edition that under a nonprofit structure like that I wasn't able to do, and grow.

Anthony Corona: And the mission became amplifying the voices of marginalized communities, especially focusing on the blind and low vision community, the LGBTQIA+ community, all of disability, across the disability spectrum, and anyone who has a voice with something interesting to say or conversations that are adjacent to the advocacy that we're all doing. And my mission is through storytelling. I do traditional interviews, of course. We do a lot of entertainment stuff. We do a lot of straight up tech talk. But the storytelling really is the center of it all, and the mission for the Sunday Edition family of podcasts and Anthony Corona Media itself is really to prepare folks. Take the voice that they have and harness it to put it out there into the world. And if that means you stay with us forever, great, but if you wanna learn sort of the tips that have worked for us, both traditional media and podcasting and digital media content.

Anthony Corona: And then, in fact, our first podcast that came on after we left the American Council of the Blind is going solo in January, and I can't be more happy and more proud. And they're building subsequent podcasts off of that. That's Sylvia Stinson-Perez and Treading the Waters of Life.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, nice.

Anthony Corona: Yeah. I'm so proud. It's my first fledgling leaving the nest. [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: So let's back up just a little. I'm gathering you were doing communications work for American Council of the Blind, and part of that was creating a podcast or podcast platform or podcast structure, and then you moved out of the ACB umbrella and established Sunday Edition, and you mentioned three podcasts. So could you talk about the structure and scope of Sunday Edition? You talked about supporting people and now helping them spin off into their own podcast empires, so if you could talk a little bit about the shape of Sunday Edition, the components of it. A description of Sunday Edition as an entity would be really helpful.

Anthony Corona: If I could take one step back first.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, of course.

Anthony Corona: I do wanna give the American Council of the Blind credit for, one of the responsibilities that I had was helping to organize and put together the very first virtual convention during the pandemic. And that was invaluable. Getting that much trust in being able to oversee projects and implement and the knowledge that I learned gave me a base that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else. So I will always hold a very special place in my heart and in my career path for the things that I gained with the American Council of the Blind. Sunday Edition started out as a news magazine show. We used to break it up into three segments, kinda movers and shakers, an interview—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Was it called that while it was part of ACB?

Anthony Corona: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It was called Sunday Edition?

Anthony Corona: Yeah. Sunday Edition. And it was literally labeled ACB's news magazine offering, weekly offering. And we did it live. We used to have, like, 70, 80 people in the room during the pandemic. It was amazing. We had a lot of fun. There was no real direction those first couple months, and then it started to take direction. And there was something in me between the point where I lost my eyesight and really sitting behind the mic as... I was involved with a podcast, a soap opera podcast for 12 years at this point, so at that point, about seven years. But it's different when you're sitting with a bunch of people, and all you have to do is show up on recording day with your opinions and talk than harnessing an entire show. And my interviewing skills really started to come back, and I felt confident again. I felt in my element and that I was really putting my skills to use, and it morphed into a more roundtable panel/one-on-one interview, in-depth, two hours on a topic, on a focused topic.

Anthony Corona: We would throw fun shows in along the way. You're doing four or five of them a month, so not everything was advocacy related. There was a lot of introducing new ACB members, staff members, talking about conventions, interspersed with a lot of advocacy work, and then around the third year, we started really moving into tag conversations, and the companies and entities liked coming to Sunday Edition because it wasn't a 15-minute spot. It was a two-hour conversation. And I started getting companies coming to me that wanted to introduce themselves to the blind and low vision community. We were the first to bring OKO and HapWare.

Anthony Corona: EchoVision was in early, I mean, before they even had a prototype, they were on Sunday Edition. And little by little it grew. And so by the time we left we also had something called Behind the Music, which is sort of a karaoke performance adjacent, and an Intimate Evening, which is sitting down, again, another two hours, but with an artist or someone who is functioning in the world, and then we tell their story through their art, their music, as well as their in-depth interview with them. And those are the three that we took and went independent with, and quickly started adding podcasts to the fold.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And you mentioned three podcasts. Is that the current—

Anthony Corona: There was—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Or four?

Anthony Corona: That was three then. We are at eight, and we will be at 10 by the end of the year. We have two more premiering this year I'm very excited about. So... And I am not hosting all of them. That would be way too much Anthony Corona in the world. [laughs] But yeah. And I think, at that time also, I started working for Open Doors, and I had to decide leadership versus career. And I will always have space in my life for advocacy and for leadership, but I still want work, I still wanna make a difference, and I still am vital in that world. So it all comes to—

Dr. Kirk Adams: And is Open Doors currently the career piece?

Anthony Corona: Open Doors is kind of the career piece. And that's—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Can you describe Open Doors for those who aren't familiar?

Anthony Corona: So Open Doors is cross disability. We advocate and we're in the travel hospitality retail spaces. We do ADA compliance, we run workshops, we consult in new construction for airports, train stations, Amtrak, Brightline, all of the major airlines. We also have the service animal portal—

Dr. Kirk Adams: What's that?

Anthony Corona: It's a portal for guide dog users to make the paperwork process a lot easier. We have two of the major airlines and we are seven American carriers, including two of the major 11 global total, bringing more on this year. But it's a hard administration to be a nonprofit, and it's just a hard space to be in right now. But I love the work, I love the people that I work with. And quite honestly, I'm strong in voice and personality, and so if I can use my voice for my community, I want to. And if I can get paid for it, I mean, score.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's—

Anthony Corona: And that's... Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: Hear, hear. [laughs]

Anthony Corona: Yep. [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: I high five you on that one. And then back to spinning off for, I don't know what the right term is, but you have one of the podcasts you said is going to be moving in—

Anthony Corona: Into an independent space.

Dr. Kirk Adams: From beneath the Sunday Edition umbrella into independence. So—

Anthony Corona: Graduating, so to speak.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You talk about story... Graduating.

Anthony Corona: [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: You talk about storytelling and mentoring and helping people develop, so why don't we talk a little bit about those aspects of what you do?

Anthony Corona: Well, you know what I found, once Sunday Edition really started to hit its stride, I found people would often come, "Hey, are you gonna do a show about this? Can we talk about this topic?" And, [laughs] as the other two podcasts came on board and I'm working full time, I suddenly didn't have the same amount of time that I had during the pandemic to really go in depth with research and conversation and finding panelists and coordinating everything. And so, just organically, I started asking folks to sort of partner with me for some of these conversations, and that's really where the idea was built from. And I said, "You know what? Instead of constantly owning the entire space—" And there's tons of podcasts out there, don't get me wrong.

Anthony Corona: But people are hesitant to do a long form conversation and stuff like that, and after they do a two-hour conversation, they're like, "Oh my God, that flew by. We could talk for another hour." And it's not as hard as they think it is. I realized, wow, if this is a way for me to pay it forward. If they only want to bring an idea to the world and move on, great. You know what? It benefits Sunday Edition, it benefits the community. But if this is the space they're interested in, then why not teach them what they need to know? If they stay with us, great. If they... It's a lot. You have to upload, you have to edit, you have to follow... [laughs] If people constantly change, we're scheduled for Thursday at 2:00 to record and something comes up and it can be a lot. So the flow of Anthony Corona Media and the Sunday Edition family is, where you are is where we're gonna meet you, and if you have no experience whatsoever, we'll walk you through it.

Anthony Corona: And if you get to a space where, like Sylvia, you're ready to take it to the next level, she's writing a second book and her next podcast is gonna focus on that, God bless. I don't wanna gatekeep. We have enough of that in our community to begin with. In humanity, I think it's microcosmed because we're so internet with each other, and we are such a small portion of the larger community. But these things happen, and one of the things that I'm really anti is anti-gatekeeping and anti that whole elite structure.

Anthony Corona: Who's a super blind? Are you a super blind? Am I a super blind? I'm a blind guy getting through the day. And I think that's how most of us feel. But at the same point in time, I do understand when you get to a certain space, you don't really wanna look back, and you don't really wanna be held in that space. So it's a really unfortunate dichotomy that we find ourselves in. So those of us that have platforms, and that's why I love the co-op and the things that you are putting together for a cross, I call it cross-pollination.

Anthony Corona: We can only be better if we amplify each other. We create the spaces, we share the spaces, and we open the door for others, you know? I look at both organizations and lots of other spaces, and it's the same people doing the same things. And that's not a bad thing, don't get me wrong. But what's the session plan? Have somebody next to you doing it with you so that it—

Dr. Kirk Adams: When you say both organizations, you're talking about Federation and Council?

Anthony Corona: Federation and the Council, yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Okay. That's fine. I was sure we're thinking about the same organizations.

Anthony Corona: [laughs] But I think it spills over into a lot of spaces in our life. Even the social hierarchies. And I think that's part of, that's my unofficial mission, but I want the doors open. And I want people to feel that they have a space, and they're valuable.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I wanna talk about Blind Pride a little bit. I wanna frame up my interest in learning deeply about those dynamics. So I talk a lot about intersectionality and disability, and I'm in the diversity, equity, and inclusion spaces writ large, not just disability, but everybody, everybody. And that's where the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion comes in, a space where everyone can bring their lived experience and their perspectives into play. And when I'm talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, one thing that often comes up is intersectionality, and my argument that if an organization, a company, an employer, an institution does a good authentic job of disability inclusion, they're going to be doing a good authentic job of inclusion overall, because disability knows no demographic boundary.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So there are people with disabilities and impairments of every ethnicity, country of origin, economic status, affectional orientation. You name [laughs] a demographic category, there's people with disabilities within that category. So you are involved in Blind Pride. So I don't know if you identify as gay or queer, how you like to self-identify, but I'd love to know. And then you are a blind person, so you obviously have a visual impairment as well. So one thing I often cite is data I found in my dissertation research that showed only 35% of blind people are in the workforce, and of those who are, the people who make the most money, who have the highest income are white males with lots of usable vision or legally blind.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And the people who make the least are totally blind Black women. So I say there's these cascading dynamics of marginalization, oppression, institutional barriers and discrimination that kinda layer upon one another. So, as I blurted out those top of mind thoughts, would love to get your take on those dynamics of Blind Pride and your lived experiences occupying multiple identities of, I'll say, oppressed, marginalized people.

Anthony Corona: Well, I'll start off with my pronouns are he/him. I do identify as gay. Caucasian Italian man from New York City, so I recognize the privilege that I was born into and, for lack of a better word, enjoyed for most of my life. Athletic, relatively good looking, relatively smart. I had a lot of advantages, a lot of luck. I knew when to take advantage of luck when it crossed my path. And I did a lot of advocacy in the LGBTQIA plus community beforehand, gay marriage and archiving, working with Eric Marcus in Making Gay History and the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, archiving our history and understanding where we came from. And I say that because when I got to convention and found out, oh my God, there's a group, and there's folks that [laughs] excuse me, are doing good things together, I was so excited.

Anthony Corona: And I think that there's a lot of overlap for all marginalized communities, but especially the blind, low vision and the LGBTQIA plus community. There really is a lot of overlap in the types of advocacy we've needed to do, the unfair stereotypes that have been placed on us and the villainization of our communities, the other-izing for political purposes. So to be involved in an organization that really cares for the intersectionality of blind, low vision, and the LGBTQIA+ experience touches right at my heart. I'm the current vice president. I came in running. They didn't have a secretary in 2019. Nobody volunteered. And I finally did because they needed it, and I had the skills to do it, and never looked back. We've had some rough patches. We've had some amazing triumphs. And it's a really great organization. We have a lot of allies. And we make sure to create those safe spaces for the intersectionality that is blind, low vision, and LGBTQIA+.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Are there any particular challenges that you might have not thought about [laughs] before becoming a blind person, to that intersectionality?

Anthony Corona: The same challenges, I think, in different ways that we all face. And I'll say it this way. A couple of weeks before all of the events that led up to losing my sight, I had been in one of my favorite bars in the Village on Christopher Street in Manhattan, and I had a really, almost unfair amount of attention. I did not lack for conversation, companionship, or anything else. A couple months after being blind, the first time I walked in there, it was like I was invisible.

Anthony Corona: And so what I think the challenge is trying to align with the big organizations and the big advocacy movements in the LGBTQIA+, we get all the same questions, all the same fears, assumptions. "Well, what could you really do?" "How much help are you gonna need?" All that kind of stuff. But the other side of it, it's no secret, I'm sure, to a lot of your listeners, Blind Pride left ACB as well. [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, I had no idea.

Anthony Corona: Yeah. No. We're an independent organization. January will be three years. So BPI left a little bit before I did, and the two events had nothing to do with each other. Leadership of ACB and I were in conversation about how to gently part, and potentially running some of my content, which they still to this day do. Like I said, we left on pretty amicable terms, but not Blind Pride. There's a lot of the blindness and blindness only, leave the rest of yourself at the door, and that works really well for white Christian folks. It doesn't work for almost everybody else. Hispanic community, the African American community especially, the LGBTQIA+ community. And we've never been ones to say, "Oh, we have it doubly hard because we're doubly... We're disabled and gay." But when it comes down to it, to completely ignore half of someone's lived experience, it can only fester for so long, and that's what ended up happening.

Anthony Corona: And I think honestly, both organizations are better for having gone through it. And we can act as subject matter experts for, and we do. We are now for both ACB and NFB.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. So how do people listening who are sharing those identities of blindness and LGBTQ, how do they get involved with Blind Pride?

Anthony Corona: Well, we have a really easy website. It's https://bpi.gay. There is tons of information there. Membership email address is there. You can always reach out. You'll either get me or one of my committee members. Have a conversation and join us or come to one or two of our events, feel us out. We do a lot of social networking. Most of our advocacy at this point, we've morphed more into a partner organization rather than a full-blown advocacy organization. For many reasons. But also, the smaller fish, we can do some specialized stuff for the bigger organizations, and it works out well that way. But there's a lot of opportunity for social gathering, advocacy, and peer support. And you can find all of that at https://bpi.gay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I like it. And then Sunday Edition is a portfolio of, I think you said eight, soon to be 10 podcasts. You're not managing, hosting all of them. What's your vision for the future of Sunday Edition?

Anthony Corona: Well, joining the co-op was a big... I guess you could say it wasn't a bucket list, because I didn't know the inner workings of it until very recently. But it was something that I was looking towards. I just recently also joined the Double Tap Live network with two of the podcasts. What I see for the next two years is what I'm really focused on, moving into short video content, expanding the reach of the podcasts themselves, looking at sponsorship opportunities. And my contributor list is growing, like, almost daily at this point now, which is great. Keep 'em coming. But keeping that—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Contributors meaning financial contributors, content contributors?

Anthony Corona: Meaning content contributors. Folks that are writing editorials, helping with the tech spotlights, bringing conversations to one of the various podcasts. And now, it is hard to sustain financially. I had a great sponsorship opportunity last year, which got us through the first half of this year. Everybody who does, actually not bringing ideas, not part of conversations, but my editors, my background, everybody who works for Sunday Edition gets paid. That was something that I absolutely insisted on from the moment we started. But it is expensive, so this, the year of '27 is gonna be about sponsorships, growth, opportunities, and keeping the doors open and then amplifying as many voices as comes to us, and I'm always actively seeking out. I talk people [laughs] into, instead of just taking your idea, you come do it. Me or one of our partners will co-host with you. You're gonna set the conversation. And I just wanna keep doing that and grow.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Can people do a one-off? If someone's super interested in blind chess, can they do an episode on that and contribute that passion and that knowledge?

Anthony Corona: Absolutely. I had somebody do a one-off.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You're not committing to create a blind chess podcast, but do an episode on one of the existing?

Anthony Corona: I will always try to talk you into doing, and I've done a few of these, limited edition series. And what I always say is, "You know what? Have the first conversation." Structure it so that it's not everything that you know and everything that you wanna say, and honestly, no one does a two-hour podcast out of the gate. We usually plan for 45 minutes to an hour for a first podcast. So structure what you really wanna say in that first podcast, but think about, if you like doing it, we get good engagement. Think about how we might turn this into an... I've only done maybe three one-offs in the last three years because they have turned in, most of them turn into something. A couple of them have turned into full-blown podcasts.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So if someone has an interest, a passion, an interest, something they would like to share, they can contact Sunday Edition and fit in somewhere in the portfolio of activities that are going on.

Anthony Corona: Absolutely. I can't say too much about this, but I'm working with the Kentucky School for the Blind on a project that will result in a bunch of one-offs. [laughs] But they're getting credit for learning journalism and such, and their finished project will also be a podcast that they can keep for—

Dr. Kirk Adams: So these are students?

Anthony Corona: These are students. And we'll be featuring them through the Sunday Edition channels. We have our own 24-hour streaming channel, by the way, Corona FM, which plays all kinds of content from the Sunday Edition family as well as music and fun stuff. One of the podcasts, the soap opera one that I'm involved with, we partnered and branched off and we do legacy entertainment interviews. I just literally yesterday spoke with Mimi Kennedy. Last week was Rosanna Arquette. We're sitting down with, oh, God, J.R. Ewing's wife. I just looked at her email two minutes before we got on this. Next week, Linda Gray, amazing actress. Jon Lindstrom, the author. We have a conversation coming up with Stephen King actually for the holidays. So yeah, there's just a lot under Sunday Edition, but whatever day you have—

Dr. Kirk Adams: How do people find Corona FM?

Anthony Corona: https://www.anthonycorona.com, anywhere you listen to your podcasts. It's Sunday Edition with Anthony Corona, and links for all the other podcasts are on https://anthonycorona.com.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's—

Anthony Corona: But I'm out there everywhere.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's the hub.

Anthony Corona: That's the hub. Yeah. Anthony—

Dr. Kirk Adams: If we go to https://anthonycorona.com, we can find everything else?

Anthony Corona: Yes, or Anthony Corona Media on Facebook. I'm a version of Anthony Corona on all socials.

Dr. Kirk Adams: [laughs]

Anthony Corona: [laughs] Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Look for Anthony Corona wherever you prefer to do your social media hangout. You'll find him.

Anthony Corona: [laughs] You'll find me somewhere. [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's great.

Anthony Corona: And the easiest email is sundayedition, all one word, @anthonycorona.com. I am responsive. I answer everything that comes in. And if you've got an idea, I always say, "We'll take it from mind to mouth to microphone to podcast feed, or from mind to fingertip, word to one of our publishing arms." And we have quite a few distribution arms of anything written that we publish.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I don't know how in the world I have not encountered you before, sir, but I'm glad it's happened now. Thank you Jeremy Grandstaff for connecting us.

Anthony Corona: Absolutely. Same here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And now you're part of the Persons with Disability Media Co-op, which we talked about a little earlier. If people wanna get in touch with me, I have a website, dr for the doctor, https://drkirkadams.com. You can email me there, sign up for my newsletter. I'm on LinkedIn every day, Kirk Adams, PhD. And I do want to talk a little bit about the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. I was asked to join a board in the fall of '24 for a nonprofit here in Seattle called the Institute for Sustainable Diversity Inclusion, which has been around about 30 years doing great work here in the Seattle community, mostly working with local corporations and being sponsored by companies that are based here, all the Seattle gang, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, Costco, Boeing, et cetera. And their model had become less and less impactful as corporations started to move away from formal commitments to DEI.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Sponsorship started dwindling. The pandemic didn't help. And then I agreed to join the board under the condition we could lead a strategic planning process, which we did last summer. A very good one. Convened 60 DEI leaders and got input and got a clear message that there was appetite, interest, and a community where people could gather, share information, learn from one another, teach one another, enlist support from others, and rapid response of emerging issues. So we decided to create an online membership community based on being welcoming to everybody who has an interest in making the world a more inclusive place, with people interested in human dignity, social justice. It's called the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. It's on the Circle platform. There's a website. There is an Android app, iOS app, and it is a monthly membership with various levels.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I invite you all to come check it out. And it's a place for you if you care about fairness [laughs], equity, and justice and want to make sure those issues aren't buried under the onslaught of evil forces. I'll leave it at that. But Anthony, it's been a pleasure to have you. It wasn't two hours, but as you said earlier, it sure could have been. But I will be going to https://anthonycorona.com. I wanna check out Corona FM for sure. And again, if people wanna get in touch, go to https://anthonycorona.com or email [email protected] or get in touch with—

Anthony Corona: It's Corona like the beer. [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes. That doesn't sound bad right now. It is about that time here in Seattle, Washington, on a sunny fall afternoon.

Anthony Corona: Same here in Miami. Absolutely. And we'll do a part two of this on Sunday Edition. I think there's a lot you and I can talk about.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that.

Anthony Corona: All right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Thank you, Anthony, for being on this episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, and we'll see everybody next time.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at https://www.drkirkadams.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Zhou Fang, Founder and Principal Practitioner, Intersectional Group https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-10-01-2026/

In this thoughtful episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Kirk Adams talks with Zhou Fang, an intersectionality practitioner and abundance mindset teacher whose podcast he discovered when it popped up in his iCatcher app. Zhou explains that her intersectionality work begins with her own experience as a Chinese immigrant who is not a citizen, from graduate school in Manhattan, Kansas, to her life in Portland, Oregon, and she compares Midwest hospitality with Pacific Northwest politeness, which she says can cost people the honest conversations that build real relationships. Kirk shares his own culture shift from "Seattle nice" to New York City, and Zhou describes how she uses intersectionality and the "yes, and" approach to help leaders become better, more thoughtful communicators.

Zhou says she learned about abundance because of scarcity: about three years ago, she says, illness forced her to stop working, and she found abundance in the people who cared for her and in nature, from the smell of fresh rain to Oregon's waterfalls. She walks through her coaching process, which begins with reclaiming time, rest, space and the ability to dream, and explains the solidarity economy, while Kirk brings in Tricia Hersey's Nap Ministry and his reading of the Dao. The conversation closes with Kirk's invitation to the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion and with where to find Zhou at https://abundancewithzhou.com and Kirk at https://drkirkadams.com.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that very same Dr. Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, and today I'm thrilled to have a guest that I discovered by listening to a podcast. Zhou Fang is here today. Zhou is an intersectionality practitioner and an abundance mindset teacher, two things I am very interested in myself. So welcome, Zhou.

Zhou Fang: Thank you so much, Dr. Kirk, for having me on your program. When you told me you listen to my podcast, [laughs] I felt so honored. I rarely have people talk and tell me, say, "Hey, I listen to your podcast." Every time I hear something like that, for some reason, I just feel so nicely surprised and also honored. So when I saw your message, it made my day. So thank you very much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. So I'm a totally blind person, and I use various types of technology, screen-reading software. I use one called Job Access With Speech, JAWS, on my desktop, and then on the iPhone there's a built-in screen reader called VoiceOver. And I have an app called iCatcher, which is very accessible and works well with VoiceOver, and it's for listening to podcasts. And when I get ready for the day and set my intentions and kinda write a little vision of what I want the day to look like, what I want the shape of the day, the focus of the day, I typically listen to a podcast while I'm kinda getting organized. And I'll just put in a keyword, just whatever floats to the surface. I might have put in intersectionality. I might have put in abundance. But your podcast popped up, and I tapped on it, and I was just so engaged by what you had to say. So I'm so glad you're here today.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I do want to make listeners aware of something that's very important in my life, and that is the launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. I'm serving as executive director of the nonprofit Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion, and we have launched a community coalition that's a monthly membership model. And if you are interested in diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, and gathering together with other like-minded individuals to take collective action to make the world a more socially just, fair, and a place where human dignity can flourish, I would invite you to check out the Community Coalition.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, Zhou, intersectionality is something I talk about a lot in the work that I do, especially when I'm talking to companies about employing people with disabilities. And I say that if you do a good job of including people with disabilities, you're going to be doing a good job of including everybody because disability knows no demographic boundaries, so people of all races, genders, affectional orientations, economic backgrounds, education, rural, urban, there's a certain percentage of us that have or will have disabilities. So intersectionality is something we share. And then the abundance mindset, I know I've read the work of Carol Dweck, and she talks about that. And I loved what you had to say when I listened to your podcast, so I just want to hand the microphone to you and ask you to tell us about your journey, which I heard a little bit on the podcast interview I listened to. But would love to, like I say, where have you been, Zhou? Where are you now? Where do you see things heading? What's working well for you? Any challenges? So the floor is yours.

Zhou Fang: [laughs] Such big questions. Thank you, Dr. Kirk. I just wanna say really quickly that I am curious about your Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion organization, so I would love to learn more of that as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I will send you information.

Zhou Fang: Yes. I would love to participate. And for me, intersectionality and abundance mindset, they are really interconnected. When I first entered kind of the consulting space, during the pandemic pretty much, what I started with intersectionality, and for me, that's where I was, is intersectionality really opened my mind about how our world, especially in the US, works. As you mentioned, right, people with disability and with different kind of intersectional identities, different backgrounds, somehow we are all here together and trying to figure this out. And for some of us, more able-bodied people, right, we don't see the challenges people with disabilities, and sometimes visible, sometimes invisible. And just from that perspective, from the intersectionality lens, is that if we can all develop a sense of empathy and also being able to understand and think from different perspective, then we have the opportunity to serve each other better.

Zhou Fang: And I think that's the power of intersectionality. 'Cause like you mentioned, Dr. Kirk, is that at some point in our lives, a lot of us will at least become temporarily disabled or having limited ability, and for a lot of us, that condition may be permanent or long-term. So if we have that kind of mindset, disability is not, it's not that unique. It's actually, it can happen to anyone. And having that idea can really make us more empathetic, just as a society and as community. And of course, apply intersectionality to other areas, race, gender, socioeconomic status, and even your citizenship status, right? 'Cause I'm a immigrant, so I'm actually—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, let's hear a little bit about your lived experience, your life journey. Not everyone follows a path that leads them to a space of thinking about empathy [laughs] and serving others. Some of the things you've mentioned. So what is your life experience that brought you to these spaces?

Zhou Fang: Yeah, for me, my intersectionality experience starts with my immigrant experience. Is not being a citizen, and that is invisible identity. And oftentimes also visible because I am, for folks who are listening to this podcast or who heard my name, Zhou Fang, may be able to guess that I am Chinese. So I moved to the US from China as a young adult. So for a lot of people, the way I look will—

Dr. Kirk Adams: And what brought you, your education or work?

Zhou Fang: Yeah, education.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, okay.

Zhou Fang: Yeah, yeah. Grad school. So I went to grad school in Kansas, actually. A lot of people probably wouldn't guess that either. So the way I look is, people will by default assume that I am an immigrant to begin with, right? Which I am. At the same time, it's like there are so many Asian Americans here, and we are always seen as immigrant. So that intersectionality to me is part of my experience here, and also, because I'm not a citizen, and some people don't know that. So a lot of the benefits that a citizen has, I don't have, right? For example, voting. I'm not able to vote, and a lot of us take that for granted, the right to vote, the ability to vote. So every time I mention myself as an example is, we don't take things for granted, and a lot of the things that we just assume that's readily available may not be for a lot of people, for example. And so that is my very personal experience with intersectionality. And—

Dr. Kirk Adams: So some of your identities, obviously you've got Chinese, immigrant, female.

Zhou Fang: Yes. Chinese—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Not a citizen. So you've got [laughs] a number of intersecting identities. And you live in the Pacific Northwest now.

Zhou Fang: I do, yeah. I'm in Portland, Oregon. Which we have a larger Asian population compared to Kansas probably. And still we are a relatively small group of people here, and very diverse as well. So I can also observe a lot of intersectionality within the Asian and Asian American communities, from just personal life and through my professional work as well. So really it's like my lived experience as an immigrant, as Chinese, as woman, as someone who lived in the Midwest and then moved to the West Coast, to be able to compare the differences kind of between places, even within just one country. That really kind of put things into perspective in terms of intersectionality.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And what does it mean to be a intersectionality practitioner?

Zhou Fang: Is for me to use intersectionality as a guidance, as a principle in when I work with individuals, when I work with organizations, when I work with leaders. And that does put me back to the kind of empathetic leadership mindset a little bit, because with intersectionality we can say, "Oh, I don't exactly know where are you coming from, or where did you get that idea or perspective, but what I do know is we all have our lived experience, and that experience kind of leads us to our decision-making, to our understanding of life, to our building relationships, to our showing up to our community." And because of our intersectionality, basically it, in a way, decides how we show up to this world, and I use this framework of intersectionality as a guiding kind of principle in my work with individuals and organizations.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So what would be an example of work that you've done with a leader or organization? What types of outcomes are people seeking to achieve in working with you?

Zhou Fang: Yeah. A lot of the work I do focuses on communications, so using the sectionality as a framework to help organizational leaders to be better communicators, and that is to use my academic background as well, 'cause I have a journalism degree and also a mass communications degree from grad school. And so understanding the sectionality really can help leaders become better and more thoughtful communicators at work and in community. A quick example is from intersectionality, we are able to see things are not linear, right? Oftentimes it's not either/or, as we know. The thing is, sometimes we still think that way, so we need to practice the not either/or kind of thinking, which is yes, and, right? It's, "Yes, I hear you, and this is what I think." Or, "Oh, yes, this is what happened, and this is what we can do to perhaps correct something or fix a problem or make things better," is to have that acknowledgement of the situation or the presence and being willing or being curious enough to have a conversation, a dialogue with your staff members, with your team to really figure out what's the better way to move forward with the business, with the organization, and with your team. So really, intersectionality in my work largely is to help leaders to become better, more effective, and thoughtful communicators using the yes, and methodology.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, [laughs] I'm very curious about, you mentioned differences and intersectionality, you lived in the Midwest, now you live in the Pacific Northwest, and you were able to observe differences. So I have lived in small towns in Washington State, a small town in Oregon, Seattle, New York City, and Arlington, Virginia. Those are the places where I've had permanent addresses for long-term residences. So I've never lived in the Midwest. So I'm curious, Kansas and Portland, they sound very different [laughs] when I say those words. So what are some observations, reflections that help inform your work around those three things?

Zhou Fang: That's a really good question. Thank you for that, Dr. Kirk. So I lived in Manhattan, Kansas, which is where Kansas State is.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The Little Apple.

Zhou Fang: Yeah, Little Apple. How do you know that? [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: [laughs] I know that from watching sports.

Zhou Fang: Oh, my gosh, of course. Yeah. And to me, as a student, that's where I landed. I landed in the heart of the US, basically. And what I experienced there, people might say, "Oh, was it boring or bland, or was it rude or…" It's not. It was actually people are genuinely very nice there. The hospitality, the sense of people want to take care of you, especially knowing you are not from here. Sometimes we talk about racism, right? Some people are very blatant and obviously racist, but the thing in the Midwest is a lot of people, they genuinely don't know, oftentimes, is unconscious bias, right? So borderline, kind of like, "Oh, do you mean this, or do you mean that?" So there is ambiguity in people's language, and the thing is oftentimes people don't mean bad. It's just genuinely people are not aware. They don't know enough or educated enough to be very careful with their language.

Zhou Fang: But the experience I had, it had always been people being very nice to me, and my friends, who are also international students. The hospitality in the Midwest absolutely is the best, honestly. And compared to the Pacific Northwest, the Pacific Northwest to me is, as you and I know, we pride ourselves, right, both in Seattle and Portland regions, we pride ourselves for being very progressive, or a lot of us, people in the metropolitan areas, or say we are, we know a lot, right? People will say, "Oh, I read a lot. I have a lot of information. I read about things, different opinions, et cetera." We think ourselves as very educated, very informed, and very progressive. At the same time, sometimes I feel a little taken aback by the Pacific Northwest politeness.

Zhou Fang: Yeah, so it's that kind of combination of, okay, so whose moral high ground we are talking about here? We are learning or we are trying to do better, and the politeness to me sometimes is like, I want to say something, but I don't want to be rude, so I do not, rather not say. And I think sometimes it's fine, and if we all just try to be polite or pretend to be polite, then we actually lose a lot of opportunities to learn, to build that connection, to build that relationship. And everything because of that politeness or the hesitation of saying something, it leads to a more shallow relationship.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. So there's this thing called Seattle nice where people don't disagree with one another. Even if they have a contrary opinion, they won't necessarily voice that. And that was my big culture shift when I moved to New York City and I was working with people who grew up there. Because they will voice their counter-opinion in two seconds [laughs] and engage you in a debate and a vigorous examination of different opinions. Where here, people don't tend to challenge one another, and sometimes that leads us, especially in organizations and institutions, to kind of get really bogged down in process. And I noticed things moved more quickly, came to resolution more quickly in those environments where people would air their differences and express their differences and work through them.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So then you mention intersectionality and abundance, I can't remember, you said go hand-in-hand or align with one another, so let's examine abundance a little bit.

Zhou Fang: Yeah. Thank you. I developed my abundance mindset practice slightly after intersectionality practice. I learned about abundance because of scarcity. So you see, that's intersectionality, right? It's yes and, it's never either or. There's always this interconnectedness between things and with each other. I learned about abundance because I was ill and sick a little while ago, about three years ago now, and I realized the reason I became sick and unable to work was because of my scarcity mindset. My own scarcity conditioned me to believe that if I stopped working, then I'm done. I must work. That was my mentality. Which is very scarcity-centered because I had so much fear of missing out. I would say, "If I don't do this, I will lose that," right? It's very either/or thinking. And when I get sick, because my body just couldn't go on anymore at that point, and I had to take a prolonged kind of extended break, about three month, during that time not working very much. And I realize when I am in recovery, when I am trying to feel better and rebuild my strength and my body, I experienced a lot of abundance during that time. Which is weird, right? I'm not working.

Zhou Fang: How do I have abundance when I'm not working? But I did. And I had so many people check on me and help me, not only with my life and with my house, with my dog, and I have a wonderful partner who has been there supporting me, and they all showed up when I was in need. And because I wasn't working, I had a lot of time, right? So I was able to see nature, and nature is such abundance. And I don't know how somehow along the way I lost my interest in nature. And I rediscovered my interest for nature and appreciation for nature, and it's been giving me so much abundance since then, and so much learning and lesson quietly. Nature is never like, "Hey, you have to do this." It's just there, and if you are curious enough, if you are open enough, then you will learn from Mother Nature. And to me, that's a lot of abundance. So for me, during my recovery, like, oh, I don't have to be in scarcity all the time. In fact, scarcity almost paralyzed me. I couldn't move. But abundance to me at the time, and to today still, is the people and nature and everything that we provide for each other.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Talk to me a little bit more about that abundance of nature and some of your experiences and reflections. So how do you experience nature? What are some of the ways in which you internalize that feeling of abundance through nature?

Zhou Fang: Yeah, I wanna say having the ability to experience nature itself is a privilege, right? To understand intersectionality is also to understand our own privilege, our own advantage, and also our disadvantage. So having access to nature, being able to step outside is a huge privilege. And also being in Pacific Northwest, we are so close to, say, the ocean, the forests and the waterfall, the river, that is such a blessing. That in itself is abundance, I believe. And in terms of my experience really is the smell, the smell of fresh rain. After the first rain, what's the smell? After the first spring bloom, the flowers, what is the smell? When we go to the Portland Rose Garden in May or in June, the colors we see, the smell, and the texture we can feel, and how it makes people feel, you can see the smiles on people's faces. And you can hear just the joy around nature. And also when we go hiking, Oregon has a lot of waterfalls. So when we go hiking, you not only see the water, you hear the water as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Have you ever gone to Silver Creek Falls?

Zhou Fang: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I lived, well, you drove past my childhood home 'cause we lived on the—

Zhou Fang: Oh, yeah?

Dr. Kirk Adams: We lived on the road to Silver Creek Falls. Yep.

Zhou Fang: Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah, that—

Dr. Kirk Adams: We went there as a child and walked behind the falls, and I can still remember the awe, the feeling of awe standing behind that waterfall and hearing it, feeling the mist.

Zhou Fang: Right. It gives you, yeah—

Dr. Kirk Adams: And, or smelling the smells of the forest, yeah.

Zhou Fang: Exactly. It's the sound, it's the smell, it's the texture, how it makes you feel as a person, the comfort you take in nature, and the wisdom you receive from nature. And just, I will walk through the waterfall if I can. Not all the waterfalls. So okay, don't attempt if it's, [laughs] it could be dangerous, listeners. But make sure you are safe, and if you are, you can walk through the waterfall, and the feeling of those water splashing on your skin, that feeling is just incredible. And to me all those experiences from nature are abundance to me, and understanding how precious that is. A lot of the abundance mindset is how do we have a more sustainable future? How do we create, how do we repair the damage we've done to environment, to nature? And that really makes you think, okay, we only have this one world, and if you want to continue to have this abundance, we really need to take care of it. So that's my very much lived experience with nature. And how does nature provide abundance to me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, it's interesting. I mentioned my iCatcher app and putting in a keyword. If I put in the word abundance and hit search, and it pulls up 100 podcasts, probably 95 of those will be talking about money.

Zhou Fang: Wealth, yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wealth, things. Cars and houses and stuff. So it's very refreshing. I think about the waterfall being refreshing [laughs] and I think about your take on abundance being very refreshing.

Zhou Fang: Absolutely. Yeah. No, thank you. I have the same kind of complaint, is every time someone reach out to me and want to talk about abundance, is most of the time it's about wealth management. [laughs] I can't. [laughs] I'm sorry. I understand the importance of money. I really know it. Working as a consultant, I know what money means. And there's so much more. There's so much more to that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you're an abundance mindset teacher, so what would a process look like? What would your initial conversations be like? If you could give me a little bit of shape to that.

Zhou Fang: Thank you. Thank you. It's like many kind of coaching processes. I would have a intake session with a new client just to understand what are their wants and needs. Why are they talking to me? They could be talking to so many coaches and consultants. Why me, right? What is it that you need, that you want from this experience? And what prompts you to want to know more about abundance? So I would have a intake session with them, and then from there, every session we would focus on something. So initially we would talk about how do we reclaim time? Time is part of abundance, right? If we cannot reclaim our time back, then we won't really be able to enjoy abundance if we don't have time. Say you are working 12, like 10 hours a day and six days a week. So even if you did have abundance, how are you gonna enjoy it? So initially we will establish a basic kind of foundation for abundance practice is to reclaim time, to relearn what is rest. Rest is also a very important part of abundance. Again, if we cannot rest, we won't be able to enjoy abundance. And then we will talk about space. What is space for you? Is it spacious or is it limited or confined? So if we don't reclaim our space, either physically or in our head, then we also won't really be able to enjoy or create abundance in our life. And then another thing I would work with my clients with is dream or imagine.

Zhou Fang: Can we dream of a better future? Can we dream of a more abundant life for ourselves and for each other? Not being able to dream or imagine freely is scarcity, right? 'Cause that's what scarcity conditions us, is this is the only way. You have to do this. That's scarcity. But abundance is, well, this is where we are now. What about an alternative? Can we think of a better future, what that future could look like? If I am to dream freely, what kind of life do I want to live? What kind of life do I want others to have, for my family, for my children, for my grandchildren? So giving people back the ability to dream is another important component in my abundance work with people. And from there, we continue to explore based on people's lived experience. Again, it's like, oh, do you want to talk about gratitude? Okay, let's talk about gratitude. And do you want to talk about solidarity? Oh sure, let's talk about solidarity and solidarity economy. How does that look like in your life? And oh, what if you want to talk about grief, right?

Zhou Fang: For some people, that's heavy, but to me, grief is a huge part of abundance. Grief and love, they go hand-in-hand. So do we want to talk about abundance in love and in grief? We can also talk about that. So I think after the initial exploration, the intake, the reclaiming time, space, dream, and rest, then we continue to explore the different factors and different areas where people want to be more abundant about. So—

Dr. Kirk Adams: I don't think I've heard the term solidarity economy before. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Zhou Fang: Oh, it's so fun. Solidarity economy is not really outside of the capitalistic system. It can still exist in the capitalistic society. Although, we think about solidarity economy, it's not very exploitive. It's more like we do this together. So if you think about a co-op, that is solidarity economy. If you think about employee-owned business, that's solidarity. Or if you think about a mutual aid or a mutual fund, that's solidarity economy. Or sometimes people are like, "I'm not gonna buy anything this year. I'm only going to exchange and trade with people." That's also solidarity economy. Or yeah, or even like a thrift store, that could also solidarity. So—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, I've seen circular economy, but I—

Zhou Fang: More circular.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Circular is thinking about keeping assets in the community, strengthening the community by generating business activity intentionally within a community.

Zhou Fang: Yes, yes. Absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But let's talk about time, so reclaiming time. But I assume that when it dawns on them that if I'm spending all my time in busy activity, I can't really enjoy abundance, and then they think about wanting to have more time to enjoy. Are there certain things that you suggest or things that seem to work for people as far as reclaiming some of their time?

Zhou Fang: Yes. Absolutely. That's a great question. What I will say is, start small. Start small. Anything that we want to reclaim, we start small. A lot of us have a New Year resolution, right? And then what happens? Three days later, everything's gone. Because we set these really unrealistic grand goals that we cannot hold ourselves accountable to. So in terms of time, it's such a big concept. If we can now reclaim, say, oh, I worked Monday through Friday, and can I work, I don't know, 15 minutes less every day? 15 minutes, just 15. Can we do that? Can we try, let's start with Wednesday. Maybe on Wednesday I'm gonna work 15 minutes less, and on Friday perhaps, if I'm lucky, maybe I can get out of my office at 4:00 instead of 5:00. So that's one hour back.

Zhou Fang: And other ways to reclaim our time in a more incremental way is, oh, can I take a 10-minute break today just to step outside to walk around the neighborhood or to walk around the block? Just 10 minutes. Not too much, and it's not even 30 minutes. Or another way to look at it is, I am actually going to make a pot of tea. I'm going to use five minutes to boil water and make tea, and that is time and rest, both that you can reclaim. And all those things, they are not grand. They are all very small. But really pay attention to how you feel after you are able to, say, take that 10 minutes walk or make that pot of tea or even listen to a music or dance in the kitchen for three minutes. That's something you can get and reclaim for your own wellbeing, for your own life. And it may look small, but if you are able to do that once a week, right, and then it becomes twice a week, and then it becomes every day, if you can get 10, 15 minutes back every single day, that's great. That's big.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then rest. Are you familiar with Tricia Hersey and the Nap Ministry?

Zhou Fang: Yes. Oh, I love her.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. [laughs] Me too. So she, for those of you who don't know her, Tricia Hersey has a movement called the Nap Ministry, and she's an African American woman, and she kinda frames rest as an act of resistance. Like, the society wants you to be productive all the time, and you need to resist, you need to resist that. By taking a nap. So we often, my wife and I often will say, "Let's observe the Nap Ministry."

Zhou Fang: Aw. I love—

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then space. You talk about time, rest, space, imagination. So space, is it creating spaces that are a good fit for the person, the space that is comfortable for them, supports them, aligns with their values? I assume there's not a space that everyone should be trying to achieve. It must be very, very individual.

Zhou Fang: Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you talked about physical space, and you talked about space in your mind. So if you could talk about that a little bit.

Zhou Fang: Yeah. Thank you. I think space is really important. Even for people who say they have a lot of space physically, a lot of us, we just don't have enough head space, because the invisible force is on us, like the news, the information, the pressure of doing more. Like you mentioned, Dr. Kirk, productivity. We have to produce and produce. And that may not look like oppression of own space, but it is. That is squeezing our space out, and a lot of us feel anxious or stressed out or burnt out. That's really our heart space and our head space just being taken away from us and eliminated, and we need to take that back by, how do we take our space back, is one pretty active way, it pretty simple.

Zhou Fang: You can use both your imagination or your vision, is to imagine or to think. You are looking outside of a window, right? It could be a physical window. It could be an imaginative window. You're looking outside of the window, and you are trying to look as far as you can, as further as you can. Where do you see? Do you see a tree in the next block, or do you see a mountain further out? Or if you keep reaching your vision, either imaginary or physical, maybe you can even see the edge of the ocean. And that is a lot of space. So I really encourage people to reclaim their space, and using these meditative kind of activities to do that. And also, in real life, sometimes that looks like boundary setting. To set boundary with people, to actually practice that boundary is like, you know what, it's 6:00 PM now. I will take a look at it tomorrow or even later, but right now I can't really do it. So I have to protect and respect, rather, I have to respect my own boundary to not take up too much of my precious space. So boundary is a really good way to protect space as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So creating and protecting the space is, it's a mindfulness practice, it sounds like.

Zhou Fang: A lot of that is. It is. Yeah. You are right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: 'Cause we spend a lot of time in our brain space thinking about things that have already happened or worrying about things that might happen, [laughs] and to create that gracious space. I read the Dao quite a bit, the Lao Tzu Dao, and it talks about living in the present now moment. Which are hard to do, but—

Zhou Fang: Easily said than done.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Worth working on.

Zhou Fang: Yes. I hear that. [laughs]

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, this has been fabulous. I've taken a lot of notes. I look forward to continuing to get to know you better, talking with you more. I will send you information about the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. We'd love to welcome you there. And what else would you like people to know, Zhou? How can they get in touch with you? How can they engage with you and tap into your intersectionality and abundance wisdom?

Zhou Fang: Oh, thank you. I'm also a student. I practice, I teach, but very importantly, I learn. So I would love to be students together and learn together, and thank you so much for having me today, Dr. Kirk, talking about intersectionality and abundance. And if folks want to find me, you can go to https://www.abundancewithzhou.com. So, abundance with—

Dr. Kirk Adams: And Zhou is spelled?

Zhou Fang: Z-H-O-U. Z as in zebra—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Abundance with Zhou, Z-H-O-U—

Zhou Fang: Dot com.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Dot com.

Zhou Fang: Yep, that will be great, and you will find my contact information there, my email address, and if you are in the Pacific Northwest, I would love to meet you as well, or virtually online. So really looking forward to that. And thank you again so much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Oh, it was so much fun. I can be reached at my website, which is D-R as in doctor, https://drkirkadams.com. I have a newsletter you could sign up for. You can find information about the community coalition and other things I'm involved in. I'm on LinkedIn every business day. Kirk Adams, PhD on LinkedIn. And Zhou, this has been a delight. Everyone go to https://abundancewithzhou.com and connect with her. Come to https://drkirkadams.com and connect with me, and let's build this community together. Let's learn from one another and teach one another.

Zhou Fang: Yes. Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Absolutely. So we'll say goodbye for now, and we'll catch y'all later on the next episode of Podcasts with Dr. Kirk Adams.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at https://www.drkirkadams.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Stephanie Sanders, Owner and CEO, Walk In Thought Productions, LLCE https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-09-17-2026/

In this warm episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk welcomes Stephanie D. Sanders, a transformational motivational speaker and performer from Lakeland, Florida, who first wrote to him years ago when he was president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, and who later met him in person at the National Federation of the Blind convention in Orlando. Stephanie tells her story from the beginning: legally blind in one eye since birth but undiagnosed until kindergarten, treated through the University of Florida, and raised as the youngest of three by a mother who did not yet know why her daughter kept giving the wrong answer. She describes refusing to let her vision define her, the sports and cheerleading years, the basketball injury that ended her track-and-field and Olympic hopes, and the pivot that followed into sports announcing, a mass communications degree in radio, television and film production, and a career in entertainment.

From there the conversation follows her from a Seattle radio station in the early 1990s to Los Angeles, where an improv workshop at the Hollywood Black Film Festival drew unexpected praise from actress Cee Cee Michaela and convinced her to make the move. She talks about her CD, book and audiobook One More Day, sings a few lines of her song Hold On Tight on air, and joins Kirk in a candid exchange about intersectionality, privilege and disclosure, in which he recounts negotiating a car by telephone as Dr. Kirk Adams and then losing interviews the moment he walked in with a long white cane. Both return repeatedly to faith, resilience and the value of community, and the episode closes with how to reach Stephanie and with Kirk's invitation to join the Community Coalition at the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that Dr. Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have a guest that I've known for quite some years now. It's Stephanie D. Sanders. Stephanie hails from Florida, born and raised. She is a transformational motivational speaker and performer. And say hello, Stephanie.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Hello, everybody.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. We'll be back to you shortly. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm the immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind. And I'm a blind person. My retinas detached when I was five years old. And in 2016, I was president and CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind here in Seattle, and I was given the opportunity to move to New York and then to Washington, DC, and lead the American Foundation for the Blind through a turnaround process. The organization was founded in 1921. Helen Keller was their global ambassador from 1924 until she passed away in 1968. And at the time I was given the opportunity to lead the iconic AFB, they were in a severe financial downward spiral. And I spent six years working with a great team of staff, board members. And we did some difficult but necessary things to put AFB back on track. And during that time, I received contact from Stephanie, who said, I admire what American Foundation for the Blind is doing, and I would love to become part of the organization. I am a motivational speaker. I'm a performer. I think I could lend my talents to the good work. And unfortunately, we were eliminating positions and laying people off in order to cut expenses. So the timing didn't work out well for that. But Stephanie and I had a few conversations. I learned she lived in Orlando, and I was headed to Orlando for the National Federation of the Blind conference, and we arranged to meet. And we met in the conference hotel and had a great conversation, and we've kept in touch since. Stephanie is a very inspirational person, a very talented person. I am honored to be considered her friend. And it's great to have you here on the podcast, Stephanie. I want to just hand the microphone to you and ask you to tell listeners your story. And I guess, where have you been? What brought you to where you are now, and how are things now, and where do you see things going? What's your vision for the future? What are you working to accomplish? And then we'll let people know how they can get in touch with you. I'll, as the host, I will sit here and listen. And if a question occurs to me, I will interrupt you and ask you questions. So be — I don't know what they'll be, because I don't know what you're going to say. But here we are, Stephanie. It's a pleasure to have you. The floor is yours.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate it very, very much, for the opportunity to actually be here, just hanging out with you and talking to the people. Yes, I am Stephanie D. Sanders. And I always say, now don't forget the D. That is my middle initial, but it makes a difference when you put me in Google. But I am originally here from Central Florida, and I'm actually from Lakeland, Florida, but I'm very, very close to Orlando, right in between actually Orlando and Tampa. And like Mr. Adams said, I had the opportunity to connect with him years ago when I wanted to start to get more involved with the visually impaired and blind community, because I grew up actually as a legally blind child in one eye, but they didn't find out until I went to kindergarten. And so just imagine those first five years, and your mother's a teacher, and she's trying to teach you things before you go to school, and you're saying the wrong answer. That didn't go over too well for a while. And she actually apologized to me later when I was an adult. She was like, I'm so sorry, I was tough on you. I did not know that I had a visual impairment at that time. So it's actually been since birth. And went to University of Florida for some research for several months, I believe it was, as they tried to help me out in making my vision at least better in one eye. Yeah, they tried both, but it only turned out to be in one eye that they could help me more to have some vision. So then I kind of moved on and transitioned into teenage years and growing up. And I tell you, even though I had and still have a visual impairment, I absolutely, positively never let that deter me, discourage me in any way, shape or form. And I know that had to be God just instilling something, just that self motivation within myself, to not even pigeonhole myself at times into only being a visually impaired person. People saw me, they saw that I would wear glasses one day. Another day I would wear a patch, another day I would wear contacts, lost them several times. So mom was like — mom and dad are like, no, that is way too expensive. Yeah. And at that time, you were only getting one contact a year.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Let me — a couple things. So visual impairment, blindness, legal blindness means a lot of different things. Like I'm totally blind. I have been since I was five, when my retinas detached. Most people who are legally blind or visually impaired have some level of vision, usable vision. Some people can see shapes, some people can tell the difference between light and dark. Some people's vision change. Some people have night blindness. They kind of see okay during the day, but not at night. Some people day to day, like sometimes their vision is pretty good, sometimes it's not very good. And then there's progressive conditions like retinitis pigmentosa. I know lots of people with RP who don't really know they have a visual impairment till maybe they're eight, nine, ten, 15, 20 years old, and then they discover they have retinitis pigmentosa, starting with usually difficulty seeing at night, and progressively lose the peripheral vision until people are just looking through a tunnel. Then there's macular, where people lose the central vision. They can only see out of the sides. So it's a one size does not fit all.

Stephanie D. Sanders: So it—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Really does. Your experience and my experience with visual impairment is obviously very different. You grew up in Florida. I grew up in little towns in Washington and Oregon. So definitely different backgrounds. But tell me about your family. Were there brothers and sisters too?

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes, actually, I have one brother and one sister, and they're both older, so I'm the baby of the family. And I played my role. I accepted that role as the baby in the family. I didn't abuse it, though. I didn't abuse it. I just had to watch my siblings and how things were going for them and mistakes they might have made here and there. And I'm like, oh, I'm not going to do that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I have one younger brother and one sister who's quite a bit younger, and she's definitely the baby in some ways. We still kid her, because my dad's famous line was, I don't care what's going on, I just don't want to hear her cry.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Right. I was a bit of a tomboy. I was like a rough and tough, and just into anything and everything that was going on around me and in the neighborhood. We had kids in the neighborhood, so it was a really good time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: City, country? What kind of neighborhood?

Stephanie D. Sanders: Ours was in the city. It wasn't like city city, but it wasn't country either. We were kind of like right in the middle. And it was great. It was great. But see, I wish kids could get that experience that we had growing up without some of the technology right now. It just made us, I think, better kids just all around. We were just out and about, all outside. It made you more—

Dr. Kirk Adams: When the street lights come on, come home.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Exactly. You had to be creative like nobody's business, to go outside when your parents told you to go outside and play. Okay, where are we going? Out to play. Yeah, let's do something. Or let's make a tribe. Let's push the little dog in the stroller. We did all kinds of things. And I used to wrap my dog up, [unclear 00:10:26] a little baby. But she didn't care that I had on glasses. I mean, they were a little thick, but nonetheless, I tell you, I can look at it and laugh now, because I really did not allow that to hinder me or stifle me in any way. I just kind of used my — well, I won't say good, I—

Dr. Kirk Adams: You had usable. You had some usable vision, right?

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes, I just use that, and I just kept moving and getting along and trying to keep up with everybody else, even though I was the baby. Yeah, I ended up transitioning on to high school and playing sports and cheerleading. I mean, literally whatever I found in my heart to do, athletic wise, or cheering and dancing, I did it. And that's why it's so important for me to talk to people about resilience and having a personal self-motivation within themselves, because a lot of times you may not get the motivation that you seek from other people, but you've got to find it within yourself to keep going and pressing on, even though you know it may be rough at times. You have to find another way to get the job done and make things work for you, no matter what the situation is. And that's what I did. I just kept going and went on to college. And even there, I just jumped right in head first into communication.

Dr. Kirk Adams: What did you study?

Stephanie D. Sanders: I studied mass communications, radio, television and film production. Yes. And I ended up doing several television shows at the college TV station. And I had already begun doing some radio work. I started announcing sports for two minutes, five minutes every Saturday.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right.

Stephanie D. Sanders: And I went on to do that. And the goal was to end up at ESPN. But I started turning towards entertainment more, because I did love entertainment, even from childhood. So I just kind of gravitated towards that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And it sounds like your motivational, transformational speaking, from what you just said, is centered around resilience.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes, yes, very much so. And taking situations and problems and making them work for you, no matter what. That is making it work. It may not necessarily work exactly to the way that you wanted it to, but you still have an opportunity to make it work and come out with some sort of answer or resolution to whatever you were trying to get towards. Because sometimes we look at things like, it's got to happen this way, or nothing is going to happen. And that's not always the case. And I had to find that out for myself. We may see things and want things in a certain way, but a lot of other times it will happen, but it will happen in a different way. So that's why I like to say now — and this just kind of popped out during a speech when I said one time, I can do anything. But I said we, because it was a group of us. I said, we can do anything that we set our minds to do, but we might have to do things differently. And that's okay. Because even with us as visually impaired people or blind people, we can still do certain things. I've met so many people at some of the conventions and things who are doing much more than people think that we can do. And I was just so amazed and really happy about it, because I had not been involved with any groups or anything, all the way up until the time that I contacted you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. And that's interesting, because community is so important. So I went to a school for blind kids first, second and third grade, and then off to regular public school. I learned how to read and write Braille and use the long white cane and type on a typewriter. So I had the skills to be in the public school, and I'd get my textbooks in Braille. And then if there were tests or papers or spelling tests, I would type on a typewriter. But I was always the only blind kid in my school. So I lived in small towns, small country towns. And I went through college — no other blind kids, no other blind students at my small college. And then I went into the banking finance industry for ten years, and no people who were apparently blind or visually impaired in any of my work settings. And then when I was around 30, I decided to transition into the nonprofit sector. And my first nonprofit job was, I was a development officer for the Seattle Public Library Foundation. I was raising money for the state Talking Book and Braille Library, and my office was actually at the Talking Book and Braille Library. So all of a sudden I was around lots of blind people and got connected through the work with the National Federation of the Blind of Washington and the Washington Council of the Blind, and visited the school for the blind. And all of a sudden I found all these people, just like you were saying, people who've had similar and different pathways through the lived experience of being blind and visually impaired, people who are doing amazing things. And it was — you know, I'm 65 years old, so I became blind in 1966. So my parents were 25 years old. They'd never met a blind person in their life before. My retinas detached and we were not connected with anybody. They didn't know any other blind — they didn't know any other parents of blind kids. I didn't have any blind role models. But now, with the technology we have, you said, put Stephanie D. Sanders into the search engine, people can find you. But we can find each other now. We can connect now. You and I live 3,000 miles apart, and we've kept in touch through technology. And here we are recording this podcast together with technology. So I just wanted to emphasize the importance of community. And I know you are very interested in building and supporting community. And you talk about motivational speaking and speaking to groups, but you also say motivational, transformational speaker and performer. So I'd love to hear about the performance part. You said you had the ESPN goal, and then you started thinking maybe entertainment. So yes, I'd love to hear about that, and what led you to be a performer, and what your performances entail, and how do you use performance to motivate people and to build community?

Stephanie D. Sanders: Well, I know the gifts came from one, God, and then through my mother, because my mother sang opera and gospel music, and I know they came from her. But the thing about it was, I did not sound like Whitney Houston initially in the beginning. So my little dreams were shattered initially. But it didn't stop me. I took that little red radio in the bathroom, and I would just practice for like an hour and come out sweating. But I started singing. And then once I decided to sing—

Dr. Kirk Adams: And how old were you then?

Stephanie D. Sanders: I started singing just in general — I know I was in my very early teens. And I would sing at home, but I had never sung or anything like that until maybe my senior year in high school, when they had a talent show. And that was my very first time singing. And I did a pretty good job.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Do you remember what you sang?

Stephanie D. Sanders: It was Anita Baker. I want to say, Caught Up in the Rapture, by Anita Baker.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I know it well.

Stephanie D. Sanders: And I sang the song. I was nervous, so I just focused in on one of my friends through most of the time. And after that, I really didn't sing much more, because I was focused on sports and wanting to go to college and the Olympics. And I ended up getting injured.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh. What were your sports of choice?

Stephanie D. Sanders: My sports of choice was basketball and track and field. I wanted to go to college for track and field and to the Olympics for track and field.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wow. Yeah. You had some aspirations.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Oh, yes. I tell you, I did, because that was just a part of me and who I was. But when the show — I don't know if people remember that television show Fame.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, yeah. With Coco.

Stephanie D. Sanders: [Debbie Allen? 00:20:12] and — oh my God. Yeah. And that show came out, I just lost my marbles, because it was something inside of me just fired off. And I was like that. I didn't even say it, but I could feel it. That's me. That's me. So before I even got out of high school, I was already looking, where was I going to go? Was I going to go to a school of the arts, if this school was a real school? Or was I going to go for sports? So I tried both of them, and then I ended up getting injured in a sport, basketball. And that kind of ruined my chances there for track and field.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. That does happen to people.

Stephanie D. Sanders: And I left that alone. And so I said to myself, okay, well, if you can't play sports, what about announcing? So that's when I started doing the sports announcing for the radio station.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Stephanie D. Sanders: And then when I got to college, that shifted to not only doing some sports announcing, but it turned into entertainment hosting and reporting for the college station. So that's how I kind of transitioned over into that. And that's kind of where I've been at at this point. I moved on and started working with a production company for voiceovers, and did that for about — I think I did that for about six months as an intern, and then as a part time employee in Atlanta. Then I found a person and he found me, once again, and through a pen pal service. And I ended up in Seattle. He was out there working. And so I went out there, and we were thinking and planning on getting married and all of that. So I went out to Seattle and started working at a radio station. And so I worked out there for about four or five years at a radio station there.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I don't think I knew you were in Seattle at one point. Very interesting.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Was it? I think it was 1993.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Yeah, I was here. We hadn't met yet. I was here.

Stephanie D. Sanders: And I worked at the radio station for five, and maybe two years. No, because by 2000 we moved to Los Angeles, after going to the Hollywood Black Film Festival.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Stephanie D. Sanders: And what did we want to do that for?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, I—

Stephanie D. Sanders: Know. Boy. Moved to LA. I mean, we went to the Hollywood Black Film Festival to volunteer and got to know more about the place and everything. I ended up in a workshop where we had to do an improv performance. And I was dressed up, and the man told me what I had to do. And I just let loose. I didn't hold back. And it was just natural for me. And I was down there rolling around on the ground in my little dress suit and everything, doing the whole improv. And I hopped up and I went to sit down. I was sweating, and I started sweating. And as I was going to sit down, there was a lady that rushed up to me and hugged me like she knew me. And she just told me how good it was and how just authentic it was. And I was surprised. No one other than one other person had ever talked to me like that. And found out that she was Cee Cee Michaela. She played the officer on a television show, Girlfriends.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Stephanie D. Sanders: She was like a nutty kind of a security guard.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right.

Stephanie D. Sanders: So she told me — we talked for a while. She walked me to the car with her left hand, and she told me I should consider moving to LA. She's like, you've got it. And so we did. I think it took about a year and a half later, we moved to LA.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yeah. So I tell you, I did. This little train has been moving for a while.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes.

Stephanie D. Sanders: And I like it. It's just like [unclear 00:24:45] almost non-stop. And sometimes people ask folks like me, creatives and things like that, but why do you do what you do? Why do you keep doing it? Well, because I haven't reached the goals that I want to. There's certain goals in my mind that I would like to get to, and then be able to produce my own projects for television and film, and continue doing my music and speaking. Those are big for me. So when you feel it like that, and you know it's something you can't shake, and when you recognize that, you've got to just dig deep, put your heels in there and keep going. Because hearing that — that's why I wrote my book, One More Day.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, okay. Let's hear about the book.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes. Actually, I came out with a CD entitled One More Day. And then I said, okay, I need to expand that, because there's a place where these songs came from. And I expanded it and went ahead and wrote the book entitled One More Day, and recorded my own voiceover audiobook with the same title. And that's where all of that came from. There are about three or four different scenarios that are in that book that had happened in my life. It just led me to a point of realizing, if you're not really doing what you feel led in your heart to do, I mean, it could literally feel like you're dying, because it's such a deep passion inside of you to give what you were called to do and to use the gifts and talents that we have.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right?

Stephanie D. Sanders: And when you use them, it's really like an adrenaline rush, because you're releasing those things that are already inside of you. And there's so many things that we have inside of us that people need. But if we don't use them, and if we don't give them, then someone may not get what you have to give.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right?

Stephanie D. Sanders: So we have to be open and stay open and available to using our gifts and talents to the fullest.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And being able — your purpose and your passion.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes. Exactly. Yes. And I realized that—

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm interrupting you before I forget this thought. I'm going to misquote it, and I can't attribute who said it, so I'm not going to try. But there's an aphorism that says that the place you should live is where your deep passion meets the world's deep need. So you are fulfilling a need that the world has. At the same time, you are living out your passion and your purpose. So that sounds a lot like what you've been striving to do.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes, yes, I definitely would say that. I definitely would say that, because you feel a passion not only for what you do, but a passion for the people who can receive it. And I mean, I've been in certain places or situations — like most of the material that I have is inspirational type of music, and some is motivational, some is love oriented. But I remember a time when I was in a group, and I was just singing with the group because the gentleman, one of the gentlemen in the group, was my producer. And it was in a club setting. I was used to going to a club setting and still singing my inspirational material. I had no problem, and I went ahead and did my two or three songs. And by the time I got down, it was a lady waiting on the side, and she had a drink in her hand, but she wasn't drinking it. She walked up to me and she just told me — she leaned over in my ear and told me that that song really touched her, and the message, she really enjoyed the message, and where can she get it? And so I told her that it was available on Amazon, and I also had one with me. And so she went ahead and got that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And that's the One More Day album.

Stephanie D. Sanders: The One More Day album. Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And people can find that on Amazon.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes. They can find that on Amazon.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Get One More Day, by Stephanie D. Sanders.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes, sir. And there's going to be some more material coming out from that. It's just a different spin off from the actual singing style, but I'm going to be coming out with some new material. Well, it'll be new in a sense. The delivery is going to be different. And it's coming up really soon, along with some other material that I have for children and so forth. I'm trying to give it away. But you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. It's going to be a surprise.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yeah. That's kind of how I like to function when I do things. A life coach had told me once before to move in silence, especially while you're working on certain things and you're doing them, to move in silence to a certain degree. And I had already been doing that, but it just put an emphasis on it. And then when it's ready and you have it out there, it's like, boom. I'm popping out with it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, I like it.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Where have you been? Where have you been doing?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, you make sure to let me know when the boom happens, so I can spread the word across my platforms in my social network. So I do want to talk a little bit about intersectionality. So you're an African American woman. I'm a white male. I'm married to an African American woman. We just had our 41st wedding anniversary.

Stephanie D. Sanders: That's what I want.

Dr. Kirk Adams: We met when we were in college, when we were 18. We have two adult children. Her son will be 40 this year. Our daughter is 36. Then we have a couple grandchildren. And as a person of color, a woman, a person with a visual impairment, you're experiencing a lot of dynamics of stereotypes and misperceptions and structural barriers. And I understand privilege, and I understand my white male privilege. And then I understand when people find out I'm blind, that the white male privilege dynamic shifts, and shifts quite a bit. So I had an instance where our daughter — this is during the time of the pandemic, she was living in New York City, and she bailed out of there because that was kind of the epicenter of the pandemic. She came and stayed with us in our apartment in Arlington, Virginia, for a while. And then she decided she was going to move back to Los Angeles, and she wanted a car. So she did her research, and she figured out it was cheaper for her to buy a car in Virginia and put it on a train out to California, rather than buy it in California and pay the taxes. So she did the research and found the car that she wanted. It was a Honda Fit. She had certain criteria, and she said, Dad, I want you to call these five car dealers and tell them you are Dr. Kirk Adams and you want to buy the car and you're going to pay cash and you want it tomorrow. And what price can you get? So I called and made these calls. I'm Dr. Kirk Adams. I want to buy a Honda Fit. And of course it's not for me, because I can't drive because I'm blind. But I didn't say that. And you know, I started out with 225 and I got it. I [found it to her? 00:33:05] for 17,000. And then she and my wife, who's African American, walked in the next day and bought the car for Rachel. So I had that experience, which I believe my experience would have been different than if a 25 year old young lady was calling. And then when I was applying for jobs, first thing out of college, I had the experience where I would send in a resume and an application for a job. And at that time it was all on paper. So I sent my resume and my nice cover letter on nice paper. And sometimes I'd get a call, and it was oftentimes a phone interview, and I'd do the phone interview. These were banking and finance jobs, and the phone interview would go great. I was an econ major. I had a four point. I had a Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude, and all that stuff that those employers liked in the entry level employee. And they'd invite me in for the in-person interview. Then I'd walk in with my long white cane, and I'd have a slate and stylus so I could take some notes in Braille. And then the confusion would set in on the room, because the employer would be looking at me and thinking, how in the heck could this blind kid do this job he's applying for? So I wasn't getting hired. And I had that experience numerous times. And then I started disclosing in my cover letter. I started saying, I'm blind, I have been since age five, here's how I've accomplished all these things that I've listed on my resume, here's how I'll do this job. And then I wasn't even getting the phone interviews. So I just wonder if you have any reflections on experiences you've had as a Black woman trying to accomplish all these things that you've aspired to, and a person with a visual impairment. Any thoughts or reflections on the things I've just said.

Stephanie D. Sanders: I remember there was one time or two when I was trying to — I think it was a cheerleading team or something. Well, I had two different cheerleading experiences. And I think they were a little hesitant because I had a visual impairment. You really can't see it unless I tell you, or unless my eyes kind of cross up a little bit every blue moon.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Every blue moon. And it was something like that. And then as a Black woman, there have been other times in stores or things like that. I wonder at times when I would submit for certain jobs or whatnot, I wonder about some of that. And even now you wonder about certain things, when you see quite a few people doing particular jobs or whatever the case may be. And you wonder, where was I at? I was somewhere. I was somewhere, and I was literally the only person in the room. No, two of us. But I was there because I was singing. A friend of mine who was Caucasian, she told the people about me, and I was in the room. And at that time I was the only one, until a gentleman came that I knew of. But he had been a commissioner, so he was used to coming to certain events and things like that. So they didn't treat me any different at that time, once I got there. But sometimes you wonder about things like that, that happen in life. And you wonder, did you get that role? You know, did you not get that role, or did you not get that audition for certain things because of this, that or the other? Because a lot of times on the auditions, they'll say like, all ethnicities, you can submit for it. But you wonder at times, do they already have something in mind, but just leaving it open to be fair, you know?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. I mean, I didn't want to dwell on it, but when you said a couple of things, you said, just made me think of bringing it forward. I think it's good to be open and authentic that way. We live in a racist, ableist, misogynistic society. So I think it's good to acknowledge that.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Well, and then this will be a personal thing for me. Most of the time, I don't even think about it, you know, when it comes to that, because I think to myself, okay, whatever God wants me to have, I'm going to get it anyway.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Gotcha.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Earlier on in my audition process, I would go in and I would try to be this, and I would try to be this, and you know what I'm saying? And it wasn't until after maybe that audition I had done in Los Angeles, I was like, wait a minute. Yes, you can be the character when you go in there, but you need to reel that back in and just be yourself. Be the character, be yourself. You don't have to try and transform completely like that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Stephanie D. Sanders: And after that moment, I just never, ever — even when people say, oh, that's such a competitive field, whatever. Okay. And what? That means nothing to me, because I'm still going to submit. I'm still going to do my thing. I'm still going to write letters to people. I'm still going to reach out. Yeah, one of my bosses told me in Los Angeles, when I'm writing to certain people and whatnot, go to the top, write to the person at the top. Henceforth, I wrote to you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Stephanie D. Sanders: I contacted you when you were the president. And it's like he told me, because even if you can't get to them, they can at least bring you down and send you down to wherever you can communicate with someone. But they still know you now, and they know your name now. So I've just been grateful to have a mindset like, I don't care if a billion people submit for this audition, I'm going to submit if I feel that I can do it. If I feel that I can do whatever, I'm going to submit, and that's it. Once I do, then I let it go. And I move on.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And you've mentioned your faith a couple of times. Would you like to talk about how important that is to you?

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes. Thank you, I appreciate that. My faith is definitely important to me. Instilled from a young age, and didn't really grasp hold of it for myself personally until I went to college. And at first Sunday I said, I'm not going to church. I'm not going anymore. I went all the time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Mama made me.

Stephanie D. Sanders: I did not go the first time. Ooh.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That messed—

Stephanie D. Sanders: With me. With me, it's like, ooh, I feel really bad right now. I went the next Sunday, and it was just enlightening, just refreshing and everything. And I was like, this is when you have to decide that thing for yourself. And that's what I did. And just continue to get better each year. And age has definitely helped out. I still won't ever reach the pinnacle, but I just keep moving forward, to keep trusting and believing that God has the very best out there for me in every aspect of life. I mean, from love to relationships, business, career things and so forth.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, yeah.

Stephanie D. Sanders: There are times when, you know, you feel like, oh my goodness, why didn't I get that? Why didn't I get that? So come on, come on, come on. I'm like, come on, come on, come on, Lord, it's right here. But then I have to step back and just say, you need to calm down. Yeah. Because whatever is for you is going to be for you. And I just have to keep trusting and believing that in his timing, it'll all work out. I know we get frustrated. Now please trust and believe, I understand that. Yeah, because I've gotten frustrated at times from a relationship, not having one, desiring one, and career things, especially with the entertainment. But I just have to, like my song says, you've got to just keep holding on. And it's called Hold On Tight. I almost started singing it right there. I almost burst out and start singing the chorus.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Feel free, Stephanie. If you're comfortable, give us at least a couple lines.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Sure, I will. Okay. Hold on tight and don't give up the fight. If you hold on tight, it will be alright.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Stephanie Sanders, ladies and gentlemen.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Yay! Yes!

Dr. Kirk Adams: And so if people are interested in talking to you about coming to speak to a group, or if people want to listen to your music or read your book, what's the best way for people to get in touch?

Stephanie D. Sanders: They can actually email me at [email protected], or you can go ahead and reach out to me online. Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, because I will answer. And we can definitely just make this happen, because I tell you, like my coach told me, I'm like an Amtrak train with no gears and no brakes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, everyone, reach out to Stephanie D. Sanders. In my mind, the D is for delightful. I don't know what your middle name is, but that's how I remember to never forget the D, because you are a delightful person. And so reach out. [email protected], or Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Stephanie D. Sanders. Please reach out to her. She'll be a ray of sunshine in your day if you do.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes. And as for me, my website is Dr. Kirk Adams, [unclear 00:44:48] https://drkirkadams.com. And I have a newsletter sign up there. I'm also on LinkedIn a lot. So it's Kirk Adams, PhD. I'm also, Stephanie, I'm serving as the executive director for a nonprofit based here called the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. And we just launched a Community Coalition, which is a membership organization that people can join and join forces with other people who are passionate about diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, social justice, human dignity. So I'd love to talk to anyone out there about the Coalition. So please reach out to Stephanie. Reach out to me. Reach out to each other. Let's build this community together. And Stephanie, I'm so glad that you reached out to me those many years ago when I was at AFB. I'm glad we met and had that heart to heart conversation in that busy hotel lobby during the NFB convention in Orlando. And I'm so glad we've kept in touch. And thank you for blessing us with a little bit of your song. Oh, beautiful. And you're beautiful. And you have a great rest of your day.

Stephanie D. Sanders: Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you, everybody.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yep. Thanks. We'll see you next time on another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at https://www.drkirkadams.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Jeff Wissel, Vice-President, Accessibility, Aira https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-09-16-2026/

In this warm and candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk welcomes Jeff Wissel, Vice President, Accessibility at Aira, a friend he first met in a Washington, D.C. hotel hallway when the Secret Service cleared a banquet room for Secretary Elaine Chao. Kirk opens with his own decade as an Aira subscriber: a demonstration at AFB's New York offices from founder Suman Kanuganti, and the airport navigation that became his most valuable use case. Jeff then traces his own arc, retinitis pigmentosa noticed around age seven, a 28-year career at Fidelity Investments that began before the internet, giving up driving at 34, and years spent covering a non-apparent disability because he had no blind role model and believed he was the only one.

The turning point was meeting Alicia, a blind vice president at Fidelity, who pushed him to start an employee resource group, it now has 8,000 members, and in his own 3,000-person phone center he found nine other people with RP who had each thought they were alone. That led to Fidelity's Office of Customer Accessibility, then four years and eight months as Chief Accessibility Officer at Disability:IN, and now Aira, where he is two months in. Kirk tells his own Disability:IN story along the way, meeting Northrop Grumman's Bob Vetere, pitching CEO Wes Bush on the Seattle Lighthouse's blind and DeafBlind machinists, and winning ITAR certification and a place in the defense supply chain. Both men close on community: Jeff on Aira Explorers and the stigma that disappears when accessibility sits in the accommodations catalog, Kirk on ISDI's new Community Coalition.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that very same Dr. Kirk Adams, speaking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I have with me today — I'd say it's long enough to say a long time friend and colleague — Jeff Wissel, who's Vice President, Accessibility at Aira. Hello, Jeff.

Jeff Wissel: Hey, Dr. Kirk, how are you?

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm good. And this is really interesting to me, because two really interesting parts of my life are intersecting here today. When I first was hired by the American Foundation for the Blind to lead that iconic organization, Helen Keller's organization, I moved to New York City from Seattle. And among other things, learned how to travel the subway system using the long white cane, which is an orientation and mobility personal highlight for me. And I got a call very early on from a gentleman named Suman Kanuganti, who said he was developing a system for blind people to connect with human beings who could offer sighted assistance. And he wanted to show it to me. So he and another gentleman whose name escapes me, who I never encountered again, came into the offices at AFB, and we sat in the conference room and I put on a pair of Google glasses, and I downloaded an app onto my iPhone and I connected with an agent who described the room to me. What was on the walls? The view out the window down onto Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. There was a bust of M.C. Migel, the founder of AFB. She described that. After about five minutes of that, it was enough of a wow factor that I was pretty much an Aira fan from then on.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I've been a subscriber since then — I guess ten years, coming up on ten years. And wow. And Aira has gone through many different steps and evolutions and advancements and improvements. And probably the most intense situations I've used Aira to support me is in airports. Even the Uber driver — you say Alaska Airlines, they drop you off in front of an airport and you're going in, and where's the Alaska Airlines desk? And in the past, you would kind of wait till you heard a friendly sounding set of footsteps: excuse me, can you direct me to the Alaska desk? And sometimes that worked well and sometimes it didn't. But with Aira, you say, can you help me? I need to locate the Alaska desk. And they say, hold your camera up. Turn it a little left. Hold up your phone. Turn a little left, a little right. Okay, there it is. Turn 20 degrees to your left. Walk about 25 feet. Now turn ten degrees to your right. Go about ten more steps, a little left. There you are. You're in line. So it's like magic. For me, as someone who has traveled a lot for business travel, that's probably my most interesting use case. I've also done, many times, I'm in this hotel room and it is really hot and I cannot figure out this climate control.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And which of these buttons does which? How do I — where's the fan? How do I turn it on? My suitcase is locked. These four little rotors need to all be turned to zero. Can you help me get them adjusted so I can unlock my suitcase? So obviously, for me, a lot of travel stuff. But then at some point, not long after, I was at a conference. It was in the DC area. It might have been after I moved to Arlington, Virginia. Honestly, I attended so many conferences representing the American Foundation for the Blind, I don't recall exactly what it was. But I was by myself. I was at a table with other folks, but I was the only person from AFB there. And they said, everybody clear the room. Secretary Elaine Chao was coming to speak, and the Secret Service needs to make sure the room is safe. So everybody get up and go into the hall. And as I merged into the traffic in the hallway, I encountered another gentleman with a long white cane. And it was Jeff Wissel, there with the team from Fidelity. And we stood there and got to talking for about 15, 20 minutes while the Secret Service did their thing. And they cordially invited me to join them at their table, which I did.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And so Jeff and I have been in pretty regular contact since then, as both of us have turned various pages and chapters in our career paths. And so I'm just so pleased to have Jeff here. I'm so excited that the Aira part of my life and the Jeff Wissel part of my life have now aligned. So it's a good thing for everybody in our community. And Jeff, I really just want to hand the microphone to you. I know our experiences with blindness are so very different. I became totally blind very quickly as a five year old when my retinas detached. I know the arc of your becoming a blind guy, it's quite different than mine. And so I would love to hear your reflections on that journey. Hear about your career path, any thoughts you might have for especially young blind people out there wanting to make their way in the world of work. And then really the excitement about Aira — what your role is there, and what you've discovered so far in the short time you've been there, where you see things. What's the current state of the union at Aira, and where you are a visionary. So where do you see things going? So I'm handing you the talking stick.

Jeff Wissel: Awesome. Thanks, Dr. Kirk. And I'm honored to call you my mentor and friend. And as you were describing how we first met, I was remembering it vividly. It was an honor to meet you also, because you're a legend in our space. And when you and I first met, I was pretty new on my accessibility leadership journey, and you really took me under your wing. And I'm forever grateful for that. So for the audience, I'm Jeff Wissel. This month, actually, I'll be turning a young 59 years of age. And the reason I lead with my age is, for me, my personal journey with sight loss started — I have retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. And when I first noticed symptoms, I'll say I was seven years old, somewhere in there. And one experience, I was riding my bike with a friend of mine on our school parking lot near our house. It's dusk time and we're riding and I start pulling ahead of my friend and I'm like, wow, I must be really fast. But what I didn't realize is I was getting ready to run into a rusty chain separating the parking lots, that my friend saw from way behind. Fortunately, the way it hit the tire, the fender, the handlebar had flipped right over me and I didn't get a scratch. And I just ran through this metal chain, and it was like one of the worst experiences I can remember.

Jeff Wissel: And for many in the audience who have retinitis pigmentosa, our journey is probably very similar. Night blindness, one of the key symptoms. For me, I still have sight to lose. I became a late in life runner, so it drives my wife crazy. But when the conditions are light and it's safe enough, I can run. In that same environment at night time, if I didn't have my white cane or my guide dog, Gabe, you would swear I was a drunk man walking, because I can't navigate the sidewalk, just stepping into the grass and everything. But throughout my life, it is a degenerative eye disease. So different things. I started out driving and playing softball, just an alumni league after high school, and I remember being in the outfield and saying, I got it, and ball's hit and I got it. All of a sudden it's like, I don't got it. And ball dropped 20 feet from me. Do that a couple of times and it's like, all right, I kind of have to get rid of that sport. Gave up driving when I was 34. And for many folks, when I tell them that, they're like, oh my gosh. And I reverse it and I say, no, it was really thank gosh. That last year and a half of driving, nothing happened.

Jeff Wissel: But it was so stressful. It's always, to this day, been more of a relief than it's ever been an inconvenience. Even not being able to teach our two daughters to drive, or not being able to just get in the car and go to Home Depot and things like that — as much as you could think, wow, that would really stink. To this day, it's always been more of a relief. I had a really good long career with an amazing financial firm, Fidelity Investments, for 28 years. And when I first started, I was 26 years of age. It was before the internet. I started in 1997 and everything was printed. We had these big magazine style booklets that would have all the information for all the mutual funds that were available through Fidelity, and I was able to read those. And you can imagine being on the phones, there's a lot of information you have to describe verbally over the phone to clients. And after about two or three years, that just started becoming blurry pieces of paper to me. And fortunately, things started getting online and some of that information was online. So lots of challenges along the way, but that's —

Dr. Kirk Adams: What was your first assistive technology? Was it magnification or speech, or what?

Jeff Wissel: For me — sorry, for me —

Dr. Kirk Adams: What did you use first?

Jeff Wissel: I had come across one of those magnifiers that you could do high color contrast. So I think I spent $500 for this thing. And it just reversed the image, so I could hold it over that booklet and it would make the screen black and the text white. And I could magnify it a little bit.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Jeff Wissel: And then —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, there you go. Assistive technology.

Jeff Wissel: Yeah. And this is before cybersecurity was a really big thing. I remember buying a copy of JAWS myself and putting it on my work computer. And I mean, back then you could put stuff on your computer. And that worked for a while. And a little bit later I'll talk about covering a non-apparent disability, but I was able to fly under the radar a little bit. And it's an amazing company. It was nothing about them. It was just Jeff. I didn't have my inner voice. And so that technology worked for a while, until — air quotes — a system enhancement. And then it stopped speaking to me, and a different journey then.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's because your employer changed something internally.

Jeff Wissel: Yes. Yeah. Like a new user interface.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So just a brief aside. My doctorate, PhD, is in leadership and change from Antioch. And I did an ethnographic study of blind adults employed at large American corporations and asked people how they made their way. How did they forge a successful path? And there are some common themes. People had good family support. They had good blindness skills. They had a supportive manager. They had a lot of outdoor activities that have given people a strong sense of agency, strong internal locus of control through experiences in childhood or teen years, often. And then the ninth theme was disappointment. And everyone I talked to had some pretty significant levels of disappointment that they were the only person with an apparent disability who reached that level in their organization, that people who were junior to them, less experienced than them, were promoted beyond them. And a common complaint was just the constant battle for accessibility. And often people cited — often people talked about the fact that their employer would change productivity tools and change systems without taking accessibility into account. So able to do your job one day, and then walk in and not be able to do it the next, and have to fight those battles to regain accessibility. So I just say that you experienced something that many other blind and visually impaired people working in the corporate world of work have also experienced.

Jeff Wissel: Absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you weren't asking for accommodations. You were just doing what you needed to do in order to continue to do your job well.

Jeff Wissel: Absolutely. I was in that statistic where there's the disability index that hundreds of companies have taken for 11 years, shows that in corporate America, it's like 3.97% of employees self disclose any form of disability.

Jeff Wissel: We know it's way more than that. But there's all types of reasons. And for me, I think back on my life and I try to put things into life lessons. I did not have information. When the human brain has gaps of information, it fills those gaps in with fear and anxiety and all kinds of misinformation. So I thought I was the only one. I was the only one that I knew that was legally blind in my regional phone center of 3,000 people, and I was putting stuff between my ears that, I'm kind of less than, this is my fault, all those different things. And I didn't have a role model. I didn't have a mentor. I didn't know anyone in my circles who was blind or low vision. So it kind of just went through it the best that I could. And it's — you mentioned family support. My wife and I are celebrating 29 years next month. I have amazing family support, our daughters, my siblings. That was always there. But I didn't have, in the professional world, a mentor.

Jeff Wissel: So I thought there was some mold I was supposed to fit into. 70 plus percent of disabilities are not apparent, or invisible. So you kind of think, oh, well, everybody's just fully abled, and so forth, and I need to be like that. So I was the poster child for covering, or trying to cover, non-apparent or invisible disability. And so fortunately for me, when I was 23 years old, I came across a motivational speaker named Zig Ziglar. And one of his series was See You at the Top. And I say this unequivocally, other than my family and friends, the most important or most influential person in my life is Zig Ziglar. Always listening to that positive message and realizing it's up to me and I can do it. I, to this day, on a weekly basis, I'll listen to him for a couple of minutes when I'm getting ready in the morning. That positive thinking really helped me along my journey of sight loss. To this day, it does.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool. So at the time I met you, you were still with Fidelity, but you had a cane in your hand. So you went from covering to something else.

Jeff Wissel: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: On that journey.

Jeff Wissel: So I had an amazing thing happen. I had the opportunity to have a temporary loan position to Margie at Fidelity. She was leading accessibility, and just what an amazing opportunity. What an amazing human being. And had the opportunity to — she introduced me to a colleague that we worked with. She's out of Boston, I'm in Cincinnati, and this woman's name is Alicia. And she had lost her sight due to diabetic retinopathy 20 years earlier. And she was a coach to our senior leadership. And Margie introduced us via email. And so Alicia and I talked and we set up a recurring, like every other week, meeting. I now had someone in my life who was blind. And not only that, she was a vice president and a coach to our senior leadership. And she's speaking to me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice.

Jeff Wissel: We became fast friends and everything. And the most amazing thing happened after our connection. We would tell our colleagues about the connection that we made. And every time I tell someone, they would say, oh, wow, that's pretty cool. I have, you know, whatever, or my daughter was just diagnosed with — and it's like, once I allowed myself to be vulnerable, other folks felt comfortable. And everybody's got something. Even Ken and Barbie have something. It may not be a physical disability, but everybody has something. And when you allow yourself to be vulnerable, it's amazing what goodness happens. And Alicia said, you know, this is really working for us. You want to start an employee resource group for colleagues with disabilities? And I'm like, okay, I'm the poster child for covering this, but you're a vice president and it's working for us. So I went through this chain of events and ended up starting our employee resource group. We started it in my regional phone center where we had 3,000 people. And after six months, it was —

Dr. Kirk Adams: About what year was that?

Jeff Wissel: Oh gosh. 2017, 2018.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Okay. So —

Jeff Wissel: And it was successful. So we were able to have it happen in the other ten regional phone centers. But we would market this in our internal publication a couple times, and every time we put an article, our colleagues from the other phone centers would say, hey, when this gets to Boston or Merrimack, I want to be part of it, because I have, or my spouse has. And so it was just amazing how much we were learning about the disability dimension of our own employee base.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Jeff Wissel: And with that, I found nine other people in my little regional office of 3,000. Nine other folks who had RP.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you were not the only one.

Jeff Wissel: But they all felt they were the only ones, and they were covering. And that's just RP. All the other disabilities then.

Jeff Wissel: And so that led to the opportunity then to think, okay, if we're learning about all this on our own associates, what are our customers telling us? And so we had the opportunity to go through some research and found that, wow, we have a pretty large segment of our client base who have disabilities, that are self disclosing during courses of their financial conversations. And a very common one —

Dr. Kirk Adams: All of the employees of the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind were Fidelity customers. That's where we did our 403(b), our retirement.

Jeff Wissel: I think one out of four people have a retirement plan with Fidelity. It's an amazing company.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Jeff Wissel: And so we found that, wow, if a spouse — say a spouse loves talking to us, but due to the aging process, they're not able to hear on the phone anymore. So their partner has to call in, who never wanted to call us in the first place, has to gather information that they're not familiar with and then share it. And the person who really loved doing this is missing out. It's not a complaint. It's just a life event. But you get enough of these life event stories together and we build a business case, and found that, wow, this segment is a very profitable segment. And especially in financial markets, it generally takes a lifetime to accumulate wealth. So the population skewed older, and all these things. So that helped us to launch an Office of Customer Accessibility and to initiate a lot of accessibility processes. And just an amazing journey. But that vulnerability, embracing vulnerability, was one — I think that is the greatest leadership lesson any manager, any leader, can possess. When you allow yourself to be vulnerable, it just knocks down walls and it allows everybody to be their authentic selves.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Jeff Wissel: It's such a great leadership. But the other thing I'll say, Dr. Kirk, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today if it wasn't for every single person that played a role in this. I'll give you a really quick example, because I think this is important for all folks out there who are managers of people. We had our phone center and we had our phones, and the phone had a little light indicator on there. And if it's red, I mean, you got a lot of people holding, right? And you always want to take care of that client like they're the most important person you can talk to that day. But you always have to be efficient and effective and right and everything. And when I went to my manager after Alicia said, we ought to think about this, that light was red. It was during tax season. And when I asked my manager about this, I would love to pursue this. He so easily could have said, Jeff, you know, the light's red. I believe in you. It's a great idea. It's just not the right time right now. His name was Andy. He didn't say that. He said, let's go talk to Matt, our general manager. And that's like, it's a great idea. It's going to be beneficial for our employees and for our customers. And it just went up the ranks. Without, if any one of —

Dr. Kirk Adams: What was the modification?

Jeff Wissel: Oh, no. I'm going to start an employee resource group. So if any one of those people in the leadership roles —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, now's not the right time. That means I'm sorry.

Jeff Wissel: The light was red.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Just meant that we're super, super busy. Okay. Absolutely.

Jeff Wissel: Sorry about that. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's okay. So if the light's red, we don't have time to do anything else but tend to the phones. Gotcha.

Jeff Wissel: That's how cool Fidelity is. Yeah, that type of leadership. But and then everyone else, in addition, after that, could have derailed it. But now there's 8,000 people, 8,000 employees who are active members of employee resource group. It's amazing when you look back how life kind of ebbs and flows.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, that's enough of a legacy for a lifetime for you. You created an employee resource group that's now supporting 8,000 people. That's amazing.

Jeff Wissel: It's an amazing company. Amazing people.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, then actually another pretty significant part of my life and Jeff Wissel intersected, and that was with Disability:IN. So I was hired by the Lighthouse for the Blind here in Seattle in 2000 to be the development director and set up the foundation and the fundraising board and things like that. I entered this field through resource development. And I think around 2003, there was a woman named Marthalee Galeota, and she had managed the Lighthouse Deaf-Blind program, and she was hired as the first disability inclusion accessibility lead at Starbucks, a Seattle based company. And she called me one day and said, there's this thing called the United States Business Leadership Network. And it was started by the U.S. Chamber. It's a bunch of companies that are committed to including people with disabilities. And we're having this conference and you really need to come. So I went to my first USBLN conference, which was later renamed Disability:IN. I think it was 2003, around in there. It was at the Gaylord at National Harbor, Maryland, which is a huge labyrinth, an O&M challenge in itself. And there are probably 300, 350 people there. And they're primarily kind of HR specialists, HR generalists who are trying to figure out how to hire some people with disabilities. And fast forward to today, it's a powerhouse in the corporate space.

Dr. Kirk Adams: If you go to https://disabilityin.org and click on their corporate partners, you'll see the companies that are involved. Thousands of people attend the national conference. Jeff — John Kemp was the executive director when I first went. Jill Houghton has been the executive director there for quite some time now. I met her when she was Jill Deatherage, and she was leading the Washington State Business Leadership Network here in Washington state. So I attended probably 12 or 14 Disability:IN conferences. You mentioned the Disability Equality Index earlier. That's a tool that they developed. I was on the advisory council for developing the DEI. They've got the Disability-Owned Business Enterprise certification program, where businesses owned by people with disabilities can become certified, and their corporate members are committed to doing business with that supply base. So they've done a lot of great things, and one great thing they did was hire you as the Chief Accessibility Officer. So I know I introduced you as Vice President, Accessibility at Aira, which is your new role, but in between Fidelity and Aira, there was Disability:IN. And so we'd love for you to talk a little bit about that chapter of your life, and what your reflections upon the knowledge, skills, experiences, wisdom you gained through that chapter.

Jeff Wissel: We don't have enough time for me to share everything. It was such an amazing — it was a daily pinch myself opportunity. It was an amazing opportunity, amazing organization. But I'll go back a few years, Dr. Kirk, before I even heard of Disability:IN, when I was on loan to the Fidelity accessibility, to Margie. I was doing some Google searching and I came across this thing called the Disability Index. And I downloaded this benchmarking survey and had this gold mine of what the best in class companies were doing around disability accessibility and disability inclusion. And one of the things I noticed was that best in class companies have an accessibility help link in the global footer section of their website. So that way, no matter what page you're on, that link is always down at the bottom there if you needed assistance. Well, I looked at https://fidelity.com and we didn't have that. And so I started reaching out to the leadership. And the disability index, it's a roadmap of everything. There's like ten categories. One's accessibility, one's culture, all these others. And that was my roadmap. And so I would get, reach out, an email internally to someone who I didn't know who they were, but I saw their title, and shared with them that I was on loan to the accessibility team.

Jeff Wissel: I'm an individual phone representative and have a couple questions about this. And it took about a year, a year and a half, and ultimately got that link on the website. The website at that point took like 2.3 million hits on average per day. And I was just waiting for someone to say, now, who are you and why are you asking us these questions? But that index gave me the confidence in the information and the knowledge to have those conversations. Again, just one of those things that happens in life. And another thing was procurement. Companies buy so many products and services, and they don't have control over the accessibility unless you ask for it. So I started reaching out to our procurement team and came across this wonderful woman, Rhonda, and I shared with her what I was looking at. Next thing I know, she's scheduling meetings with the head of procurement. And I'm like, I'm going to get in trouble. I have no authority. But it was amazing, because it made so much sense. So anyway, that was my first engagement with Disability:IN, was the Disability Index.

Jeff Wissel: Well, okay, after that first year and a half and we got some things done, then I asked our leadership if we could take the Disability Index, and we did. And each year we would improve on what we were doing, and I would attend the conferences. So I had the opportunity then to meet Jill and the team, and was pretty involved with Disability:IN from the corporate side. And then there was a voluntary buyout offer and it was a perfect time in my life, and I accepted it. And then this amazing chain of events where Disability:IN had the opportunity for the Chief Accessibility Officer role. And I was offered that, and it was an amazing four years and eight months. I had the opportunity to work with the accessibility leaders and teams and employee resource group leaders, diversity officers, accommodations teams, procurement teams of the world's greatest companies. Like 72 of the Fortune 100 are part of it. And the greatest thing, Dr. Kirk, was not the knowledge — knowledge sharing and information gathering was just amazing. But I always, when someone asks how I'm doing, it's a Zig Ziglar thing, I always say I'm doing beyond awesome. If there's something going on in my life —

Dr. Kirk Adams: I did not know where that came from, but I certainly know that's what you do say.

Jeff Wissel: If something's going on in my life, I'm transparent. I'll share it. But I am constantly surrounded by people who are trying to make a positive difference for others. That was every day of my life at Disability:IN. So the accessibility folks who are making the positive difference, the accommodations teams, that was my every call. That's what that was all about. So that's why, I mean, it was a pinch myself moment every day to be part of that. And again, one of the really cool things about this space, the accessibility space — I quote Jenny Lay-Flurrie when she says, when one of us wins in this space, we all win. And my buddy Mike from JP Morgan would always say, it's oftentimes we're so heads down and just going through everything you need to do to make your websites and digital and mobile and all that accessible, that sometimes it's just good to lift your head up and have this network of competitors and business who are collaborators in accessibility, to know that your positive affirmation that you're on the right track. And it's amazing how many companies are willing to share things where they failed, things that are working, on things that they're having success with, all in the accessibility space. Everybody pays it forward. It's one of the things about the Disability:IN conference — that's an annual conference every year that you mentioned. The most common comment that we hear is folks say, I've never been in a corporate environment where so many people have so freely shared. Nobody's giving away their trade secrets or NDAs, but there's so much that we can share, and together, we're better. And what an amazing experience.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, I'll tell you, before we turn the page again to Aira, I wanted my brief Disability:IN story. I was at a conference in probably 2008 or 9, and I happened to be sitting next to a blind gentleman in one of the audiences. And we got to talk. His name was Bob Vetere, and he was an HR leader with Northrop Grumman, and he was totally blind. I had just gotten my first iPhone. Over lunch, he actually taught me how to send a text on my iPhone with VoiceOver. So whenever that was. But I was running the — I was president and CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind here. And we have blind and DeafBlind machinists who make parts for the Boeing company, and have done for many years, and are a top rated supplier of aerospace parts. So it's precision machining. And I was telling him about that. Of course, Northrop Grumman's an aerospace company. So I said, you need to meet Wes Bush. He was the CEO at the time of Northrop. And he said, we're having this reception tonight. It's only for Northrop people, but I'll take you. And so we went. And Wes Bush is a wonderful man. Very busy. People want his time. He said, give him your 30 seconds. So I said, Mr. Bush, so glad to meet you. I'm president and CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind in Seattle, where we proudly employ 150 blind and DeafBlind machinists who make AS9100 certified aerospace parts for the Boeing Company.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And he said, let me get this straight. You say out in Seattle, you have blind, DeafBlind people who can make AS9100 certified aerospace parts. I said, yes, sir. And he turned to someone and said, get them in the supply chain. So as a result, Northrop Grumman sent engineers and they spent eight or nine months and probably many tens of thousands of dollars to get us ITAR certified, which is international trade in arms regulations, so that we can make parts for defense. And we became a Northrop Grumman supplier, and we became a Boeing defense supplier. And that is my best Disability:IN story. Well, thank you, Bob, in your retirement. Appreciate you. And so now, Aira. Aira comes calling, or you come calling them. I imagine you knew the team there and encountered them and their good work and were familiar. But how — the grass, what is it? A rolling stone gathers no moss. No moss gathered on you between Disability:IN and Aira. One minute I sent you an email that said out of office, no longer with Disability:IN. And then seemed like a week or ten days later, I am now a Vice President, Accessibility at Aira. So tell us about that.

Jeff Wissel: Sure. So it was probably eight years ago when my life was enhanced by Aira. I mentioned, when I was at Fidelity, we launched the Office of Customer Accessibility, and I live in Cincinnati. Well, the headquarters is in Boston, Massachusetts, and I had to fly from the Cincinnati airport to the Logan Airport. And a month or two before I was going to fly there by myself. Again, I wasn't using a white cane at that point. So I'm using the sight that I have left to navigate the airports. And I wasn't a frequent traveler on the airplanes, so I started using Aira. And like you mentioned, Dr. Kirk, the agents are able to provide the visual assistance that I needed and that I need today to navigate confidently and effectively and efficiently. It's a point now where I waste zero mental energy when I think about traveling, because I have the confidence that when I need it, I'm going to have a trained, experienced agent that has amazing resources on their computer that's able to see everything from the — now, my glasses, the camera on my glasses. But you can also just use your phone's camera to help me independently travel. And when I had the opportunity to go to Boston to meet the leadership team, that was our steering committee, Aira and the agent helped me navigate the airport, helped me find baggage claim. I had a picture of my suitcase on the photo portion of the app, so the agent's able to see my luggage coming around the carousel. And Dr. Kirk, all these are steps that help me find my inner voice, to realize that my sight loss is a strength and not the weakness or vulnerability that I was allowing it to be up until I was age 48.

Jeff Wissel: It's something I relearn every day, right? I mean, there's always things that come up where you have to have that internal endurance and mental fortitude to know that, hey, this might be challenging right at this moment. I'm going to be better 20 minutes from now because of what's happening right now. But Aira helped me gain that independence, and to keep my independence, I should say. So I'm an avid user of Aira. So when — every time has a season, and it was just the right time for me to move. I don't change jobs very often. 28 years at Fidelity, four years and eight months at Disability:IN. But a mentor of mine who's blind, who's lived in 16 countries, who is a CFO of a major airline, he's a mentor and a friend. And about nine months ago we were talking and he said, you've been in the corporate world, big business, for 34 years. I've been consulting with startups for quite a few years, in addition to his day job. And he said, it's fascinating. He said, I would encourage you to kind of check it out. So I spent time researching all this. Well, Troy is the CEO of Aira, and I've known Troy for years.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Troy Otillio. Yeah.

Jeff Wissel: He's amazing. He's one of the smartest guys I know. He is unequivocally the most collaborative leader I have ever had the honor of knowing. Now I get to work for him. But I reached out to Troy to get his guidance, and we were talking, and the opportunity was presented to join Aira and to use the experience of 34 years in the corporate world, especially the past ten plus years building a network of folks leading accessibility departments and everything that I mentioned. And my passion the rest of my life, Dr. Kirk, is to help individuals who are blind, low vision, deaf, hard of hearing, really anyone with a disability, if they haven't embraced it, to find their inner voice with their disability, and to do everything that we can to help them realize that what they have is a strength. It's not a weakness or a vulnerability. It's the exact opposite. Because on a daily basis, we all know we have to solve problems. We have to find alternative ways to do traditional things every hour of every day. That is what companies want. They want folks who are innovators and thinkers and who can overcome adversity just even to show up, let alone to be able to perform at their peak. But it takes someone or an experience or a chain of experiences to help folks realize this, because there are stigmas about disability and so forth. And Aira is an amazing tool. It's amazing. You can bring online, on your phone or Meta glasses, in a matter of seconds, a trained agent who can give visual interpretation. We also have a platform for American Sign Language interpreters. You can bring up an American Sign Language interpreter in a matter of seconds, who can make what would normally be an awkward or almost impossible conversation — even just checking into a hotel, if you're deaf, hard of hearing — they can make that like a pleasurable experience, like everyone else is able to have.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. That's great.

Jeff Wissel: It's a tool.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And that's fairly new, right?

Jeff Wissel: So it is. Past couple of years. Yeah. That's great. So Aira is a tool. It's an assistive technology. It's perfect for when it's needed. It's not going to solve everything. I use a golfer's analogy. I'm not a golfer, not yet anyway. But a golfer always has a bag of clubs. You can't get through a golf course effectively and competitively with a putter. Aira is a tool, just like a golf club is a tool. We all need alternative devices. But in all of the circumstances where it works, it's amazing. So that's how I got to Aira. I'm two months now behind the scenes, and Dr. Kirk, it's my — our friend Mike, who encouraged me to check out a startup, was right. It is innovative. It is fast paced. There's no bureaucracy. Stuff moves, especially —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Probably doesn't take you a year and a half to get a link added to a website.

Jeff Wissel: But what's cool — you mentioned Suman. Yeah. Aira, the acronym A-I-R-A, stands for Artificial Intelligence Remote Assistance. This was 11 years ago. That's pretty forward thinking, isn't it?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Jeff Wissel: Yeah. And now we are heavily involved with artificial intelligence, and folks who use Aira for visual interpreting, we call ourselves Aira Explorers. The Aira Explorers have the opportunity to opt in, because Aira is a subscription service.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right?

Jeff Wissel: And Explorers can opt in and allow that interaction. It's anonymized, and so all personal information stripped out of it, but that data can be used then to train a large learning model so that it has actual representative information about the blind low vision community.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I certainly signed up for that as soon as I learned of it, because I —

Jeff Wissel: You have 72 hours to cancel it if you want, but you can do interaction by interaction. Yeah. And then it's free. That interaction is free to the user. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I have an ongoing dynamic of angst around the fact that the lived experience of disability is underrepresented in the large language models, because they're built on data. The data is gathered by people using technology, and people with disabilities use technology less than people without. So some bad things happen because of that underrepresentation of our lives. So I applaud Aira for efforts to address that by gathering our anonymized data to train the LLM. So good on you.

Jeff Wissel: What's great in my role is, one strategy around that 3.97% self disclosure rate is for companies to provide assistive technologies that kind of bypass the accommodations process. So when companies bring Aira into their enterprise and make it as an accommodation for employees who are blind, low vision, deaf, hard of hearing, they don't have to go through the accommodations process. What's really cool?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. When Suman first rolled out the employment initiative for Aira, the American Foundation for the Blind was the first company to sign up as an employment partner and offer Aira as an accommodation for our blind and visually impaired employees. And proud of that. And it worked great. We were largely virtual. So we had a blind person working from their home office. And this is before [Aira? 00:49:38] desktop. Their computer froze and JAWS stopped talking, and they didn't know what was going on the screen. So they could call up the agent and hold up their phone, figure it out. So it worked really well for workplace accommodations for our blind and visually impaired folks.

Jeff Wissel: I love it. Yep. And when it's part of the process, when it's part of the accommodations catalog, it takes the stigma away from it. Yeah. And so forth. So that's a huge win there. And then think about this. If a company has a headquarters, it's not just employees that are there. They're bringing guests in from their customers and everybody, vendors. I ask leaders to think about this. Do you want to be that company that when someone who is blind, low vision or deaf, hard of hearing, one of your customers is coming in to your headquarters and you don't have an accommodation, you don't have an ASL interpreter on staff, so that deaf, hard of hearing person who uses ASL as their primary language cannot fully participate?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right?

Jeff Wissel: Or someone's blind, low vision, to not have that. Do you want to be that company, or do you want to be that company that wants everybody that enters their headquarters to be able to fully participate? So having it — we can geofence the location. So anybody that comes in that perimeter automatically, the company pays for the minutes then, but everybody's welcomed. Everybody can fully communicate. Effective communications. And we're grateful to Walmart, to Starbucks, to Target, the Cincinnati airport, all these airports. This Sunday I have the opportunity — it's the last home game for the Cincinnati Reds. Great American Ball Park here in Cincinnati, Ohio, offers Aira for visual interpreting and American Sign Language to anyone that comes to the ballpark.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You can go get your hot dog during the seventh inning stretch independently. That's pretty cool.

Jeff Wissel: Find my seat on the way back. And I can get a hot dog for someone else. Yeah. It's incredible.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's fun. Yeah. So I know we're coming to the end of our time. And I know after two months, you're probably still kind of crafting your role. Knowing you, you're shaping that. But it sounds like your focus currently is on working with companies and institutions, airports, businesses. Is that your focus right now?

Jeff Wissel: Yes. Overall accessibility. Definitely business development. A big focus on the corporate environment and global, and then also creating the awareness and the messaging, and always making it innovative, using AI in the right way, and making sure that Explorers are able to, in a matter of seconds, get what they need and be able to just move on to the next task of their day. I think one of the greatest opportunities is really creating that awareness, getting more folks to use Aira, more companies to offer it not only as an accommodation, but to their customers. How cool would it be to be able to go to your local grocery store independently and have Aira helping to find what you need in the aisles and so forth? So anyone that works for a company out there, if you need it as an accommodation, ask for it and we'll help. Anybody that's in the leadership position that thinks, wow, we want folks who are blind, low vision, deaf, hard of hearing to have an amazing experience at our retail stores or our banks, whatever it might be, we can help with that. We can geofence a location in about an hour. It's incredible how fast we can go.

Dr. Kirk Adams: How do people get in touch?

Jeff Wissel: You can reach out to me directly. It's very easy. It's Jeff — jeff at Aira. Again, Aira is A-I-R-A, and since we're a startup, it's dot I-O. So [email protected], easiest way to get ahold of me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I've been thinking about community. As you mentioned, you thought you were the only one, and I didn't know anyone, didn't have any role models, etc. And then when you met Margie and she had introduced you to Alicia, so you had a blind role model there at Fidelity. And then you started the ERG. And then lo and behold, you find out there's nine other people with RP right in the place you were working. So now there's 8,000 people on the ERG. So I think about community. After I left — I went to a school for blind kids for first, second, third grade. After that, I was always the only blind student in my schools, and then all the way through every level of schooling. And then I was in banking and finance for ten years out of college, regional bank and a large commercial bank. I was the only person I was aware of who was blind, certainly the only totally blind person in my workspaces. So I didn't really start interacting with blindness community until I was 30, early 30s. And I certainly wish I'd done it before. And now with the technologies we have at hand, it's so much easier for us to connect and find others. And you certainly have a community of Explorers that you're building. So I urge people to think about that. People say, especially parents of blind kids, what should we do? And find other parents of kids.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Join in community. I will say that one of my hats, I'm executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion here in Seattle. And we've just recently launched a Community Coalition. It's like Aira, it's a subscription, it's a monthly subscription to join this coalition, that people who are interested in diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, social justice, human dignity. So reach out to me if you'd like to learn more about that. You can reach Jeff at [email protected]. You can reach me at [email protected]. I'm on LinkedIn every day. It's Kirk Adams, PhD on LinkedIn. And Jeff, this time flew by. And what I'd love to do is have you come back in about six months and tell us all of the things you've accomplished at Aira. Because I know there will be many accomplishments, having watched your career since we met in that crowded hallway in a D.C. hotel as they cleared the banquet room for Elaine Chao those many years ago. So it's been great deepening our friendship and our professional relationship. Hopefully you'll be coming back through Seattle for another Alaska cruise so we can have another nice sunset seafood dinner on the waterfront. Please give your wife our best from me and Ros, and we'll talk again soon.

Jeff Wissel: Dr. Kirk, thanks for this amazing opportunity. Thanks for being my friend.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Absolutely. We'll see everybody next time for another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. Take good care.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at https://www.drkirkadams.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Rachel Antoine, Senior Director of International Operations, Braille Institute https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-09-15-2026/

In this warm and wide-ranging episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk welcomes Rachel Antoine, Senior Director of International Operations at Braille Institute, for a conversation about Braille literacy and the programs that sustain it. Kirk opens with his own Braille history, losing his sight at five, learning to read and write Braille from Mrs. Summers at the Oregon State School for the Blind, and depending on Braille books through long hospital stays, then traces his three encounters with Braille Challenge: a regional in Tampa, a 2019 keynote at the Braille Challenge gala, and a return visit in 2026 where he met Rachel. Rachel explains that Braille Challenge has grown from one Southern California regional in 2000 to over 80 regionals worldwide, reaching around 2,200 students a year and over 26,000 since it began, with the competition as the vehicle and Braille literacy as the mission. The second half covers the documentary Brailled It, filmed at the 2024 Braille Challenge Finals with GoPros worn by competitors Salome, Isaiah and Christopher Morgan and now touring US cinemas; the program's first African regional in Kenya, where more than 1,000 students took part and many competed with slate and stylus because there were not enough Braillers to go round; and plans to build an East Africa model spanning Uganda and Tanzania, with three Kenyan students due at the 2027 Finals. Rachel also describes the free, non-competitive foundational category any parent, teacher or grandparent can order year-round, and Cane Quest, Braille Institute's orientation and mobility program, whose SoCal regional runs October 3rd at the Los Angeles Zoo.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that Dr. Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And very excited today, because we're going to be talking a lot about Braille. I have Rachel Antoine here with me from the Braille Institute. Say hey, Rachel.

Rachel Antoine: Hello. So happy to be here. Thank you, Dr. Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And Rachel, what's your title at Braille?

Rachel Antoine: Yeah. So I am Senior Director of International Operations at Braille Institute. My role is really about connecting programs, people and possibilities around the world. I lead our international work, expanding programs like Braille Challenge and Cane Quest, and building partnerships with organizations, schools, and educators in other countries.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That sounds like a fun job to me.

Rachel Antoine: It is.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So my history with Braille — I think many of you know I'm a blind person. My retinas detached when I was five years old. I was in kindergarten in Lynnwood, Washington, north of Seattle. My parents — I was born when they were in college, so they were in their mid-20s when my retinas detached. They had never met a blind person before. Before I became one very quickly. And they were told that I wasn't going to be allowed to come back to the neighborhood school, that I needed to go to the school for blind children. At that time, the model was, I think, most blind and deaf kids went to a state school. My parents visited the Washington State school. They did not like what they saw as far as the level of academic activity. My retinal surgeon was in Oregon, and someone there at University of Oregon Medical Hospital said the Oregon State School for the Blind is awesome. So I remember visiting there, and they agreed that it was awesome. And they quit their jobs and moved the family down to Oregon so I could go to the Oregon State School. And I had a teacher named Mrs. Summers for first, second and third grade. May she rest in peace. And whenever I'm in a setting where they say, name the person who had the most influence on your life, I say, Mrs. Summers, because she taught me how to read and write Braille.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I was hospitalized a lot. I had quite a number of eye surgeries that were painful and unsuccessful, and I would spend 10 to 14 days after each surgery in the hospital with my head in a clamp, so I couldn't move my head to disrupt the surgery they'd done. So Braille was really my lifeline. And my mom would go to the Braille library of the National Library Service library in Salem and load up the station wagon with boxes of books and bring them to the hospital. And I read and read and read. So Braille has been super important to me. I learned about the Braille Challenge, gosh, ten, 12, 14 years ago. I was aware of it. At the time, I was the CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind here in Seattle. And we had a mentor-protegé relationship with the Lighthouse for the Blind in Port Richey, Florida, which is near Tarpon Springs, the sponge capital of the United States, which is fairly near Tampa. And the Tampa Lighthouse was having the regional Braille Challenge the week that I was there. So my wife, Ros, and I went, and I got to meet the kids and see the activities they were doing. It was a Harry Potter theme, so it must have been when the Harry Potter books were so popular. And I had a chance to talk to the parents while the kids were doing their activities.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And like my parents, most of them had never met a blind person before. They had a blind child. So they had a lot of questions about how to raise a child successfully who is blind. So we talked about being developmentally appropriate, and talked about creating a Braille-rich environment — that your sighted child is surrounded by print all the time. The cereal box, the magazine on the table, the street signs you drive by. And you have to be very intentional with the young blind child to have lots of Braille around. And I said, order some Braille magazines from the National Library Service, and let them play with those and tear them up, chew on them and do what little kids do with board books. And put Braille on everything, label everything with Braille. And then, if your four-year-old sighted child is out playing in the sandbox and tussling with other kids over the toys, you want your blind child out on that playground with their cane doing the same thing. If your 12- or 13-year-old sighted child is taking the bus or getting themselves downtown to meet friends, to do things, go to movies, you need to make sure your blind child is learning how to use public transportation and has orientation and mobility skills, so they can do those same things.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And we talked about the school-to-work transition. You have sighted kids doing chores. Blind kids need to do chores, and you need to figure out different approaches to do things. But you want blind kids doing the same thing sighted kids do, using the alternative techniques of blindness. And literacy is so important. Braille is so important. For me, there was no question — I was totally blind. So in first grade, I learned Braille. Blindness comes in so many variations. Many people who are legally blind have some usable vision. Sometimes there's questions whether or not kids need to learn Braille. And I always say, if the visually impaired child cannot read at the same speed and comprehension as a sighted child, if they're trying to use magnification, they need to learn Braille. Braille is literacy. I say, if listening to materials is sufficient, then why do sighted people still read? So we need to read too. So anyway, I did the Braille Challenge regional in Tampa, and I was given a certificate of Braille wizardry, which I still have, with the Harry Potter theme. And then, my gosh, five, six years later, I became the president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind. And I was visiting partners around the country, and I made a stop at the Braille Institute and sat with — that was before your time, Rachel.

Dr. Kirk Adams: 2016, 2017. Yeah. And got to know folks. And then I got a call in early 2019 asking if I would come and give the keynote talk at the Braille Challenge gala. So again, my wife, Ros, and I flew out and met the kids. And they — [unclear 00:08:13] Rachel will tell you all about this — but they fly in the winners from the regions, and they gather on the USC campus. And [I] remember the Trojan, the hated Trojan marching band — I'm a Husky fan — marched the kids across the campus playing the USC fight song. And they had their competitions, and then the awards gala. And I got to talk about how important Braille is to me, and said a lot of the things I've said so far on this podcast, in a more organized and elegant fashion. But I talked about the importance of Braille and how meaningful it was to be there. They had an alumni who's become a really good friend of mine, a young lady named Caitlin Hernandez, who's totally blind. She lives in San Francisco, and she's a public school teacher. And she gave the alumni speech, and it was just such a moving experience.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then fast forward to this year, 2026. I was talking to Dimitri Kales, who's now the CEO of Braille Institute, and we were just catching up and comparing notes on a few things. And he said, well, next time you're going to be in the Los Angeles area, let me know. I said, I'm going to be there next week, because my wife and I are visiting our daughter Rachel, who lives in Highland Park. We're coming to visit her. And he said, well, Braille Challenge is next Saturday. I'd love for you and your wife and daughter to be our guests. So we attended again — a beautiful alumni speaker, a great keynote speaker. The kids were so excited to win their awards. And afterwards our daughter Rachel said, I want you to meet Rachel Antoine. So that's when I met Rachel Antoine. And I've been so excited about your vision for the future of Braille Challenge. Another good friend of mine, Stephanie Jones, was there from the Clovernook Center, and they're out of Cincinnati. They're doing wonderful work with you in Kenya.

Dr. Kirk Adams: They showed a preview of a documentary called Brailled It, where some of the competitors were given cameras and filmed, and they've made a documentary which is now airing around the country. So the Braille Challenge is on the move and expanding under your leadership. And I just am so pleased to get to know you and to have you here, and just love to hear you give more detail about Braille Challenge and Cane Quest and whatever you would like to share with the good people listening.

Rachel Antoine: Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Adams. That was such a beautiful summary. So as you mentioned, Braille still matters. We're seeing a decline in Braille literacy and, in many places, a decline in opportunities for students to receive Braille instruction. And internationally, there are additional challenges like limited research, fewer educators, limited resources, and inconsistent access to Braille materials and technology. But technology doesn't replace literacy. Braille is still essential for learning spelling, grammar, punctuation, written communication, proofreading, and independent reading. So technology gives you access to information, but Braille gives you that literacy. Braille is a lifelong skill, and that is what makes Braille Challenge so powerful. Braille Challenge was born in the year 2000 as an arena for blind students to participate in an academic competition, the only one of its kind. But Braille Challenge is much more than a competition. The competition is the vehicle, but Braille literacy is the mission. It gives students a reason to practice their Braille skills in something meaningful to work towards. It gives them a sense of belonging among their peers, a sense of community. They're not just learning Braille, they're using Braille. So over the past 26 years, Braille Challenge has grown from one regional competition in Southern California to over 80 regionals across the globe. In each season, students step up to the challenge in 38 US states, Canada, the UK, Australia, Ireland, and most recently, this past spring, Kenya. And I attended the Kenya regional. It was amazing. I'll chat about that as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Awesome.

Rachel Antoine: Yeah. And later this year, several schools in India will be participating in Braille Challenge for the very first time. And all of this is provided at no cost to each and every participant.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And so it is a skills competition, right? So it is reading Braille, writing Braille, spelling. And blind people who don't read Braille, who listen to everything, are terrible spellers. So I'm glad to see spelling. And then I think there's something about graphics, about understanding tactile graphics. So could you tell a little bit about the nuts and bolts of what these young people go through as far as the various competitions they do?

Rachel Antoine: For sure. So students are practicing reading comp, spelling, speed and accuracy — which is them listening to an audio file and doing formatting — and then proofreading, where they're reading a document and finding all the errors, and then tactile graphs. So they're reading a map, a chart, a cell, anything like that. So they're really using Braille. They're really getting their hands on Braille. And there are not enough opportunities in the classroom for teachers to provide Braille materials. So teachers are really eager to join our program and get their hands on free Braille materials, free charts and graphs. And we're just really happy to provide all these teachers with these materials.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So with the 80 regionals, how many total? It's K through 12, right?

Rachel Antoine: Yes, yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So with 80 regionals, about how many kids roughly participated this year?

Rachel Antoine: Yeah. So in 2026, we had around 2,200 kids participate, and annually it's around that. It's going up with our larger international regionals. But since the year 2000, we've had over 26,000 students take on the Braille Challenge. So that's a really large number. And we're impacting lots of students around the globe. But there's so many more blind students than 26,000. So we want to reach all the schools for the blind and find these students where they are, to give them access to Braille Challenge.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So tell me a little bit about your background. What brought you to Braille Institute?

Rachel Antoine: Sure. Yeah. So I'm originally from Boston. Go Celtics, go Patriots, Red Sox. But I started at the Mass Commission for the Blind as a program manager. And I knew I always wanted to move to California. I love SoCal. I was tired of the snow. So I found an opportunity at Braille Institute, and I've always been in our — we used to be called National Programs, now we're called International Operations. So I've always worked on the Braille Challenge program, in addition to Cane Quest. And I did a little bit of work with our youth programs as well. But Braille Challenge has always been home for me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Did you have exposure to blindness as a young person? What brought you originally to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind?

Rachel Antoine: I was working in state government, and I was working at the Division of Professional Licensure. I was doing all the background checks, and when they heard from me, they were getting the bad news, because they had to go in for a hearing, I needed additional information. So it was really making a lot of tough phone calls. And I [said to] myself, I need to do something more. I need to do something more meaningful. I want to work with — I want happy news. Yeah. So I found a role at the Mass Commission for the Blind, and then just fell in love with the community. What a powerful community. And the students, the adults — it's just been great to work with this community. So ever since the Commission for the Blind, now at Braille Institute — yeah, this community has become home for me, so I really enjoy it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right. So when I was there in 2019, I met a young man who was probably 11 years old named Christopher Morgan.

Rachel Antoine: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And he very, very authentically believed in his bones he was going to be the first blind NBA player, and he was doing some stuff with the Atlanta Hawks. And Ros and I had a nice time, sat with his mom. And then lo and behold, 2026, there he is, all grown up, heading off to college, his final year with Braille Challenge and, of course, winning again. And he is one of the three main competitors who did the filming that has become the Brailled It documentary.

Rachel Antoine: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I had David Grabias, one of the producers of the documentary, and Christopher on this very same podcast.

Rachel Antoine: Oh, wonderful.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Seven weeks ago. And Christopher said that as he matured and became a teenager, he did come to realize that he probably would not be the first blind NBA player, but that he could be a world-class athlete. So he threw himself wholeheartedly into the sport of goalball, which was designed for us. And he is the youngest member of the US men's goalball team. So we talked about that. And so Brailled It is being screened around the country. There's a screening in Seattle. I know there's one at Library of Congress. I saw a trailer. I haven't seen the documentary yet. About the time this podcast airs, I'll be at the Seattle screening. So I'm very excited about that. I sat at a table this year with one of the other three main folks, Isaiah, who is a avid hockey fan from Canada. And when we first came up, I was greeted by a young lady named Salome, also the third of the trio. And Salome, very friendly, very charismatic, said, I want to get in there because I care about eating and I care about winning. She did eat and she did win.

Rachel Antoine: So I love that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, it was good. So could you tell us a little bit more about the documentary and how that came to be, and what people know about that?

Rachel Antoine: Of course. Oh, I am just smiling from ear to ear talking about it. My colleague Madeline Hernandez just spoke at the Library of Congress yesterday. There was a screening of it there in front of congressmen and women and lots of powerful people in DC. So just kudos to Madeline, Lisa Lepore and Brian Sheridan, who represented Braille Institute yesterday. But Brailled It is such a powerful film, because it puts blind people at the center of their own stories. It showcases the creativity, talent and lived experience of blind youth, while challenging some of the assumptions many may have about blindness. And then all this happens around Braille Challenge. So Braille Challenge creates an opportunity. It celebrates the talent of these Braille readers. And Brailled It makes sure that these youth have the platform to be seen, heard, and recognized for what they do, not just for being blind. So Brailled It was filmed at our 2024 Braille Challenge Finals. Salome, Isaiah, and Christopher were picked to star in the film. And it just authentically showcases their day to day as they're going through the program. We have a three-day weekend where we bring the students out from all over the world, and we highlight them at the second tier of the program at our Braille Challenge Finals. And it's a culmination of the Braille Challenge experience. Students around the world spend months preparing, competing at regionals and building their skills, and then those top students come together at finals.

Rachel Antoine: So it's not just a competition. It's a celebration of Braille literacy, achievement, confidence, and community. And then those three kiddos had GoPros to capture their first-hand experience throughout the program. So it's so fun. It's hilarious, it's sweet, it's heartwarming. There's something for the kids, for the parents, for the siblings. You find yourself in every one of these characters in the movie. So it's just really powerful. And it's screening all across the US. It's at film festivals, in the film festival circuit. I'll be going up to San Francisco this weekend to see it at the Roxie Theater in SF. And it's screening in Seattle. It's screening in Atlanta. It was just screening in New York City, DC yesterday, in LA all next week starting this Friday. So we are just really, really excited to bring this film to new audiences, and to change the assumption about blindness. One of the most exciting parts of the film — it reminds us that access isn't just about providing a service or a tool, it's about creating an opportunity for people to participate, create, compete, lead, and to tell their own stories. So that's really what it is about, and I'm just so happy to be a part of it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm looking forward to it. I remember at the gala this year, we all gave a hearty one, two, three — Brailled It!

Rachel Antoine: Oh yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That was fun. Yeah. How — if someone's listening and they know a blind person K through 12 who would benefit from more focus and exposure to Braille and connecting with other blind kids… After third grade, after I finished at the school for the blind, I was the only blind student in all of my schools from fourth grade through my PhD. Really. So I was never around any other blind kids. So I could just feel the connection and the friendliness, and the kids rooting for each other and clapping for each other. And that was such a sense of camaraderie. I was very happy for them. I was a little melancholy that I didn't have those experiences as a blind kid. But I'm sure glad they were having that, thanks to the Braille Challenge. Thank you. So if someone listening is a blind kid, knows a blind kid, or is an adult who wants to support Braille Challenge in some way, how do people get involved and get engaged?

Rachel Antoine: Absolutely. So help us bring Braille Challenge to your community. It might already be there. There might be a regional near you. If you check out our website, https://www.braillechallenge.org, you'll be able to see our list of regionals. So we have regionals all over the world, but we want to grow. If you don't see a regional in your community, reach out to us at [email protected]. That's our email address. And let's have a conversation. Get your students involved. Get your youth involved. Braille Challenge looks very different all over the world. We have regionals that are ten students, 20 students. And then we have the Kenya regional — that's a thousand students, and we're aiming to make it 2,000 students. So no matter the size, you can bring Braille Challenge to you. We also have our foundational category, which is a non-competitive category for students — early Braille learning, Braille immersion. And you can order those materials any time of the year. And that is Braille Challenge. So we want these students to be part of a community. As you mentioned, a lot of these kids are the only blind students in their school. But when they come to Braille Challenge, they're part of a community, and they're celebrated, and they realize that they're not alone.

Rachel Antoine: So we want—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Tell me more about the — did you say foundational series? Okay. Tell me. So you can order materials and they're sent to you. It's not part of the competition.

Rachel Antoine: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So what do the families receive?

Rachel Antoine: Yeah. So our foundational category is for Braille immersion, early Braille learning skills. And this is non-competitive. So you receive charts and graphs, spelling and proofreading or reading comp. And then you can go on our website and order, and we will send you those materials year round. So we do have [a] specific timeline for Braille Challenge season, in order to be eligible for finals. But foundational — you can order these documents year round. If you're a parent, if you're a teacher, if you're a grandparent, and you want your grandchild to have more Braille materials, feel free to order them through us, and they will always be free of charge. And we look forward to getting more Braille in the hands of your students.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes, yes. So as I talked [about] earlier, at the beginning — to create that Braille-rich environment for blind kids, so they have the same amount of exposure that sighted kids have to print.

Rachel Antoine: Absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you go to https://braillechallenge.org, order those foundational materials, give them to the blind kid in your life, please. Okay. So glad that you — I didn't realize that that was available.

Rachel Antoine: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then should we talk about Cane Quest, too?

Rachel Antoine: Sure. Yeah. Or can I make one more?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Please. You can do whatever you want.

Rachel Antoine: Thank you so much. So we want to get Braille Challenge into organizations and students around the world who need it. So Kenya has been a really exciting part of Braille Challenge's international growth. In 2026, we launched our first Braille Challenge program in Kenya, and it was also our first regional competition on the African continent. We partnered with Clovernook, who was already doing important work in Kenya, and the response was incredible. More than 1,000 students participated, along with 200-plus educators across three schools and 16 partner organizations. These students were celebrated for their Braille skills. They build confidence. It wasn't just a competition. We were bringing together educators, teachers, building skills and creating more awareness around the importance of Braille literacy. So this was really felt and powerful across the country. And what's next? So we're looking at year two already, with plans to expand beyond Kenya and building an East Africa model that includes Uganda and Tanzania. So two additional countries. And the goal is to reach 2,000 students and over 300 educators and coordinators, continuing to build that local leadership. And then one of the most exciting parts of this program is that three Kenyan students will be joining us at Braille Challenge Finals in 2027.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice.

Rachel Antoine: Yes. So for these students, this is an incredible opportunity to meet other Braille readers from around the world, to experience Braille Challenge Finals firsthand, and to see themselves as part of a larger global Braille community. And what makes this work so meaningful is that it started as a regional competition in Kenya, but it's now creating a pathway for students to participate on an international stage. So they're not just coming to compete, they're coming to show what's possible. And it's just so powerful. It's powerful.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. 2,000 kids in Africa will be participating [in] Braille Challenge 2027. That is tremendous.

Rachel Antoine: And I attended that regional in person. I was in Kenya for three weeks, working with those students, getting to know the educators, setting up the contest rooms, the classrooms across the campuses. So it was really powerful. And I can't wait to go back for year two. Hopefully it's in May of '27. Yeah, we're looking for support to join us on that trip and to help us make this possible again. So please do not hesitate to reach out.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you mentioned earlier international Braille and lack of resources and materials and technology. So were there Perkins Braillers going, or were—? How's the resource situation for kids learning Braille in Kenya?

Rachel Antoine: Yeah. Kenya really was the model for what an international Braille Challenge can look like. Resources, they were lacking. There weren't enough Braillers for every student. Lots of students competed using our slate and stylus, which we haven't seen before. But they're showing what's possible. When we add more Braille Challenge across the world, we're not just trying to add countries to a map. We're trying to build a global ecosystem for Braille literacy that is locally led and sustainable. And the ultimate goal is for communities to have the people, the training, the partnerships, and the resources they need to continue the work long after our initial investment. So year one in Kenya proved that demand. Year two is about building that capacity, getting them more resources. So that's what we're working on — getting those students more Braillers, getting more slate and stylus. Some students prefer slate and stylus.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I learned how to use a slate and stylus when I was six. And I carry one in my briefcase because the refreshable Braille display tablet doesn't work.

Rachel Antoine: Absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I greatly appreciate the slate and stylus, which, for those of you who don't know, is a method of writing Braille by hand with a stylus that pokes out the dot from the back side. So you need to learn to write right to left, and reversing each of your Braille characters. It's a bit of an art. But I love that our kids [are] using slate and stylus. So I assume you would accept a donation, if anyone listening wants to donate and designate their gift to support the Braille Challenge.

Rachel Antoine: Absolutely, absolutely. The need is so great out there in Kenya, and our regionals domestically, and just all over the world. Yeah, we want to be able to do this program wherever it's needed. We want to meet the students where they are. So your donation will make a difference. Sharing the word, sharing some of our posts, following us on LinkedIn and Facebook, and getting involved. We really would love your support in making sure Braille literacy is here to stay. With technology everywhere you look — and it's a good thing as well — but technology and Braille can work together. And Braille Challenge is all about that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I have a slate and stylus in my bag. I have a Perkins Brailler right here. I have a [unclear 00:31:43]-character Braille display attached to my laptop in front of me. I've got a Braille tablet, Android-based tablet, with 32-character refreshable Braille on my lap. Got a Braille embosser sitting right behind me.

Rachel Antoine: Amazing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And when I did my doctoral work — I have my PhD in leadership and change through Antioch University — my doctoral thesis was an ethnographic study of blind adults who are successfully employed in large American corporations. So I interviewed blind people who are working at all the name brand companies that we all know. And there were nine themes that emerged around what were the conditions that allowed people to be successful and create these successful career pathways. And blindness skills was prominently featured. So people had to have blindness skills. If they were Braille readers — there was a variety. So some people were low vision and could use magnification, but everyone used technology. Everyone used some sort of technology. The blind people were all Braille readers. And orientation and mobility really came up. You have to be able to travel independently and safely through the world. If you're going to be in the world of work, you're going to have to navigate workplaces. Many of these folks traveled for work, so [you] need to be able to maneuver an airport and get on planes, trains and automobiles. And so I know that you at Braille Institute also realize the importance of strong orientation and mobility skills. And you have Cane Quest, and I'd like to hear a little bit about that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So for those who don't know, orientation is really the concept of knowing where you are and where you're trying to go, and what pathway you should take. So being oriented to your surroundings and your destinations. And mobility is the concept around being able to move through spaces efficiently and safely and gracefully. Most people do that with either a long white cane, which is what I use — I learned to use when I was six — or a dog guide, or some combination of those things. So let's hear a little about Cane Quest.

Rachel Antoine: Absolutely. So Cane Quest is our orientation mobility program. It's been around since 2009. And Cane Quest is about building confidence and independence. It gives blind and low vision students the opportunity to practice and demonstrate real world orientation and mobility skills in a fun and supportive environment. It turns the skills that students practice in everyday life — like using a cane, navigating routes, crossing streets, identifying landmarks, and problem solving — into an experience they can be proud of. It makes mobility fun. And this year, in addition to last year — this is year two — that Cane Quest is taking that experience somewhere completely new: the Los Angeles Zoo. So we're giving students a chance to use their own skills in a real dynamic environment rather than a traditional classroom or school setting. The zoo is such a fun setting, because there are sounds, smells…

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's making me smile. That sounds like fun.

Rachel Antoine: Yes. Sounds, smells, pathways, landmarks, people, and unexpected situations that students have to navigate. It makes the experience feel like a real adventure. And students will work through different [unclear 00:35:32] navigating stations. It's also a great community and family day, for the general public to see what young blind youth are capable of. We're putting independence and mobility skills front and center. So it's such a fun program that is happening. Our SoCal regional is happening October 3rd at the LA Zoo. We're also partnering with LA Galaxy, our soccer team, and Guide Dogs of America, who are bringing ten guide dog puppies.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice.

Rachel Antoine: So we're really, really excited. It reinforces that idea that blind and low vision kids should have access to the same opportunities to explore, learn, have fun, and participate in their community. So that's what this is about.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's awesome. So Rachel, you are doing great work. Braille Institute, kudos to the whole team.

Rachel Antoine: Thank you so much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It was great to be at Braille Challenge again this year. I hope to be back soon.

Rachel Antoine: Absolutely.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I jotted down that if people want to reach out to you by email, it's [email protected].

Rachel Antoine: Yes. So that's our main one. Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And there is a separate website, https://braillechallenge.org. People can reach out to you and learn more and get involved. For me — if you want to get in touch with me, I'm on LinkedIn every day. It's Kirk Adams, PhD on LinkedIn. And then my website is DR as in doctor — https://drkirkadams.com. I have a newsletter you can sign up for. I have a link to my book, which came out in July. It's called The Disability Dividend: Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion, which is geared toward employers who are out there battling to attract and retain the best and brightest talent — how to do that by being inclusive of people with disabilities. And I'd love to talk to anyone, anytime, about any way I could be helpful in creating opportunities for blind people to thrive in this world, whatever thriving means to them. Especially interested in creating pathways for blind kids to move into adulthood and flourish and thrive. So Braille is important. Essential. Good orientation mobility skills is a must. And Rachel, you're helping make that happen. So I really appreciate you having me. Thank you to Braille Challenge. I'm glad you were here with me today. And keep up the good work. And I'm looking forward to seeing Brailled It this weekend.

Rachel Antoine: Yes, yes, yes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me today. And at the heart of all of this, we just want one message: access creates opportunity, and representation shows people what's possible. So get involved, spread the word, and help us make sure that Braille opportunity and possibility are accessible to everyone. So we're doing that through Braille Challenge and Cane Quest. So thank you so much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Thanks, Rachel.

Rachel Antoine: Thank you.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at https://www.drkirkadams.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Tom Bobinszki, Owner, Even Grounds https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-08-20-2026/

Here, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Tom Babinszki, owner of Even Grounds and a travel and tourism accessibility consultant, whom he first met across an exhibit table at a Kennedy Center LEAD Conference, where, as Kirk tells it, "what to my wondering hands should appear" was a 3D model of the White House, pillars and porticos and all. Babinszki was born completely blind in 1970s Hungary, where a close family member advised his parents not to take him out on the street because it would be embarrassing, and suggested that one day he might watch the geese at the end of the village. His parents decided instead that their son would have exactly the education everyone else had. A scholarship year at the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia followed, then Trinity College in Hartford, then George Mason, three years directing the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Hadley School for the Blind, and some twenty-five years in digital accessibility, including teaching thousands of people at IBM.

Even Grounds grew out of a failure. A lifelong traveler, "my favorite smell is jet fuel," and a coin collector who bought building replicas in museum gift shops just to understand where he was standing, Babinszki hired a designer and a 3D printing company and produced models of Washington landmarks, only to find his blind friends admired them and had no wish to own fifty large buildings. Museums and schools did. The company he founded in 2023 now pairs holistic accessibility consulting with tactile 3D work for the Toledo Zoo, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Opera, a Kenyan school for the blind through Clovernook, and a Braille map from the 1800s remade so it could finally be touched. One small tactile map of a public restroom drew thirteen hundred LinkedIn likes against his usual fifty. His advice to listeners is the whole argument in four words: don't ever accept that something is not accessible.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am Dr. Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have a guest who's doing some very interesting things to make the world more accessible for us who are blind and visually impaired. Today I have Tom Babinszki. He's the owner of Even Grounds. He's a travel and tourism accessibility consultant. Say hey, Tom.

Tom Babinszki: Hi, Kirk. Thank you for your invitation. I'm glad to be here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, absolutely. So several summers ago I attended a conference here in Seattle that was sponsored by the Kennedy Center for the Arts. It's called the LEAD Conference, and it's about leadership and accessibility of the arts. And one of the exhibitors there was Tom. And [I] visited his room, his booth, his table — and what to my wondering hands should appear, but 3D models of buildings and architectural wonders that I had never seen and had no concept of what they looked like. I lost my sight at five when my retinas detached. I cannot remember anything visual at all. I cannot conjure up a visual image in my mind. I cannot recall colors. If you say blue, in my mind I see the Braille characters.

Tom Babinszki: Blue — I'm the same way.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. But I remember having in my hands a 3D model of the White House, and I was so surprised by the pillars and the porticos and the verandas. And it was not a symmetrical situation. It had a lot going on. And it was very interesting. And I spent quite some time with the 3D model. And Tom and I recently reconnected, and he is creating accessibility for museums and various sites, points of interest. One thing he is doing that I applaud so heartily [is] 3D maps of [unclear 00:02:49] public restrooms. How many times have I searched for the paper towels? How many times have I decided, no, I'm not going to wash my hands, because I'm going to pick up more germs trying to find the faucet and the soap that I'm going to lose. So Tom's doing some really cool stuff. We just want to hand it over to you and have you talk a little bit about your experience with blindness, your personal lived experience — and then you've had such a long and varied career in accessibility, I know 20, 25 years at least. So I would love to hear the summary of that, and how you came to start Even Grounds, what the history has been so far, where you're at, what you're doing now, and then what do you see for the future? So Tom, it's over to you.

Tom Babinszki: Thank you. Kirk, if you don't mind, let me start from the very beginning, from where I was born. Because I think that's pretty relevant to where I am today. I was born in the '70s in Hungary, and that was one of those socialist countries in Eastern Europe. So education for blind people was rather limited. There was a school for the blind. But what started everything was that when I was born, there was a close family member who said that my parents shouldn't take me out on the street because it's embarrassing. And then she said, well, maybe when he grows up, maybe he can watch the geese at the end of the village. Now, mind you, I think watching the geese at the end of the village was going to be much more difficult than my two master's degrees, but I didn't know what she had in mind. But that was the point where my parents said that, regardless of how — they had no idea how to do it — but this kid is going to have the same education that everybody else [has]. And that's when I was a baby.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So did your parents — were there other brothers and sisters already, or were you the first?

Tom Babinszki: I was the first at that point, and later I had a brother two and a half years [younger?] 00:05:03. So we're pretty close, growing up.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, so high five to your parents. Good for them.

Tom Babinszki: Thank you. I'll tell them. Because it was incredible what they did. And they took me to — where they found a school for the blind, they took me there. I studied there and then went to high school. But then I had to advocate a lot for myself, because there really wasn't too much advocacy. So I had to fight for every single thing. All I heard is that you cannot do it because you are blind, and blind people can't write. So I heard it enough. And I'm very thankful to every one of those people, because —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Did you get blindness skills instruction? Were you [taught?] 00:05:56 Braille and cane travel?

Tom Babinszki: [Taught?] 00:05:59, actually. So when I was 16, I got a scholarship. It was an international scholarship at the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia. And I spent there a year, and I got lots of mobility instruction there and other skills. Actually, I just came back from the LEAD Conference last week, which was in Philadelphia. It was amazing to be back after 30 years and wander the same streets.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool.

Tom Babinszki: But then, in the meantime, life was difficult, because my parents gave me the education, but what they couldn't give me is, they couldn't stop the discrimination. Every time I looked for a job, they either told me you can't do it because you're blind, or somehow they started convincing me that I need a car and the driver's license, in a city where public transportation is amazing.

Tom Babinszki: And then I got a scholarship to the US, and I came here and I finished my master's degree, and I got a job. And —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Where did you go to school?

Tom Babinszki: At that point, I went to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. And later, when I moved to Washington, DC, and I was working in accessibility, I went to George Mason.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Tom Babinszki: So this country welcomed me. They didn't ask me what is it you cannot do. They told me that you're welcome to help us with anything that you would like to, and do what you can, and we'll support you. I get so much support from people that I didn't even know, because they never looked at me as a blind person. They looked at me as an accessibility consultant. And sure, I know we still have problems, and we do, and that's why I'm still doing what I'm doing. But at least I was able to succeed. And so I started working for accessibility consulting companies. And I'm not going to keep it too long here, but at some point, for three years, I was at the Hadley School for the Blind, where I was the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, I did not know that.

Tom Babinszki: Yeah. I built that program. George Abbott started building it, and then under his leadership, basically I got the whole thing, and they told me build it from scratch. And that was a ton of fun. But what's most important here is that the travel bug bit me when I was young, very young. And I love traveling. You know, my favorite smell is jet fuel.

Tom Babinszki: And every time I have a chance, I go. And I hardly ever had — other than during Covid time — in my life when I didn't have an upcoming airline ticket to be used. But that interest in travel gave me something, that it wasn't just enough to be there. I wanted to experience so much. And some of the things that I really wanted to experience was buildings. Every time I went somewhere like a more famous building, I always started out at the gift shop, because some of the places have building replicas.

Tom Babinszki: And when they had it, it was interesting to buy that building and understand where I am and what it looks like. Because everything is just large and cold, and walls and bricks and doors, right? One building can be like the other, unless you learn more about it. But many, many buildings didn't have replicas. And so I did all kinds of accessibility stuff. I did IBM.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But if they do, they're very simplistic.

Tom Babinszki: It could be anything, but for the most part, yeah, oftentimes. But that's much better than nothing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Sure.

Tom Babinszki: And yeah, I was mostly in digital accessibility for about 25 years. And one day I said, well, let's do something about it. And then I hired a 3D designer, and I hired a 3D printing company. And we designed a few buildings from Washington, DC.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And was it just part of your regular job, or was this something you were doing on the side?

Tom Babinszki: No. At that point, that was just something on the side.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Tom Babinszki: And we printed out a few buildings, like the White House and Pentagon, Capitol. And so in the meantime, I was traveling a lot for work. And I found that many people asked me questions about how blind people travel. Now, those were good questions, but not from the places where I got them, because those were coming from the hospitality industry, from people who should have had some understanding of people with disabilities. So in the meantime, I started a travel blog. It was travel for blind people, but mostly targeting sighted people. But interestingly, I reviewed so many accessibility features and locations that mostly many blind people picked up on my blog. So that's when I started the blog, and I started making these buildings. And then ultimately my blog developed into a consulting business. And that's Even Grounds, that I started in 2023. So anyway, I got those buildings ready and I showed it to a few friends, and they said, well, make some more. I made some more, and I made some even more. And then I showed it to more people and they loved it. So I started selling them on eBay and Etsy. And none of my blind friends were buying it. I said, you gotta be kidding me, you said those were nice. And they said, yes, those were nice, but I don't want to have 50 large buildings in my house. And I was sad. You know, that was the first failure. Actually, my business grew out of this failure.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Tom Babinszki: Then I started thinking, okay, now blind people don't want to have it. And I talk more to them. Okay, what do you want to do with it? They said, we just want to touch it. We want to understand it and move on. I don't want to have it, though. Who would want to show it and not give it to people? Museums, schools. And so I started working with museums and creating replicas. And then I came across the Clovernook School for the Blind, and the Clovernook Center for the Blind [and] Visually Impaired.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cincinnati. Yeah.

Tom Babinszki: Right. And at that time they started some work with a school for the blind in Kenya. And so they ship 3D printers and filaments to the schools in Africa and [unclear 00:12:34] other continent. And they design buildings, maps, educational tools. And they send the files so that people can print it out there, which is much cheaper than printing it here and sending it. So I got more involved. I hired more designers by that time, because I was selling those buildings, and we started working together. And that's how I ended up creating maps. So first we created the map of Kenya, and then the map of Ohio, because — why not? That's where I live.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Tom Babinszki: And then all kinds of other things, like biology tools — you know, like a human-size heart that you can open and explore the inner working of it. And then just one thing after the other, and then started consulting with museums. The other thing that's really interesting is, I'm a coin collector, and I went to many, many museums — before my guide dog, [and] who was my guide dog. Well, I probably went to the most money museums, I believe, 15 in six countries. And I found that they were so interested in showing me everything, because by default the coin museum is not necessarily for blind people. It's actually pretty darn boring, because everything is behind glass.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Glass. Right.

Tom Babinszki: Yeah. But they went out of their way to show me things that was okay to touch. And obviously not everything, because some are just expensive and can't be touched. But then, so I started working with these museums and showing them, okay, if you could do it for me, you could do it for so many other people. Because that's all we are looking for. It's okay if most things are behind glass, but if we can have one or two hours of experience that's relevant to your mission, to your organization — it's educational, entertaining, that's what we all do in a museum — and why not make it available to blind people. And many did. One day, I —

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's great. Can I — let me pause for one moment. So I want to go back to Clovernook and Kenya. Were you working with Stephanie Jones, by chance?

Tom Babinszki: I met her once when we went to the Braille Challenge in Canton, Ohio.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, okay.

Tom Babinszki: We hadn't worked too much together.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. I'm just asking because I'm a big fan of Stephanie Jones. She works for Clovernook, and you just mentioned the Braille Challenge. And last time I saw her was at the Braille Challenge banquet on the USC campus in June, and she was speaking about how Clovernook had partnered with Braille Challenge to bring the Braille Challenge to Kenya. So I'm assuming the students who were at the Braille Challenge in Kenya were the same students who were benefiting from your 3D models. So just a beautiful alignment. And hats off to Clovernook, hats off to Braille Challenge, hats off to Stephanie, hats off to you.

Tom Babinszki: So I'm a big fan of all of them. I mostly work with Samuel Fuchs, Clovernook.

Tom Babinszki: But I really have lots of respect for all the great work that they're doing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. And then I had another question for you. Have you ever been to the museum at the Perkins School? They have — well, you know where it is, it's in Watertown, Massachusetts — but they have a small museum, and it's in the lowest level of their main building. But they have wooden architectural models of famous buildings that were made by artisans during the Great Depression, during the 1930s. There was a program called, you know, the WPA, Work[s] Progress — Work Projects Administration — but they hired artists and artisans to keep them employed and to keep the economy moving. And so there's gorgeous wooden models, and the one that I was most fascinated by was the Parthenon. And it was built so that the top could be lifted off, so you could feel the interior.

Tom Babinszki: And that's how we built ours. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah.

Tom Babinszki: Otherwise it's just a cage.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right, right.

Tom Babinszki: Once you can feel what's in it, it's amazing. Right. No, I haven't been there. And I haven't been to so many places yet, unfortunately, even though I constantly go to museums. But only the United States has approximately more than 10,000. I have a lot to cover.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Tom Babinszki: And yeah, the Perkins is on my radar. And APH — as soon as it opens, I'll be there. I was at the Technological Museum in Madrid last year, and they also had lots of architecture there.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I had interrupted you when you were talking about going to money museums and coins, and how your guide dog holds the record for the most money museums visited by a guide dog. And I —

Tom Babinszki: I don't —

Dr. Kirk Adams: — know. But I think we're going with that. We're going to go with that. And then you mentioned that the curators of the museums were very open to talking to you about making the experiences more accessible for people who are blind and visually impaired. So I'll hand you back the mic after my interruption.

Tom Babinszki: You know, I feel that many people, many organizations, are open to accessibility. Sometimes there is the "I don't have time, I don't have money" kind of duo. Sometimes it's an excuse, sometimes it's real. I taught digital accessibility, especially at IBM. I taught thousands of people around the world. I met many people who weren't sure about it at the beginning. I never had anybody who said at the end of the training that I don't care about accessibility. Where I see the problem is not that they don't care. It's more that they don't know about the needs, or there's something exists that they are not meeting, or there are people who can't necessarily benefit from what they are doing. And every time I show it to them how — oftentimes how easy it is, because there's always a low-hanging fruit that they can do and make one change — and people are genuinely excited about it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And so you're at [Hadley] 00:19:06, you were doing work at IBM. You started making some 3D models of DC-area buildings on the side, showing them to blind people. They were very well received. Then when you went to take them to market, people didn't want to — people wanted to access them, people wanted to experience them, but they didn't necessarily want to own them themselves. So you turn to the museums and architectural sites as your customer base. So then you founded Even Grounds in '23. And so what was the first year or two like?

Tom Babinszki: First I was doing it on the side, so slowly building up my business, and then I turned it into a full-time business. Yeah, right now I work with lots of museums, doing actually maps. So what's good about this company is that we don't just do 3D. I do all the accessibility consulting that I've done before. So it's holistic consulting. I help them with physical accessibility, event accessibility, web accessibility. I don't even want to get into it because there's lots of people doing it, and probably you talked with many of them already. There's no need to repeat it. But it kind of became a niche that I'm doing, that everything starts with the 3D, it seems, and a lot of organizations want maps. And one of the things that I did — it has been a frustration to me, as you mentioned at the beginning, that the restrooms. And honestly, I just try to avoid it as much as possible. And I was always wondering, why isn't there a good way? And with the cane or with the guide dog, it was still pretty dirty experience.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Tom Babinszki: And the one thing I —

Dr. Kirk Adams: I always say, when I retire, I'm going to start a crusade that all public restrooms should be standardized. That's a —

Tom Babinszki: Oh, that would be beautiful.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Of course, that's a pipe dream. But —

Tom Babinszki: Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But we —

Tom Babinszki: — can always try.

Dr. Kirk Adams: We share the frustration of being adrift in a large public restroom. So the map — the map of the layout space would be so helpful.

Tom Babinszki: Yeah. So one day we just created a sample map. I tried so many things with 3D, experimented a lot. I threw it at the wall to see if it sticks. You know, 80% doesn't, but the other 20 takes off, and that's okay. That's what a small business does. But one day we made this little restroom map, and it's pretty cool, because everything feels like a little restroom. Like, you can feel the little toilets, you can feel the little sinks, right? So even if you don't read Braille and you can't read the map key, you'll still figure a good 80% of it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah.

Tom Babinszki: And then I posted it on LinkedIn. And usually if I get 50 likes, I take out the family for dinner and celebrate. I got 1,300.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice.

Tom Babinszki: And you know, it's not about the likes, obviously. That's not — but I got so much interest that —

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's an —

Tom Babinszki: — indicator. Yeah. For a whole month I couldn't put the phone down. And people just want these restrooms, because that's a very easy entry to accessibility. You can make a big difference. It's not difficult, it's meaningful, it's easy to explain. It was a story that I could explain in ten seconds. Because, you know, there's the elevator speech that you explain what you do in 30 seconds. Nobody listens to you for 30 seconds anymore. That's history, you know? Ten seconds, you're done, tops. And this restroom, I did it. And yeah, that's it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, I'm not a technical person. I've never run a 3D printer. I've seen the products of 3D printing. One really good experience was when I was [at] the Lighthouse for the Blind here in Seattle. We had a breakfast for our donors out at Seattle Center, and the King Tut exhibition was in town, and they had created 3D replicas of some of the items in the exhibit. So we were able to get some hands-on of some of the artifacts in a 3D printed form. But I don't know how. Give me the very simple layman's explanation of, how do you create a map of a bathroom? Are you taking photographs? How is that converted into some sort of digital information? How does it work?

Tom Babinszki: Yeah. So basically we either get drawings or photos or videos of the entire layout. We mark up everything that's fixed. So if there's a movable trash can, we don't put it there, because there's no guarantee it'll be there. And then I hand it over to my designers, and they look at it and then they create the map, and they make a rendered picture, and we send it back to the organization just to make sure we got everything right, and all the [unclear 00:24:14] and everything is fine.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. So you don't have to physically go there. The people at the site can provide you with the photographs. Right? Okay.

Tom Babinszki: Right. So, no, we give them very detailed instructions on what we're looking for. We have sample drawings, sample pictures of — if you look at it, this is what it should look like.

Dr. Kirk Adams: This is what we're after.

Tom Babinszki: Yeah, yeah. And in a few minutes they can just put it together, upload it to Google Drive, and we're good to go. You know, in a few days we have it done.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Why don't I ask you this. Let's do a use case. Talk to me about a museum project that stands out for you. Please name the museum, so the people who listen can go and thank them for making our museum accessible. But tell us about a project — all the aspects of the project that you feel good about.

Tom Babinszki: Well, here's one that we are just wrapping up, that's fresh in my mind. We are actually doing it in collaboration with Clovernook. This is the Toledo Zoo. And so I always say that, what do we use 3D printing for? We make things which are too small, too big, or too dangerous to touch.

Tom Babinszki: And so what we did for them, we made five buildings on their property, so that you can get a sense of what the buildings look like from the outside, because they are very beautiful, detailed buildings. We made the aviary and the aquarium and the museum and a bunch of buildings. But we also made animals. There's two kinds of giraffes at the property. One is the Masai giraffe, and I can't remember the name of the other one, but so they are different — slightly different. So now you can't really touch the giraffes, but you can have a seven-, eight-inch model, and you can compare the two giraffes. Or we put together three heads in a row. One is the brown bear, one is the polar bear, and one is the Kodiak.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool.

Tom Babinszki: And so those animals that you really can't touch, you can get a sense of what they feel like. For another organization, we made a comparison of the alligator and the crocodile.

Tom Babinszki: There was a museum in Iowa where we made a replica of a Braille map. Interestingly, it's a map of part of Asia and part of Russia and part of Europe. The map was created at the end of the 1800s, and it's old and you can't redo it at this point. So it's behind glass. But it was specifically made for blind people, and now blind people are the only ones who can't see it. Right? So we made an exact replica in 3D, and they exhibited that beside the original, so that everybody can touch it. It was in the [Iowa Art Museum?] 00:27:29. That's why [we] did so many. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Those are great. What are the most commonly sought-after 3D printed — they call them artifacts. What do you call them? Items.

Tom Babinszki: You know, I honestly don't see a trend.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Tom Babinszki: They always surprise us. There was the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, for example, who was looking for a [stage?] with the musicians on the stage as they are playing, so that you can show it to blind people what the layout is like.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The strings are here, the woodwinds are here. Right? Yeah.

Tom Babinszki: We had the Cincinnati Opera, who was looking for 3D replicas of their characters. We had a [country?] 00:28:30 museum which wanted the map of the radio broadcasting layout in the United States and Mexico. They always surprise me. Yeah. Just recently — it was for a dance company. They were looking for teaching tap dance moves to blind people. And then we created 11 steps, [we] created the dancers one by one.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The position of the body.

Tom Babinszki: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Each of the movements.

Tom Babinszki: Yeah. So you could just hand it to them, and it's much easier to demonstrate that way than to explain.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, to conceptualize that. Yeah.

Tom Babinszki: You know, my trend is that there's no trend.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Gotcha.

Tom Babinszki: We did paintings in a museum, the Dominican Republic. And it's like an outside display of different paintings that we kind of reimagined in 3D — actually more like two-and-a-half-D — so that you can feel the different figures on the painting.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I am imagining, in the audience listening to us right now, there are probably more blind and visually impaired individuals than there are museum curators and directors of zoos and operas and symphonies. But if you are leading a cultural institution, please listen to what Even Grounds can do for you. If you're a blind and visually impaired person, I would guess you could — if you have a favorite museum or a favorite place where you go to enjoy music or theater, you could certainly contact the accessibility folks there and let them know about what Tom and Even Grounds are doing to make experiences more accessible. But Tom, what would you ask people listening to do, in order to help move things forward, make the world more accessible, get your work into more places?

Tom Babinszki: Think out of the box, step out of the box, and be open and interested. And don't ever accept that something is not accessible, because sometimes it only takes a little creativity. And ask. Ask for it. I used to hate museums, because I couldn't touch anything, and I wasn't brave enough until I really started traveling. I said, no, I can't enjoy it. So then I asked — if they didn't have accessibility features, I went out there and asked, can you show me? Can you give me a guided tour? Can you let me touch a few things? And everybody was so positive. And I think that's what you can do. And then when you encounter organizations that will listen to you, then share it with them, that it's actually possible — that the same way they shared it with you, they can share it with everybody else.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. When I was first, second or third grade at the Oregon State School for the Blind, I didn't realize until later, of course, what a wonderful, amazing set of experiences they intentionally provided us. But we'd go on school field trips, we'd go to a dairy farm, we'd milk cows, we would go to Fort Clatsop where Lewis and Clark spent the winter, and we would lay on the bunks, the replicas of their cabins, and we'd put wood in the wood stove and boil water. And it was super experiential.

Tom Babinszki: That's beautiful.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Then starting in fourth grade, when I was in public school and I was always the only blind student, field trips were go to a building and walk around and touch glass cases and framed things on the wall covered in glass. So, right.

Tom Babinszki: Did your classmates help you, explain?

Dr. Kirk Adams: You know, sure. To the extent that they could. But it was still frustrating. Largely frustrating. So what you're doing, I applaud. So how do people get in touch? Website, email — how do people reach out to you and Even Grounds?

Tom Babinszki: You can find my website at https://evengrounds.com, or you can write me at [email protected]. You can also check out my blog. I write a lot about my coin-related travels. Blind Coin Collector — https://blindcoincollector.com.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool. Good. So —

Tom Babinszki: You can find me on LinkedIn.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes. I found you on LinkedIn.

Tom Babinszki: I live on LinkedIn.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Me too. Another thing we have in common. So go to https://evengrounds.com or email [email protected]. Go to Blind Coin Collector and read the blog. Let's help spread the tactile experiences of cultural sites, and let's all get better, and let's all have better experiences in the public restroom. And for me, you can find me at my website, https://drkirkadams.com. You can sign up for my monthly newsletter. You can buy my book, which came out last month, on Amazon — there's a link. It's called The Disability Dividend: Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion. It's a guide for employers to help them win the war for talent by hiring people with disabilities. And I'm also on LinkedIn, Kirk Adams, PhD. So reach out to one or both of us. We will happily talk to you about how to make the world a more accessible place and create opportunities for people with disabilities to thrive. Tom, it's been a pleasure. The time flew by. We'll have you back again for chapter two at some point. So thank you so much for being here.

Tom Babinszki: Well, thank you, Kirk. I appreciate the conversation and the opportunity.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And for everybody else, we'll catch you next time on another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at https://www.drkirkadams.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Cazerny Bussey, Founder, Even Though I'm Blind Foundation https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-08-18-2026/

Here Dr. Kirk Adams welcomes Cazerny Bussey, founder of the Even Though I'm Blind Foundation, for a first conversation between two blind leaders who arrived at the same work from opposite directions. Kirk lost his sight at five in small farming towns in Oregon and Washington, where he was the only blind kid in every school after fourth grade. Bussey grew up in Brooklyn with low vision, active and surrounded by a large family, and lost his sight at fifteen, a sophomore at a performing-arts high school, already recording music, after a second retinal surgery took the optic nerve. He describes the moment in the exam room as a decision he had to make on the spot, and the years that followed as a run of doors opening: two and three shows a week, work alongside Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J and Chuck D, and the persistent fact that he was the only blind person in every room he entered.

That isolation is what became an organization. A love song Bussey wrote called "Even Though I'm Blind" gave the foundation its name, and research he did afterward gave it its purpose, blind college students, blind chefs, blind skiers, blind pageant winners, an entire world he had not known was there. Today the foundation runs a radio station carrying roughly forty-five independent blind artists, a podcast built on community members telling their own stories, and a curated directory of blind-owned businesses, alongside an artist showcase staged at the NFB convention in Texas. Bussey has just joined the Persons with Disabilities Media Co-op as a sponsor of Access Information News. Kirk and Bussey trade New York geography, blindness-skills philosophy, and a shared conviction that visibility is the work, and agree to meet in New York in February.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that Dr. Kirk Adams, in my office in Seattle, Washington on a beautiful sunny August day. Best time of the year here. I lived in New York, I lived in Virginia. I don't miss August in either of those places. So I'm a Northwest guy. My guest today is a new acquaintance. I don't know how I've missed you so far, but my guest today is Cazerny Bussey, founder of Even Though I'm Blind Foundation. Say hello.

Cazerny Bussey: Hello, everybody.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And Cazerny is out there making waves, getting things done. And we just became acquainted. We've had one conversation just to get to know each other a little bit, and immediately knew I wanted you on the podcast. Because, Cazerny — so for those who don't know me, I'm a blind person. Have been since I was five years old. I was born a sighted kid and became a blind kid when I was five. Both my retinas detached. I was totally blind very quickly. And so there was really no question that I needed to learn Braille. I needed to learn how to travel confidently and safely with a white cane. At that time, I needed to learn how to type [on] a typewriter so I could go to public school and type assignments and papers and things for my sighted teachers who didn't know Braille. So I went to Oregon State School for the Blind — first, second, third grade — then on into public school. And very interested to have you [unclear 00:02:17]. Our — I think our experiences as blind people are so different. I grew up in little farming communities in the Pacific Northwest. Silverton, Oregon; graduated from high school in Snohomish, Washington. One was known for strawberries, one was known for dairy farming and football.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I was always the only blind kid in any school I went to after fourth grade. And the little towns I grew up in — when kids turned 16, they got driver's licenses and they got some sort of job, and I didn't get either. So I lived a fairly isolated, pretty tough time in high school, and then on to college where things got better. I graduated with a degree in economics and went into banking and finance for ten years, then into the nonprofit sector, became the president and CEO of The Lighthouse for the Blind here in Seattle. The American Foundation for the Blind — moved to New York for that. But knowing the little bit I know about you, you became a blind person later in life than I did. You grew up in a very different environment than I did. And you have, like I said, you've been doing stuff, making things happen. So we'd really just like to hand you the microphone here. Your story, how you came to be part of the community. What inspired you to start your foundation? What's the journey been like so far, and where are you taking things?

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I first would like to just thank you for allowing me on your platform. I did come across you because, as I was doing my due diligence and my research, it was hard to not bump into Kirk Adams, because you done made so many great things happen in your lifetime. And I really do commend you, and I honor that. And yeah, looking forward to doing things as big as you done it someday, when I get there. But yeah, I lost my eyesight at the age of 15 years old due to retinal detachment as well.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah. So we have that in common. So — yeah, around five years old. Wow. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. So it is a lot different than your environment.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I will tell you that I lived in Brooklyn when I went to work in 2016 to lead the American Foundation for the Blind. The offices were at Two Penn Plaza, right above Penn Station, next to Madison Square Garden. But my wife and I lived in Park Slope at Eighth Avenue and Eighth Street. And my greatest orientation and mobility triumph is learning to take the F train, to transfer to the A at Jay Street–MetroTech, to go into Penn Station and up to 34th Avenue and into the office. And for a kid who grew up in little teeny towns — my first experience was staying in corporate housing on 43rd, between Eighth and Ninth, pretty near the Port Authority. And I had an O&M instructor, and she asked me, "How's your experience walking on heavily trafficked sidewalks?" I said, "Yeah, pretty good." And then when I turned the corner from 43rd to Seventh Avenue to walk down to 33rd, after about half a block, I stopped and said, "I had no idea." So.

Cazerny Bussey: You're right. Yeah. That's the heart of New York, you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Cazerny Bussey: That is literally where everything happened. Although I feel like a lot of parts of New York is pretty hectic. Park Slope is a pretty nice neighborhood.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I like Manhattan because if you can count, you know where you are. Things are numbered. Things are nice 90-degree angles, nice rectangular blocks. So that's a good part. And then you got the open hatchways in the sidewalk and the scaffolding and all that. Right. All right. So you're 15. So you were in high school, I assume.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah, I was. Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I was fully sighted until then.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah. I wouldn't say fully sighted. Okay. Yeah. I have low vision, but I was really active. Like I was going to tell you, at five years old, I think where I was from, we was outside in the street throwing footballs and throwing basketballs in the hoop. We actually went outside then. I'm not that old, but — right. It wasn't like internet-based. We was actually in our neighborhoods. I had a really awesome childhood growing up. Had a large family and very supportive. And it was a lot of us boys, so we challenged each other like a pack of lions. So we wrestle and just play sports, and we was competitive. And we chased the girls, all kind of stuff. Young. Right. So by 12 years old, before I get to 15, my father — he was very heavy into music. He was actually a part of the old school rap group Stetsasonic. And yeah, them guys did some great things. So he had me around music. I wasn't really, per se, wanting to do music, but I did like it.

Cazerny Bussey: Maybe I loved it. But at that time, I probably would have wanted to go outside or play my — at the time, what was it, a Dreamcast, Nintendo 64 — play with my friends. But he recognized that gift and he really had me in professional recording environments. So I recorded my first song at the age of 12 years old. Song I actually wrote. And that was big for me, because that kind of changed the way I viewed the studio. Instead of being there seeing them guys, I was able to partake in the festivities, you know? Yeah. So, long story short, I go to high school. I auditioned in junior high school to Frank Sinatra School of Performing Arts, which was — yeah, it was [founded?] 00:09:01 by the late, great Tony Bennett. And I got in. I auditioned. Academically, I was able to reach — it was a special school at the time. I think the school only was open two years prior to me getting in it. It was a very new school.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Is it located in Brooklyn?

Cazerny Bussey: It's actually located in Long Island — it was located in Long Island City at the time. Okay. They didn't even have their own building. We were sharing one of the campuses with LaGuardia College. Okay. Yeah, the C building. So we was — yeah, but loved it. Freshman year, met all my friends. And it was a very artsy school, about 500 students. So I was really fortunate to be able to get in. Great music teachers — Miss [Bess?] 00:10:02, Mr. [Sandri?] 00:10:02. They grew a liking for me because I am gifted vocally. And it was great. The first freshman year — I'm speeding up to the sophomore year, because things kind of changed, but they changed a lot. Yeah, they changed a lot, from five years old playing basketball on the streets to doing my first song, having all these wonderful experiences. In between time, things went totally dark for me. I was actually doing all of my surgeries. I did two surgeries for my retina. After the second, they said the optic nerve was gone.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So yeah, I had a lot of surgeries too, from age five to about 12. I think I had five or six. And they were unsuccessful back in those days. That was before — I'm much older than you, because, Cazerny, that was before lasers. So they were actually going in and trying to do things. But long stretches in the hospital with my head in a clamp, so I couldn't move my head and disrupt their surgical work. So some traumatic experiences for me as a young kid. But the one thing that I mentioned earlier is, when my retinas detached, I wasn't even in first grade yet, so I knew I had to learn blindness skills, Braille and cane travel. But wow — for you, you're a sophomore in high school. You're living your life, you're making music, you're at the Frank Sinatra School, you're making new friends, doing new things, and then all of a sudden the retinal detachment. So how does a young cat adjust to that?

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah. I went — my doctor, I went, Doctor [Rosenthal?] 00:11:47 — I went in there. When I did the surgery, he said, "Go home for a couple of weeks." And I was all packed up and stuff like that. And of course I didn't have vision. The first time I did the surgery it was the same, but the vision was coming back slowly. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Cazerny Bussey: So a couple of weeks passed. We ready to go back to the appointment to get it checked. I think my mind was playing tricks on me, because for some reason I felt like the sight was coming back, right? [unclear 00:12:25]

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you had — you were optimistic about it, right?

Cazerny Bussey: Right, right. Memory, right. The power of memory. And then I went in a room. They did the process, the procedure, and he came in, and I could just remember he said, "Like the optic nerve — you're blind." And then for a slight second, I — it went dark for me. At the time, I was seeing floaters and everything, right? It was what they call them, floaters, what I call them — these colors — and everything went dark. I was like — for me it was kind of hard. But yeah, right in that moment. The reason why I tell that story is because a lot of people benefit from the fact that I can say, in that direct moment, I had to make a quick [choice?] 00:13:20. One of the biggest and quickest decisions I ever had to make in my life. And it was in that moment, because I remember I had to choose to be blind, or I had to choose to not be able to see but be led to vision. Right? Such a complex choice I had to make at the age of 15 years old. Sophomore in high school. At the time, things was going so great for me. I was tapped into Miss Jones in the Morning — she was one of the radio hosts at Hot 97 — and DJ Envy, and all these great people that I'm tapped into.

Cazerny Bussey: And it's like, probably in [venues?] 00:14:10 I wasn't supposed to be in at the time. But just all these things, to now having to accept the fact that, well, I no longer was going to be able to see the sunshine, right? So that, you know — and a lot of people probably take those simple things like that for granted. But it's a beautiful thing to be able to see the blue skies, you know? But I did make the choice to see vision, right? Because I was able to see for a while. I think I still have the ability to remember the color red and orange. And if I really have the confidence that I know I have to remember my mother's face and my father's face, I can just kind of tap into it and see it. That's cool. If I second-guess it, then it'd be a little struggle. But I have to just know I have to. But I did choose to tap into that vision that day. So I left the hospital, total silence. And I still was able to remember the — of my neighborhood and my community and my house. At this time, I was stepping up before the steps was there, because I knew they were coming.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah. The spatial awareness, right.

Cazerny Bussey: Right. So I went through the whole curve. And I would tell you this — I was really tapped in at the time with a lot of people that cared. And they didn't show me one day of, I don't know if to call it sadness or depression.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Pity.

Cazerny Bussey: Pity. Yeah. That's the word. Yeah. I didn't have a time to feel pity for myself, actually. I went to school about three weeks to a month later. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Same school.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Cazerny Bussey: I goes back to the school totally blind. So you gotta imagine, they like — really, they like —

Dr. Kirk Adams: So how about blindness skills? Did you have people come and train you? Did you go somewhere for training?

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah, absolutely. They actually offered me the school for the blind in the Bronx, and —

Dr. Kirk Adams: NYISE.

Cazerny Bussey: Yes, yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: New York Institute for Special Education.

Cazerny Bussey: Right. I said —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Beautiful campus. Okay.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: "No, thank —"

Cazerny Bussey: — you." Tactfully declined. Right. Yeah. Okay. I was like — I mean, I had my girlfriend in there at the time, like my friend. I'm like, I — so they did make accommodations for me. The principal was the most beautiful woman. Her name was Miss [Finn?] 00:17:15, and she was really skeptical, because she didn't know how to deal with a student, honestly. But she worked with me, and my guidance counselor, Miss [Crow?] 00:17:28 — they worked with me, and they got me mobility. I had people that came in there to teach me levels of Braille.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So do you use the long white cane or a guide dog person?

Cazerny Bussey: I didn't use the long white cane. It's what I use. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So good.

Cazerny Bussey: I mastered the environment of the school. And long story short — because you could just imagine it. When I first got into school, it was like a thing where it was like, wow, it was a music school, one of the best performing arts schools in New York, and I was privileged to be in. Then it kind of turned into me just feeling like, well, I just gotta graduate. I gotta pass these tests. I had to figure things out. It wasn't the same no more. Everything was just a challenge, you know? And challenge is not bad, but it was a challenge at the time. I learned a lot since then. Challenges these days is kind of opportunities for me to overcome them. So back then it was more so like, all right, maybe not so much of singing in a cabaret, but —

Cazerny Bussey: — keeping up with my class.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You survived. Right.

Cazerny Bussey: Right, right. So I did graduate. And the beautiful story about the graduation was, one, I was the only singer that actually sang a song that I wrote, called "We Made It," at the graduation for my class. So that was a beautiful thing. But even a lot more beautiful than that, it was a young lady that came in that freshman year by the name of [Valeria?] 00:19:17, and she was totally blind.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Came to the same school.

Cazerny Bussey: Came in the School of Performing Arts.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool.

Cazerny Bussey: So that was just beautiful for me, to see that this school is able to now accept a second blind student. And that's —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah. They wasn't trying to — she came in, and they wasn't trying to hand off. They felt like they had what it took to take her [on].

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's what we do, because we try to make the path a little easier for the next blind person coming along. Right. So you established the fact that a blind person could be successful at the school, and probably made it a pathway for her.

Cazerny Bussey: So at the time, I just didn't have a clue. Yeah, I didn't have a clue. But I tell that story because — exactly — our lives is purposeful. And when we tap in to the greatest part of who we are, we never know who can benefit from that outcome, you know?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Cazerny Bussey: And even we can benefit from that outcome, right? So I graduate, she comes in. It was beautiful for me. It was kind of go time, because at this time I'm really heavy into the music. So I didn't go to college. I was just more so — at that time I probably was doing two or three shows a week, performing music I wrote. Was able to connect with people like Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J — like I said, Daddy-O and Chuck D — all these great people that I was able to. Yeah, I was able to work with these wonderful people. And shout out to Stevie Wonder, because he paved the way in the music, and Ray Charles, and a lot of the greats. But I was always the only blind person in all these rooms.

Cazerny Bussey: And even out of music rooms, I was finding myself to be the only one. So the simple things in life, such as frying chicken, was just amazing to people, you know?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. I walked with a cane to my seat on the airplane and sat down and buckled my seat belt, and had someone said, "That's amazing."

Cazerny Bussey: "That's amazing."

Dr. Kirk Adams: Man, it's not really. But anyway, I can imagine. But so, high school music — you just mentioned Chuck D. I love Public Enemy above all. So, hats off to you for knowing that fine gentleman.

Cazerny Bussey: I mentioned him because he was the foundation of it. They was the ones that — yeah. And I learned under that. So I'm really honored and privileged. And I could say that maybe a lot of my strength did come from my tribe and the ones that I was able to have around me. So I always acknowledge, you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You're performing vocals two or three times a week in the city, primarily.

Cazerny Bussey: Oh yeah. In the city. I've traveled to Virginia. The only place I haven't been is the West Coast, but I've been all down the South, all the way down.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Come on.

Cazerny Bussey: As far as Mississippi and Louisiana. Wow.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm about two blocks from Jimi Hendrix Park, and about 20 blocks from where Ray Charles started playing in the '40s with Quincy Jones. So come on out.

Cazerny Bussey: That is awesome. That is awesome. So, and you know, just in the process of learning and experiencing different people and different things, and learning and growing myself.

Cazerny Bussey: I didn't have as much mobility. And basically what I would say is, I was lacking a lot of the independence of a blind person, because I always had people with me. I always had an entourage and management.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You got a sighted guide.

Cazerny Bussey: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes.

Cazerny Bussey: Right, right. Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That is an honorable way to navigate the world. So, but as you know, everyone has a different path. Everyone learns things at a different rate. I think every person needs to be honored for the way they create their pathway and the way they create the opportunities for them to thrive. So, no judgment here.

Cazerny Bussey: No. As you get older, and you start to get in to yourself, you realize how important those things. So I always advocate that people tap into that mobility, start really young with it and really master that, because I feel like that's a great skill to have mastered in your life.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You know, as a blind person — I was going to say, as a blind person, the stronger your blindness skills are, the easier things are going to be for you. But circumstances sometimes prevent people from learning. Life happens. So I echo your sentiment that strong orientation and mobility skills are super important.

Cazerny Bussey: Oh yeah, absolutely. I was going to say that, although I didn't have the skill, I was really confident. So I've took many flights and met people at the destination, because I'm a people's person. So a lot of times those opportunities — most trips I take, I find myself meeting somebody new. Sometimes it's for a season, sometimes for a lifetime. And so, just going through the world, not really bumping into a lot of blind or visually impaired — well, maybe they were, I just didn't know they were visually impaired — but I kind of started to feel like I was the only cool blind guy in the world. Right. And then I said, this can't be. So — and I'm gonna be totally honest, I know the power of media, because I grew up around a lot of that kind of stuff. Around three years ago I decided to develop this organization, but through a beautiful song I wrote called "Even Though I'm Blind." And that was probably one of the only blind songs I've ever — metaphors. But —

Dr. Kirk Adams: You're breaking up just a little bit.

Cazerny Bussey: Do you hear me [clearer?] 00:26:28 there?

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's better.

Cazerny Bussey: Okay. Well, this song was — oh.

Dr. Kirk Adams: No, we're good. Why don't you just take it from "about three years ago, you decided to start the organization based on the song."

Cazerny Bussey: Okay, yeah. So about three years ago I had this desire in my heart, because I was always the only blind person in the room. I kind of figured that it had to be more of us that was great in the world, right? But at the time, I thought I was the only cool blind guy in the world, because there wasn't a lot for me to see when it came to the community. And I wrote a song called "Even Though I'm Blind," and the song is a love song. It's me telling my lady that I wish that I could see her pretty smile, and just the simple things of life. And yeah, that love song was deeper than the song, because it would be beautiful to see pictures of your significant other when she was a child. But I also said in this song that — what my eyes can't see, my heart can conceive, you know? So although I didn't have the ability to see, I did have a heart that gave me something beautiful as well. I want to see that deeper inner vision. And the organization is just that. The name came — Even Though I'm Blind. Even Though I'm Blind. And I was just like, Even Though I'm Blind. And it was like, now it just — it was just dot, dot, dot, right? Because now it's like Even Though I'm Blind. And then it was just so many different opportunities, and it just started opening up. And quickly I took — I went to my business partner, he sighted, his name is Johnny. And we were doing a lot of cool things. I went and told him, I was like, "Yo, bro, this thing came." Because I just feel like — at the time I was getting old. I have children as well. The story goes deep, and I'm a superhero to my children. Like, they look at me as like a super dad. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice.

Cazerny Bussey: And I'm the oldest brother of 12, and all of my siblings look up to — they all still call [their?] blind brother for the loans, you know, that I never get [back?] 00:29:14. It's not really a loan. But what I'm saying is, blind has never stopped me from my story, my purpose. Right. And I just knew that there were so many more.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You're blind. Even though you're blind, you have these roles. You're a father, you're a husband, you're a big brother. You're a business person. You're an artist.

Cazerny Bussey: Major roles. And I was trying to get to the [layer?] 00:29:43, because it's always partners that I'm dealing with that always says things like, "Man, sometimes I forget you blind." And you probably hear that. But I guess I would say, at the time, like I said, that it starts dawning on me. Like I start to realize that I'm blind. You know, you have a child and you can't see their face. That's when it kind of starts to —

Dr. Kirk Adams: I don't have as many as you, but I do have [children?] 00:30:13 now.

Cazerny Bussey: I have two sets of twins. Yeah. Shout out to my two sets of twins. You know, I [lucked?] 00:30:20 up twice. But —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Amazing.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah, man. Kirk, the organization just kind of — it came. It came to me, and I had to answer the call. I mean, I could have ignored it. But started writing a mission statement, and it was — yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So let's do that. So I've been executive director of a couple fairly big, well-established nonprofits. I'm an executive director now of a smaller nonprofit here in Seattle called the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. But how did you go about it? How did you get it started? Three years — so how did you start, and what's happened in the last 36 months? Kind of, what are the activities of the foundation now?

Cazerny Bussey: Absolutely. Well —

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you wrote a mission statement. Then what?

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah. My thing was more so like, I had to show the world that — I just thought it was absurd, like I said, that it wasn't — every room I was in, there was no blind people. Right. And then I started doing my research, right? Because I had to do my research. I had to look and see the world, because I was like, I know there's this big world out there, right? And the organization started to open that world up to me, because although I was blind growing up, like I said, I was in a different world. I was in a world where I was the only blind person in the room. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And do you remember any of the things that really struck you or stood out for you when you were doing your research?

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Moments. Big moments of realization.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah. The college students in Harvard that were blind. The chefs that I seen online, the blind people that were skiing, the blind pageant winners, the blind music — it was just this whole world opening up to me, right? And I quickly realized that I wasn't the only blind cool guy in the world, like really quick. You know, people like you. So then I started telling my peoples, I say, "Are we going to get these stories out there?" Like, I'm going to do what it takes to let the world see these wonderful people, these personal brands, right? Because — it's just — and then I started realizing, and I'm telling you this because I started learning about some of the challenges that we face as blind people. You see what I'm saying? I started realizing the discrimination at times. A lot of times we're underrepresented, right? A lot of times we overlook, we underestimate — all these words that put us under. When I saw so many bright stars on top, right, I said, the world have to see this. And I refuse to be seen less than — my parents always told me I was great, right.

Cazerny Bussey: And I refused to let anybody put a perception on what a blind person supposed to look like with me, right? So I said, no — like, we gonna fight for that. Because, I mean, we're not going to let people tell us we're blind, especially if they can see. We gonna have to show them what it is, right? So the organization was built to be media programming sequence, so that we can basically use the programming and imagery to the stories, the missions, and to change the perception of the world. And it started like that. Like I tell a story, it's going to be so much bigger than me, but it really started with a simple desire of a song that said, "Even though I'm blind." And then I started just tapping into me. And all these times hearing these people tell me how amazing I was. And like I said, I know there's so many more bigger things than the little things in life, but even the little things matter. I linked up with Krystle Allen. I think that people like Amos, the one that made the Glide —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Amos Miller, my neighbor here in the neighborhood of Seattle.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I know Krystle.

Cazerny Bussey: Like —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Krystle — Eyes Like Mine. She's in Jersey. She has a Blind Diva pageant she runs.

Cazerny Bussey: [unclear 00:35:23] amazing. I ran into one of my partners and close friends, of course, Big Saint. He has the first mainstream [label?] 00:35:32 that deals with all blind and visually impaired artists, engineers, producers, guys like that. [Esli?] Ramos 00:35:44, who is a great college student who's doing wonderful things in school. And just really see, like, people like Professor Blindie, who is a wonderful mother. I heard the story about one of these blind mothers, and they said that because she was blind, she wasn't qualified to raise her child. And it's like, things like that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That has happened.

Cazerny Bussey: I can't even imagine, because I'm from Brooklyn and I'm kind of a fighter. You can't take my child from me, you know. Really? So these things really happen. So just growing, growing so rapidly. And the reason why I name a few of the names that we're connected with, great people such as yourself, is to say that this organization wasn't an organization that was built solely by me. It was built by these inspirational people. Their stories, their messages, their contributions that they're giving to the world and in the community at large. And it's because of us collectively doing our parts as human beings — but blind human beings — that this organization and media can come. And then also started dealing with some people that didn't know, like a guy named The Blind Steppa, who lost his sight to gun violence in New York City, in Brooklyn. Got shot two times in his head and went dark. And he barely know how to use VoiceOver, you know? So he's new to it. And it's like, well, the media is there for that reason — to show them these resources and these things that's available for us, and to us. And each of us just coming together and saying these things, to try to make life just a little bit easier for all of us.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So tell us about kind of the current level of activity of the foundation. I think you mentioned radio station. What are the things you're doing now? I know you just became a sponsor of Access Information News.

Cazerny Bussey: I mean —

Dr. Kirk Adams: — part of the Persons with Disabilities Media Co-op. Welcome to the team. That's exciting. So it is exciting. So yeah, tell me what you're currently focusing on.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah. So that gets into the actual programming and meat and potatoes of the thing, because out of the passion has to come kind of structure, and system and order. And yeah, we have a radio station, Even Though I'm Blind Radio, of course. That's a passion of mine. Music was one of the things I grew up on. And we have currently about 45 artists, independent blind artists, playing on the station right now. So the station is doing really great. We actually just did a showcase out in Texas for blind artists at the NFB. So, nice.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, good.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah, we did a showcase for them. We did one for three years now. I couldn't make the second one — my father passed. But what I would say is, the growth is really growing. We had about six artists perform at the show, and we had a great attendance. People came out and they was really entertained by the talent of these artists. And we was able to give these artists the treatment they deserve. They all said they felt like stars. Shout out to my partner Big Saint, for giving them that wonderful environment. And it was just basically based to really highlight the talent of the blind artists in the world. We have a podcast that is, I think, one of my personal favorites, because the Even Though I'm Blind Experience is exactly what it says. It's just people basically coming on and talking about their experiences, you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: How do we find the radio station? How do we find the podcast?

Cazerny Bussey: Oh, yeah. You go to https://eventhoughimblind.com, and you'll be able to — you can [go to] https://eventhoughimblind.com/radio, or https://eventhoughimblind.com forward slash —

Dr. Kirk Adams: There'll be tabs there.

Cazerny Bussey: Yes. But it is on the website. Everything is there. The directory is growing at a great rate.

Dr. Kirk Adams: What's the directory?

Cazerny Bussey: Yes. We just added a directory not too long ago, but I thought it really made sense, because the story that I was telling — the Even Though I'm Blind Experience brought a lot of different personal brands and business owners that were blind and visually impaired. I just figured that they should have a platform where the people can actually find their services and their businesses. So we make this directory. We curated — we don't allow anyone, we got to take it through the protocol. But everybody that's on the directory, which is growing slowly, but it is growing, it's very solid. People like some of the people we named.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm looking forward to looking through the directory.

Cazerny Bussey: Oh, yeah. We even had to put [Kirk Adams in it] 00:41:41. But look, even the podcast sector, we just added, so that people could find podcasts and resources through the media channels. So it's still in development. We're definitely growing it. But like I said, to find the foundation —

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah, it's definitely — like I said, people that we're working with really close, and these people is just superstars. And I'm not bragging on the people because we really close to them, but we're open to connecting with anybody who has the heart and desire to change the narrative of blindness and change the world's view of blindness, and just here to help us to make this more of an equal playing field. Because I feel like we all deserve that opportunity when we have the capability, right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's right. So what do you want to get done in the next 12 months?

Cazerny Bussey: Man, in the next 12 months, I want to be able to reach more people on both sides. Our desire is to grow, grow, grow, because the foundation, new people and the brands that we're working with, is the story that need to be heard, right? So as a media organization, we want to grow, we want to get these stories out, we want to get these brands out. And yeah, just want to make major impacts. It's so much on the actual calendar right now that we're doing. We just covered an event with [Lakshmi?] 00:43:26 out in Lincoln Center.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh yeah. Nice.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah. And Lighthouse Guild. We did the media coverage for that event. It was very awesome. I got a Special Ed, one of the hip-hop greats, to come out.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Leading global — did you say leading global voice?

Cazerny Bussey: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I love the aspiration, I love leadership, I love the global scope. So talk to us a little more about what you see coming down the road.

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah, absolutely. The leading global voice is just us coming together as a collective and really raising our voices together as a collective community. And the reason why I say leading global voice, because the platform is for all of us, all the voices. I mean, we're not biased. I mean, if you really about the things you're doing, and do our thing and do our parts right and be excellent in other things that we're doing. So —

Dr. Kirk Adams: And how can people get involved? How can people connect with you? How can people join the community?

Cazerny Bussey: Yeah. Well, you go on the website. You can definitely join us, signing up to our email list. You can contact us through our email. We have submission links for your music if you're an artist. We have the submission for you to submit your business. And we straightforward — it's me and about three other people that run this thing, so we stay on top of everything. And we are very easy to find. We're on Facebook and all the social medias everywhere. So everything is aligned. But yeah, my thing is —

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm a big fan. Just met you, but I'm a big fan of you, because I'm a big fan of Even Though I'm Blind. I look forward to getting to know you better. I'm urging everyone to go to the website, sign up for the newsletter. If you want to be in the directory, submit. If you are a musical artist and you're blind, submit. And for me, I am Dr. Kirk Adams. My website is https://drkirkadams.com. I have an email newsletter too. And you can also buy my book, which came out last month, because — Cazerny, it's called The Disability Dividend: Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion. And it's a guidebook for employers to win the battle for the best and brightest talent by hiring people with disabilities.

Cazerny Bussey: I love that. I love that. So I think that's why we connected, because we kind of got the same scope. And that's —

Dr. Kirk Adams: It. Grew up very differently, yeah, as we talked about earlier, but came to the same intersection in the road here, where we're both trying to make the world a better place for people who are blind, create opportunities for blind people to thrive, to live their dreams. And I really admire what you're doing. And let's have you back in about six months and see what new things you've accomplished.

Cazerny Bussey: Oh yeah. It's going to be a lot going on. It's a lot going on.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I know. Well, I'll be in New York in February, so I will let you know in advance. And we'll break bread and get to know each other across the table somewhere, with your kids. That would be fun.

Cazerny Bussey: I mean, you're great. You're great. All right. Yeah, definitely. With the pioneers, man. You paved the way for people like me coming up. So we're going to keep the light shining forward.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's it?

Cazerny Bussey: That's it. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right, everybody. This is the founder of Even Though I'm Blind Foundation. [I'm] Dr. Kirk Adams, Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. And we'll catch you next time on another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at https://www.drkirkadams.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Jeremy Grandstaff, Executive Director, The Inspiration Foundation https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-08-11-2026/

In this candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk welcomes Jeremy Grandstaff, six months into a newly created role as executive director of the Inspiration Foundation, the nonprofit founded by Cleanlogic co-CEO Isaac Shapiro in honour of his blind mother, Bea. Kirk, who introduced the two, traces their friendship from a bench at a National Federation of the Blind conference through Jeremy's consulting work at the American Foundation for the Blind. Jeremy tells his own story: a county assessor who advised institutionalising him at age two and the father who gave the man two minutes to leave the property; school for the blind through fifth grade; a 12-year-old cold-calling publishers for accessible books in 1988; Bowling Green State University, IBM, and a master's in organization development. He is frank about two employers who told him he would never be as competent as a sighted person, and that he could always "just go on disability", the moment that made him say yes to this job.

The conversation then turns practical. Jeremy lays out the Foundation's two-sided strategy, grants that strengthen the pipeline of candidates, and the emerging Inspiration Seal that builds a pipeline of employers ready to hire and promote them, alongside a goal of raising the disability employment rate by 10% in five years. Kirk raises the contested ground of disability simulation, recalling the "hand grenade" a proposed dining-in-the-dark event threw into an AFB staff meeting and the research that resolved it, and Jeremy explains how the Foundation has rebuilt the format as a Dining in the Dark and Executive Roundtable with education on both sides of the meal. They close on executive presence, Jeremy insisting on walking to the podium with his cane rather than being escorted, because the walk is the argument.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment, and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences, and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And welcome, everybody, to another episode of the cleverly titled Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am Dr. Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in sunny, breezy Seattle, Washington, on a beautiful summer's day. And today my guest is a dear — I'll say a dear friend, and becoming a long-time colleague. Jeremy Grandstaff. Hi, Jeremy.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Well, hi, Kirk. That was a beautiful introduction. I hope that you're having better weather in Seattle than the melting pot that is D.C., where I live, with humidity. But thank you so much for having me on. It's really good to be with you. And I absolutely would consider you a long-time friend and colleague as well. So I'm honored by that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wonderful. Well, Jeremy stepped into a new and exciting role about six months ago. He is executive director of the Inspiration Foundation. And Jeremy, when we did most of our work together, it was in that sticky melting pot of Arlington, Virginia. And it is August, and I do not miss living there one single bit. I bet it's 76, no humidity, and a breeze here in Seattle today. So in any case, I met Jeremy at a National Federation of the Blind conference when I was fairly new in my role as president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind — my great honor to have an opportunity to lead that fine organization, Helen Keller's organization. And Jeremy and I sat on a bench together, and he talked to me about the consulting work he did, the organizational development work that he greatly enjoyed. Asked me to consider bringing him on as a resource should I need [unclear 00:02:32] strategic planning, executive coaching help. And I did engage Jeremy, and we accomplished some wonderful things together. And fast-forwarding, four years ago I left the American Foundation for the Blind. Jeremy and I have kept in good cadence of contact. And I had the opportunity to introduce him to a gentleman named Isaac Shapiro. Isaac is a partner in a company called Cleanlogic, which Jeremy can tell us more about. But Isaac's an excited dude. His mom is blind. He grew up with a blind mother, and he is an entrepreneurial cat. He started a company importing body care products with a distribution center near Philadelphia. And last I knew, he employed over 30 blind individuals in that warehouse and distribution setting. He's onshoring his manufacturing from China, has a goal of hiring 90 more people with disabilities. So he is one of those people who is out there doing things and not just talking about supercharging your bottom line through disability inclusion, but actually doing it — hiring people with disabilities and changing lives. And in honor and inspiration from his mother, he created the Inspiration Foundation. And I've been involved for several years with the foundation, in that they give grants to nonprofits in the blindness field who traditionally have been members of an organization called VisionServe Alliance. But in any case, they're nonprofits serving people who are blind. And Isaac and I share a passion for creating employment opportunities for people who are blind. So his grantmaking has focused around supporting the use of technology by these nonprofits in supporting their employment-driven programs. So we have lots of intersections in life. Isaac came to see me maybe in the first month or two when I was at the American Foundation for the Blind, came to the New York offices. He'd had a history with AFB previously, introduced himself, gave me some of his products with Braille labeling, which of course warmed my heart toward Isaac. Anyone who hands me a consumer product with Braille on it gets a star in their chart with me. And then we've also kept in touch, as I said. I've been a little bit involved in supporting the foundation by being on the grant review committee. And then when I see where two and two can make five or more, I love to make those connections. So when Isaac was seeking an executive director, I was pleased to suggest that he talk to Jeremy Grandstaff and consider him for that role. And so here we are. I'm pretty much done talking now. I would like, Jeremy, if you could talk to us a little bit about your lived experience with blindness, why this work is so meaningful to you, where the organization was at when you stepped into your leadership role. And it's a newly created role, too, so you have a wonderful lifetime opportunity to shape your own role, which is cool. And where — as our mutual dear friend Sean Callagy would say, from UNBLINDED — he would say: where have you been? Where are you now? Where are you going? What's working for you? What are your challenges? So there you have it.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Well, what a tee-up. First of all, thank you for that, Kirk. As I said before, it's really an honor to be with you. I have admired your work. Actually, you didn't know this, but back when you worked for the Lighthouses, I was kind of following you there. And then you went into AFB, and I thought, here's my chance, right, to build a relationship with you. So it's been really exciting. I think we've known each other for maybe seven or eight years now. So, yeah, very good to know you. I'll start with me, right, and kind of talking about some of my lived experience. I grew up in a little town called Marengo, Ohio. I was the first of four kids. Three of us cannot see; the other, my sister, can. And when I was first born — I think I was like two years old — my parents were told they needed someone from the county to come out and assess me. And so that person came out, Kirk, at the age of two, and told my parents that I would probably be best served by being put into an institution. And I'm so fortunate that my father — God rest his soul, he just died four months ago — the way the story was told to me, he basically gave them two minutes to get off his property and never come back. Right? You gotta kind of love that. And so there was this attitude that my parents had that was: nothing is off limits. You're going to have to figure out how to do it. No is never an answer that is acceptable, and we'll give you feedback, but you're going to have to solve your own problems. And what I find fascinating about that is that's exactly what we want to see from our workforce, right? Is that they are problem solving and that they are bringing ingenuity and creative problem solving into any teams that we develop. And so I didn't know that at the time, right, that I was being taught those skills. I remember getting very frustrated one time and slamming down a pitchfork because I didn't — you know, like my dad telling me, figure it out. And I distinctly remember him saying, well, you can keep slamming that pitchfork down and make me have to buy another one, or you can figure out how to solve the problem. Right? And so I was the first to come back to my school. At the time they called it mainstreaming; I think they call it integrated schooling now.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So did you go to school for blind children or not?

Jeremy Grandstaff: So I went to the school for the blind until I was in fifth grade.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Fifth. Okay.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Yep. I even had a teacher — never forget you, Mrs. Murphy — who said I'd never make it in a public school. Sent her a graduation card, by the way, when I graduated. But I came back up to public school, and I remember being in sixth grade and coming home from school on the bus and calling up the publishing companies because I didn't have books. And I'm like this 12-year-old kid arguing for what I need, in 1988, to be able to read a book. Right? And back then we had very little options in what that could be. It was Braille or tape. So, fast forward, I graduated high school. I went to Bowling Green State University and got a bachelor's degree in information systems and international business. And I started working for IBM, managing—

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, information — what was— kind of give us the layman's view of what information systems meant. I guess that was when—

Jeremy Grandstaff: Think about it as the people who go into an organization and do analysis of all of their information systems, and then tell them what they need to do to fix all their problems. Ironic.

Dr. Kirk Adams: This is a computer. Computers. Yep. Yeah. Okay.

Jeremy Grandstaff: And the irony in that, by the way, is most of the time back then that information gathering, it was very much a 'this is what we believe you need to do' type of thing. There was really no bringing the client with you in those conversations. Right? We're talking—

Dr. Kirk Adams: What—

Jeremy Grandstaff: Doctor.

Dr. Kirk Adams: What's the prescription?

Jeremy Grandstaff: That's right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Jeremy Grandstaff: And so I started working for IBM, got a job as a call center employee, and then ended up managing a team of 55 when I was 26 years old. And I have to tell you, Kirk, that was intimidating. I was the only blind person in the entire facility. Right? But what it did is it gave me the opportunity to really practice what was going to take a team to the next level. So IBM actually lost the account that I worked on, and like 6,000 other people, I got laid off. And at the time I was getting my master's in organization development, and I fell in love with this concept that is very much applicable to what we say in the disability community: nothing for us without us. And that's the basic concept of organization development. How do you design, plan, collaborate in a way that brings everybody into the equation that has the lived experience that you need, or that you're serving? And so I fell in love with it. I started my company. That takes me up to you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Jeremy Grandstaff: And how I met you. And I've done some work for small businesses since then. And when Isaac and you— well, I distinctly remember when you came to me and said, you should think about applying for this.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I— yeah.

Jeremy Grandstaff: I remember taking this step back in my life and saying, do I actually want to work in disability employment? Is that where I want to be? And I think what made me say that, Kirk, is that there are times, I think, as blind people where we feel we have to work in the blindness field, that there's not another option for us. And I wanted to make sure that if I made this commitment, I was all in. I actually think you and I had a conversation around this. Right? That this is not going to be something where I can just do it and kind of, oh yeah, this is kind of what I do. It's all in or not.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I remember you asking me, why aren't you applying for it? I said, because I don't want to do all that hard work that it's going to take to build an organization and create a new role and build a new board — and a high-performing board — and put in processes. I've done that a couple of times. And I'm glad there are enthusiastic, impassioned, driven, talented people such as yourself to do that work.

Jeremy Grandstaff: That's such a compliment coming from you, Kirk. And I'll tell you what made me say yes. It's fascinating to me that this is where it was. In the past seven years that I stopped working for myself, I have been told by one employer that after three years and them getting to know me, I would never, ever be as competent as a person that could see.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wow.

Jeremy Grandstaff: And they said it on video, and they said it in a way that was completely, like, illegal, if you want to get technical. Right? But I chose to just get another job and move on. And then the next employer that I had, at one point, as we were separating, said, I want you to understand that you are not the top person that I feel I need to pay, because you can always just go on disability. Wow. And I thought, I don't ever, ever want people to have to hear those things. Never in a million years. And I was really just so passionate about this idea that if we're going to change the world, we need to look at what's happened over the last 30 years when it comes to disability employment, and we need to recognize where we have progressed and where we can do better. And I thought, what better opportunity to just sink my teeth in and see how I can play a role in that and what that looks like. So that's how I got here, and that's why I said yes. Ironically, by the way, I was in the job for two weeks, and Isaac and I were talking, and we were getting ready for what is our biggest signature event in February of this past year. I had literally been in the job for two weeks, and he said, do you need help writing your speech? And I hadn't really thought about it. Right? This idea that— and he goes, well, as the executive director, we should probably have you set a vision for where we're heading. And I was like, oh, that's a good point. Yeah, I really should do that. One of my best speeches I've ever given in my life. And I have to tell you — being vulnerable in this particular setting — it was the first speech that I've ever given that I wrote out completely. Wrote it out. And I don't usually have to do that. Right? But this was a, I need to wow them, and it needs to be good. The way it was explained to me is I made some people cry, some people smile, some people laugh, and others just got their checkbooks out. And that's okay too.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's absolutely right.

Jeremy Grandstaff: So what do we do? I think you wanted me to talk about—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, yeah. And let's just clarify. So you have not been in an executive director or [unclear 00:17:16] role of a nonprofit before. So this is your first venture. You've worked with nonprofits, you've consulted with them, but this is your first top-paid staff position with the nonprofit.

Jeremy Grandstaff: So the way I'll answer that is, most of the time I was the one advising the top paid person. Right? And in order to do that, I was schooled by a lot of EDs very early in my career who did it well. But until this position, I was always the second in charge.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Okay. I just wanted— I was pretty sure that was true. But somewhere in this mix of what you're telling me, I'd love to hear your impressions after six months as a first-time ED — things you've come to realize or appreciate or understand in your new role. So that would be fascinating to me.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Do you know how many people I've asked that question to? It's so interesting. Like, I think that's actually part of the answer of the question. Right? I spent 25 years of my career telling people like me what to do and how they could do it and how they could tell [unclear 00:18:32] better. And so far, I am proud to say I was about 85 to 90% right. Good. And I think part of it is just learning and being in the moment. Right? So, so let's, let's—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Set a baseline. Why don't we tell folks what the Inspiration Foundation is?

Jeremy Grandstaff: Yeah. And then we'll come back to that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: A little bit of the history. Like I said, what's the narrative arc of the foundation — past, present, future?

Jeremy Grandstaff: So, excellent. So the foundation has actually been around for 20 years. As you said, Isaac and Mike, who are co-CEOs of Cleanlogic, started the company about 20 years ago — or started the foundation about 20 years ago. It was started because of Bea Shapiro, who was Isaac's mom — or who is Isaac's mom, and actually serves on our board today. And I think when the whole thing came up, I'm pretty sure it was around: how can we get more technology into training centers that's going to help them be able to train people to be more qualified candidates? And so that's where our basis started. So when I came on board, my charge was to build a strong and diverse organization, build the board, make sure we've got a board that can help us expand, and then to launch what we're calling our Inspiration Seal membership program — membership and education program. As far as looking at how can we not just target building a stronger pipeline of candidates, but also building a stronger pipeline of companies who are ready to hire and promote candidates with disabilities, or people with disabilities. In my first year — or in my first six months — we expanded our grants program by $12,000 that we were giving this year. And keep in mind, by the way, that program had already started for this year before I started. Right? So we were able to secure a little bit of extra funding to end up giving ten grants to various training organizations. And those are all up on our website, https://inspirationfoundation.org. We have launched our steering committee for the Seal education and membership program. We're doing a really good job, Kirk, of framing that program with help from people with disabilities and corporate at the same time, kind of coming together and saying, what do we need on both sides of the equation, and what does that look like? And I'm also proud to tell you, sir, that we have revised the way that we're doing Dining in the Dark events. So we now are doing what's called the Dining in the Dark and Executive Roundtable — basically where it's education before we do the experiential dinner. I like to say, Jeremy style, with some process-oriented, you know, questions and debriefing during the dinner. And then we come back the next day and we work directly with executives on how can they actually start implementing what they've learned on day one. Right? And let's—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Let's pause and dig into two things a little deeper.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Yes, please.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I know I've talked with Isaac about the Seal, and my understanding is Isaac wants a way to drive others to do what he has been doing and is doing. And that is to understand that people with disabilities can be an integrally valuable part of a workforce, and to encourage and equip other employers to emulate what Cleanlogic has done and hire significant numbers of people with disabilities. So I know it's evolving, but if you could talk a little bit more about the concept of the Inspiration Foundation Seal.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Absolutely. 100%. And I do want to say, talk to me in a month, and this may actually change a little bit. And that's driven by the team, right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: I understand.

Jeremy Grandstaff: It's—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Being created.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Yeah. So, the concept of the Seal — kind of think about the women-owned business seal, or, I always forget their name, but they're very big on social impact businesses: the B Corp seal. And so the concept is Isaac wanted to look at developing a seal that would be able to be placed on your packaging when you're a manufacturer. And so you can say, by looking at the seal, we are promoting and hiring people with disabilities.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Right. That's the concept. Now, what we're realizing as we're designing this is we want the seal to have value, and we want it to be like — it's not so much about the seal being on a package. It's the concepts that are behind the seal and being able to help other organizations be able to achieve those. So a lot of this is going to be resource oriented, education driven, different workshops and so forth. And I think what's interesting about this is there are other organizations that are doing some of this very well. Right? And so our focus is really on retail and supply chain type companies that are small to medium sized, and then your bigger box retail organizations, which we have lots of good relationships in. And in our meetings that we've had with National Organization on Disability and Disability:IN, we're really doing a good job of, like, not duplicating, but figuring out how to collaborate with. I see this as there are enough businesses who could use this help that we all need to start operating in a collaborative fashion. Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: And we know research shows that consumers, given a choice, if they can purchase products and services from companies that do social good in the world, they would rather do that than not. So that's fabulous.

Jeremy Grandstaff: And I do, by the way — I just want to clarify, you know, more for when Isaac listens to this — the seal will definitely be there on packaging, but we want to make sure that it's not just being given out like, oh, here you go, just say, oh good, you're going to put that on. We really want to make sure companies are doing this.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And it's not just a participation ribbon. Actually—

Jeremy Grandstaff: No.

Dr. Kirk Adams: —meet some criteria.

Jeremy Grandstaff: That's right. There are criteria that we're developing. And actually, I will say our design team has done a really good job of even bringing other models that we can, you know, build off of and really put some strong criteria together. So we're starting to pilot that a little bit, and we should have more on that probably late this year or early next year.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Now let's talk about dining in the dark. So I was at the American Foundation for the Blind, had been there, I don't know, quite a bit less than a year, and a community group that doesn't need to be named contacted us and said, we want to raise money for the American Foundation for the Blind, and we want to put on a dining in the dark event. We want you to publicize it. And it was like a hand grenade was thrown in the middle of the conference table during our executive staff meeting. There were strong reactions about dining in the dark. And of course, well, we had — I'll just say a sighted woman who was in charge of fundraising said, these people want to raise us money, yea verily, let's support them. And, you know, a blind person who is in the advocacy role said, the terrible, destructive, counterproductive — makes people scared of blindness, makes people think blind people are pathetic and helpless. You can't touch it. We're against it. So, being a research organization, we said, well, let's research this. So we actually found a dissertation written by Dr. Arielle Silverman, who is now the head of research at AFB. When she was a student at the University of Washington, she did her dissertation on disability simulation experiences. So, spend a day in a wheelchair, spend a day on crutches, spend the day with earplugs in, spend the day with a blindfold. Eat a spaghetti dinner with green salad and dressing with a blindfold on, even though you're fully sighted. You've never done that before. And, you know, not surprisingly, the results were: if you throw a person without an impairment, and impose an impairment on them, and throw them into a situation that they're not prepared for or trained for, it will have negative consequences. They will think there's nothing that could be worse than being blind. There's nothing that could be worse than using a wheelchair. It's scary. It's disorienting. I can't function. How can blind people — aren't able to do common everyday tasks? Because I wasn't able to when I was under blindfold. And then the research shows if it is part of a balanced breakfast, if you are educating people, giving them context, talking to them about tools, techniques, training, using it as part of a curriculum of teaching, then it can be a value add. So I know you were hinting at that direction. I know Inspiration Foundation has conducted some very well attended, financially very successful dining in the dark events in conjunction with some of the largest companies in the country. And I know that you are very, very attuned to the dangers and promise of disability simulation events. So, would love to hear you talk a little bit more about that, how you've brought that sensibility into the space and what your experience has been so far.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Well, I appreciate you asking that question. It's so nicely— and by the way, I love Dr. Silverman's stuff. So ironically, I actually read that before I took the job. I went and read her dissertation because I knew that that was our big signature event. I was actually kind of nervous — if I'm a little bit more vulnerable than I'm supposed to be, so you can always cut these out, Kirk — but I was worried before I even went to the event that this is what we were creating. Right? And I wanted to make sure that if we did it, we did it in a respectful and educational way. Right. So one of the things that we've actually done is we have a team of people coming together to plan. You know, I love my planning teams, right? So we've got a team of people that are coming together that are planning our 2027 Dining in the Dark and Executive Roundtable event. And what I found fascinating is even the people that didn't have disabilities were so committed to making sure that we are putting some type of an educational type of piece around it. Now, I like to jokingly say, we're going to OD the dinner — which is typical of Jeremy to do in any situation anyway, Kirk. But some things that I'm actually thinking about is, like, before they even — you know, so obviously there's an education component before the dinner, and one the next day after. Right. And that's how we're kind of sandwiching it with education. But I think some of the other things that I'm really intrigued to do is, before they even put the blindfolds on, have a brief conversation at your table on what scares you about this experience, or what are you not sure you're going to be able to do. And then do the experience, and actually talk about, what was one thing that you could do that you didn't think you were going to be able to do? Like, what was one moment where you said, you know what, this got easier as I did X, Y, Z? And really give them an opportunity to talk about it. And I think the other key piece, especially during the dinner, right — because there's a whole educational before and after type of thing, the before and after the next day — but it's me actually being able to talk about, here are the tools that I used as we were going through this experience tonight that you may not have known you even had. And this is why training is so critical for people who lose their vision, or who have other ability challenges, whether they're a parent or not a parent, and being able to really take it back to training, going for independence, and making sure that people have that. So that's just some things that we're toying around right now in our team meetings. But one of the things that is really important to me is to really be very cautious on how we talk about this. And so anytime we say dining in the dark, it's 'and executive roundtable.' Right? Because it's got to have that educational component. One of the other things that we're actually exploring too — I was just working on this today — is, so this is our big signature event, but how do we bring this to your company in a way that's going to create those educational opportunities? Right? You have many companies who will do, you know, an annual employee dinner. Is this an opportunity to make that a different experience? Right? And what that looks like? So we're still exploring it. And I love us, like, as we grow as an organization — one of the things that we're looking at is there's been such a focus for our organization in blind and low vision. But I also, like, we're talking about an overall goal of increasing the employment rate of people with disabilities by 10% in five years. That's our main goal, by the way, Kirk. Very aggressive. It's an aggressive goal, but it is about getting more people hired. It's also about looking at, how do we help the other bigger communities — neurodiverse communities, for example, or hard of hearing? What can we learn from, you know, the blind community, the neurodivergent community, the hard of hearing, that is going to work across all three? And then what's unique? Right? So what I love about my job is my job is to bring the right people together and make sure that they have the resources that they need to be able to build those double pipelines, like I talked about in the beginning. Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: So my understanding is the Inspiration Foundation is addressing both the supply side and the demand side. So you're supporting, through grants, the nonprofits that are out in the community training and supporting people with disabilities as they move toward employment — supporting those programs — and at the same time creating the demand pull by working with companies to encourage them, but also provide them with the tools they need to hire more people with disabilities. The seal is a visible manifestation of those companies' readiness and commitment to hiring people with disabilities. They're meeting certain criteria to earn the seal. And you are there to make all of this happen. So in our last few minutes, this is where I'm really interested. Now that you're on the other side of the table, Mr. Consultant, and you have that responsibility — what are some insights? What are some things that you've realized, or have been affirmed for you, that, oh gosh, I was always right about this one, or this is something I might have missed? Just any insights you might have in the last couple of minutes would be great.

Jeremy Grandstaff: I appreciate this question so much, because there were two things that I remember distinctly having a conversation about, and it was actually with my sister and my little brother, who you know, Corey, who is the vice principal at the school for the blind in Washington. And my sister is actually — she's a senior HR member for American College of Cardiology. And I remember when, before I even took the job, the two of them — we were all down at my mom and dad's because my dad was sick at the time — and the two of them took me in a room and sat down, and they said, we need you to understand that the minute that you say yes, you are no longer Jeremy Grandstaff. You're Jeremy Grandstaff who's the executive director of a foundation, and everything you say is going to be from that lens. Every time you open your mouth, you're going to be talking as the ED of an organization. No matter how much you're on your little Facebook over there posting, you are setting a tone. And I was so glad that they did that, because it wasn't something I hadn't thought about, but it was really neat to have it put so bluntly to me that this was going to be a change in how I had to show up on a daily basis. I always have to be even keeled. I have to balance: when do I fight the battle versus when do I actually bring people together to address the challenge? Right? And so having that lens as I started the job was so critical. And it really made me also say, okay, I've been doing this for 25 years, I was trained by some great people, but what do I not know? Right? And so ironically, I went and reread your dissertation. You didn't know that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, thank you.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Went and reread yours. I read Dr. Silverman's. I also read Joan Garry's—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, yeah.

Jeremy Grandstaff: —something on concept of a nonprofit, right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: She has, like, Nonprofits Are Messy, I think, is hers. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Grandstaff: And there was such a great— like, most of it was refresher for me, right. But one of the things that she put really well is the board-ED relationship, and what does that look like. And for me, I'm stepping into an organization that's been around for 20 years. Right. And so my job is to grow it and expand it, which means — and this is the other thing that I really learned, and I've gotten a lot better at doing — is to say, let's slow down for a second. Right. Not that I didn't think things through holistically. Like, that's always been my mantra, right? I'm very much about how can we look at all sides of an issue. Right. So I didn't have that challenge. But what I did have to learn is to say, I know you want to do this right now, but let's slow down for a minute and talk it through first. Let's try to understand it. Let's make sure that what we're doing is going to be perceived in the way we want it to. And the best example I can think of this, Kirk, that is so real — and I'm kind of curious to see how this resonates with you. When I gave that first speech, there were 192 people from several different companies, all top executives. And I remember showing up to give that speech two hours early. And, you know, they're doing the final setup and all that stuff. And Isaac is watching me, and he comes up and he's like, why are you doing what you're doing? What I was doing is, I was walking, because I don't have Ozzy anymore. He retired. Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Jeremy Grandstaff: I was walking with my cane from my table to the podium and then back to my table.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I always do that. Yep.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Right. And he goes, I don't understand. He's like, I can just take you up there. And I was like, I totally appreciate where you're coming from. But this is my first speech to this group of people, and I need them — and he was introducing me as well from the podium, right — so I'm like, I need them to see me walk up those steps.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's right.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Take the mic from you, escort you down off the steps, and then come back up. And he's like, why? And I'm— because I'm about to tell them that hiring someone with a disability is going to improve their bottom line. And if they see you walking me up there, then that undermines that concept. And I think that's the biggest thing. You know, I don't think I fully understood that public perception role that I have as an ED. And I gotta tell you, Kirk, if I had known that 20 years ago and acted like that as a CEO, I think that that would have opened more doors for me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. It's executive presence, right? Yeah, executive presence. So, very interesting. One thing I've started doing as I've started doing more public speaking is, when I am at the podium and I'm about to speak, I'm collapsing my cane. I say, you know, I'm Dr. Kirk Adams. To meet my accessibility needs today, I use an app on my iPhone with the built-in screen reader VoiceOver to schedule a rideshare, and then I use my long white cane and my orientation and mobility skills to get up to the room and to get to the podium. And I am going to be using some notes on a Braille tablet with a refreshable Braille display. I just say that, and it's really to just start — and these are mostly in corporate settings — just start normalizing that people with impairments, in order to fit with the environment and be effective, we use tools and we use training, we use techniques. I just want to start normalizing these conversations in those rooms. So that's one thing I'll gift to you if you want to adopt that.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Oh, I totally am going to borrow that. Absolutely. 100%. And I think that also naturally feeds into then the next part of that speech for me, especially at our Dining in the Dark and Executive Roundtable, right, where it's: now let me tell you what training we are funding, and why that's important, and why you want to be, you know, making sure your employees are tapping into that as well. Right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's right. So time has flown by, as it always does when you and I get on a call together. So how can people get involved? What would you like the listeners of this fine podcast to do in order to support your good work?

Jeremy Grandstaff: Well, I appreciate that. First of all, if you are affiliated with, supporting, taking lessons from, being trained by, or just a member of an organization that's doing training — especially on assistive technology and employment outcomes — our grants program is a good place for you to plug into. And so that's on our website as well. If you are a corporate executive, or you are the owner of a small to medium sized business, checking out some of the stuff that we're doing with the Inspiration Seal, or having a conversation with me about what you need to increase the hiring and promoting of people with disabilities — that's a conversation I'd love to have. And of course, Kirk, for anybody who needs to make that big charitable donation, we will absolutely help you do that as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's right.

Jeremy Grandstaff: And I think, you know, I also see our Dining in the Dark and Executive Roundtables as very much about, you know, corporate coming together and really sponsoring and getting educated on how we can be doing this better. So I encourage everyone, you know, check— you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm the Jeremy Grandstaff out of DC. Or you can go to our website, https://inspirationfoundation.org. And everything has literally been updated in the last week, Kirk, so I'm pretty proud of that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'll go take a gander.

Jeremy Grandstaff: I appreciate that very much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, as an executive director of a nonprofit, now you have to be at your desk with your phone on and email open until close of business on December 31st, so you can get that mythical last-minute tax-deductible donation that someone desperately needs to make.

Jeremy Grandstaff: That's right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I do want to say, why are you still here [on the] 31st? Someone may be calling. They need to make that big gift. In any case, reach out to Jeremy — https://inspirationfoundation.org. And as for me, you can reach me on my website, which is 'D-R' for 'doctor' — https://drkirkadams.com. Sign up for my monthly newsletter, and there's a link to my newly released business book, The Disability Dividend: Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion. So why don't you buy a copy for yourself and one of your business associates, and sign up for the newsletter. Reach out to me, reach out to Jeremy, if you want to talk large, small, medium, immediate, future — anything to do with creating opportunities for people with disabilities to thrive in employment. Get in touch with either or both of us, please. And talk to you next time.

Jeremy Grandstaff: Before you end — I don't know if you know this or not, but I actually just co-authored a book that was released a couple weeks ago called The Employee Experience Casebook: 55 Cases to Foster Employee Experience Discussions. And a lot of these cases are talking about judgments made by people about people with disabilities, and really helping to do those. So I completely forgot that until you just said your book.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Again— say the title again.

Jeremy Grandstaff: It's called The Employee Experience Casebook, and it's on Amazon. I'll make sure that you have the link. And I look forward to reading your book as well, because that is totally relevant to what I'm doing, and I'm sure makes the business case for what—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, absolutely. And I think Isaac Shapiro was called out in that book. So you might tell Isaac to rush out and buy a copy and look for his name.

Jeremy Grandstaff: I will absolutely do that. And I look forward to continuing to partner with you and collaborate with you. It's just such an honor. Thank you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Absolutely. We'll talk again very soon. I will take a look at the revamped website. And everyone who's listening, we'll catch you next time on another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share, or leave a review at https://www.drkirkadams.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Mindy Kolin, Director of Development & Industry Partnerships at Teach Access, and Kate Sonka, Executive Director https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-08-06-2026/

In this warm anniversary episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk opens from a smoke-covered Seattle with wishes for friends in eastern Washington, then welcomes Kate Sonka, executive director of Teach Access, and Mindy Kolin, who leads its fundraising, partnerships and communications. Kirk traces his own first encounter with the organization: a visit to Yahoo's accessibility team early in his AFB tenure, where Darren Burton and Mike Shebanek showed him a whiteboard tally of how many incoming computer science graduates had ever heard of accessibility, a lopsided count that became the case for Teach Access. Kate, who grew up at the Wisconsin School for the Blind where both her parents taught, recounts the April 2016 kickoff at Yahoo with Shebanek, Larry Goldberg and Jeff Wieland; Mindy recalls starting her career at the New York employment agency Eleanor Roosevelt and Orin Lehman founded, and finding Teach Access on Indeed 25 years later.

The heart of the conversation is strategy. Teach Access concentrates on educators rather than students directly, the multiplier being that one trained faculty member reaches 50 to 100 students a semester, and on "small teaching": folding accessibility into classes people already teach rather than fighting the years-long approval path for a new course. Kate walks through the Fellowship, the four-week Summer Institute, and the openly licensed Curriculum Repository; Mindy reports the headline result, a goal set in 2020 to reach 1 million students by 2030 that passed 1.5 million in 2025, five years early. They close on funding, on contract work with industry partners that keeps educator resources free, and on Teach Access Europe, where enforcement of the European Accessibility Act has made this a promising moment to expand.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment, and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences, and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that Dr. Kirk Adams, talking to you from smoky Seattle, Washington. Our heartfelt wishes for strength and safety go out to our friends east of the mountains in eastern Washington, the Spokane area particularly hit hard. I have spent a lot of time in Spokane, as we established the Inland Northwest Lighthouse for the Blind and [unclear 00:01:07] about 50 blind people in that community. So our thoughts and prayers to folks in eastern Washington. Today on the podcast, we have Kate Sonka and Mindy Kolin, and they are with a forward-thinking, impactful organization that I love called Teach Access. So hello, Kate. Hello, Mindy.

Kate Sonka: Hi, Kirk. Good to be here.

Mindy Kolin: Hi, Kirk. Thanks for having us.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So my little history with Teach Access — which Kate and Mindy will tell you more — but my understanding is that it encourages universities to include accessibility in their core curriculum for computer science programs. And when I first was hired to be president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, when I stepped out of that same role here at the Lighthouse in Seattle to New York City, and after a couple of months getting oriented, turning over all the jigsaw puzzle pieces, took a trip to the Bay Area, because AFB had such great partnerships with the good people at Google and Apple and Genentech and Yahoo. And I went to visit Yahoo, and a former AFB employee, a blind gentleman named Darren Burton, was working there in our accessibility department. And I spent a couple hours with their team. And Mike Shebanek was there at that time. And they told me about a tally board. They had a whiteboard in their conference room. And when Yahoo was hiring new engineers, interviewing with the accessibility team was part of the interview process, and they kept a tally of how many of the young computer science graduates they were sent to interview — how many of them knew about accessibility and how many did not. And I can't quote the numbers exactly, but it was something like 764 had never heard of accessibility, didn't know what it was, and 27 at least knew what it was. So that's when Mike told me about Teach Access, and the long-term systems change model to bring accessibility into the mainstream of computer science curriculums, and to generate a whole new pipeline of people who would be working on technology for the good of all, who understood accessibility and could bake it in from the beginning. Shortly thereafter, I met Kate at one of the many, many blindness-related conferences where we crossed paths. And recently I was very pleased to receive an invitation in the mail to join Kate and some of her team at a dinner here in Seattle with some other leaders in accessibility and disability in the community. So we reconnected. She gave us some very exciting updates, said more people need to know about this. So how about come on the podcast? So here we are, and I am grateful for what Teach Access is doing. I'm very impressed with the intentional, very strategic way you're going about things. So I'd really love to hand it over to you, Kate, you, Mindy, to hear the story of how you got involved, the steps that have been taken so far, where the organization is at, where do you see things going?

Kate Sonka: Yeah, this is Kate. Thank you so much, Kirk. I really actually really love that whiteboard story. I've never heard that specific story, so I'm excited to kind of add that to my repertoire of stories, to kind of talk about our origins, which I'll share in a moment. But just want to thank you, the team, for having us on the pod today, and being able to share about our work for your audience. So thank you to everyone who's listening in. So I'll do a really quick just who I am and where I've come from, and then Mindy as well, and then we'll get into the work that we do. So, my name again, Kate Sonka, I'm the executive director here at Teach Access. You know, I could spend a long time talking about my winding backstory, but I won't. I want to be able to talk about our organization. But one of the things — you know, sometimes the universe has a good sense of humor, right? And so growing up, my parents were both educators at the Wisconsin School for the Blind. And so as I grew up, that was the family business, right? So my mom was an orientation and mobility instructor, and my dad was a teacher for physical education, and he taught and coached all of the sports there. And I think, Kirk, you maybe crossed paths with some of the folks from that school too over the years. Is that right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes, absolutely.

Kate Sonka: Yeah. So, you know, at the time it was wonderful. It gave me great insight into what is inclusive education, what does that look like, and what sorts of learning environments are we creating for students and teachers, and how do we do that? Of course, as a child I wasn't really thinking about it that way. It was more, yay, it's my birthday and my dad's going to let me have my birthday party, you know, in the gym or the swimming pool or something like that. But gave me a really good grounding in that work. And then over time, you know, my background is actually in linguistics and language acquisition, and for a time was really intentional, or thought I would be working with language learners in the classroom at the higher education level. And then through a series of things ended up working at a couple of different universities in the academic technology offices. And so really looking at, what is the tech that faculty are using for teaching? And of course, how is that accessible? Is the technology accessible? And more importantly, are the materials and some of the teaching practices or pedagogy accessible for disabled students in the class, and really thinking about what that looks like. So I didn't necessarily enter accessibility thinking, yes, this is what my parents did, this is what I'm going to do. It was sort of a windy path, and all of a sudden — I guess it's been more 12-ish years now — everything kind of came together and it made sense. I'm here for inclusive teaching and learning, whether that is about disability and accessibility, whether that's about language learners in our classrooms. And what is it that faculty and educators need to be able to create these environments? And so that's kind of the backstory. But ultimately, through my work at Michigan State University, working in the academic tech office in one of the colleges there, started to hear about Teach Access. And this was ten years ago, where it's now 2026, which is our 10th anniversary year. And I'll talk a little bit more about who we are and what that looks like, but I'll turn it to Mindy so she can introduce herself as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great.

Mindy Kolin: Hi. Yeah. Thanks so much, Kate. This is Mindy speaking. So nice to be here, Kirk. I have been with Teach Access for four years now, and I've spent the better part of 30 years in the nonprofit sector. Well, my very first job out of college was working for an employment agency for people with disabilities that was based in New York City, that was founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, Orin Lehman, and a bunch of other really cool people. It no longer exists. But as Kate mentioned, the universe — you know, 25 years later, I was looking for a job, and on Indeed I saw this job description for an organization called Teach Access, and thought, this is really still a thing? I can't believe this is still a thing, that people are still trying to make the world accessible and it's just not happening. And so, let me get back in. So four years later, yeah, here I am. And so fundraising and development and partnerships and communications and all those fun things are what I handle. And yeah, really glad to be here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. I had mentioned to you, my first ten years out of college I was involved in banking and finance, but then turned 30 and pivoted into the nonprofit sector. My first nonprofit job was a development officer for the Seattle Public Library Foundation, raising money for the statewide Talking Book and Braille Library, which I am a huge user of Braille books from the National Library Service. And then that led me to going back to school and get a master's in not-for-profit leadership. And then a couple fundraising jobs, and then got a call from the Lighthouse for the Blind here, because they wanted to set up a fundraising program and a foundation and a fundraising board. And they'd heard there was a blind guy in town who knew how to do that. So I was given that opportunity, which, to their credit, my gratitude, they saw leadership capabilities in me and they invested a lot of time and effort in preparing me to be in a leadership role, and to eventually move into the CEO role there, which then led me to AFB, which led me to Yahoo and Mike and you all. And so I concur with the — the universe may take its time, but it does help you in some nice directions.

Kate Sonka: I love hearing people's stories, because you're right. It is, you know, in the moment you're kind of like, is this where I'm going next? But as you look back you're able to find those sort of through lines and what that looks like. So.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It kind of — it actually looks like you were making sense and planning it all, even though you weren't very intentional.

Kate Sonka: Yes. Very intentional decisions. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I heard about Teach Access from Mike in probably September, October of 2016. And so this is the ten-year anniversary. So I guess I heard about it toward the beginning. And then you came on board not long after. Right?

Kate Sonka: Yeah, that's right. So there was a kickoff meeting that happened in spring of 2016 that Yahoo hosted on their campus. And so Mike was there. Mike, Larry Goldberg, Jeff Wieland, who's at Meta — so they were all part of the core co-founding group. You know, I've heard them say before, or at the time as well, you know, the reason that we're doing this is because we're having all these new hires come in, we go and ask them about, what do you know of disability? What do you know of accessibility? And not many raise their hands. Right? So I never knew there was an actual whiteboard, which is very delightful to know. So I love that. But yeah, that's what it came out of, is they were, you know, kind of sharing with each other and, hey, this seems like it's a bigger thing than just our individual companies. What do we do about this? And so they called together a group of folks for that kickoff meeting. And there was, I don't know, about 40 of us there. And it was a very good representation of how we continue to do this work today, where we had industry folks in the room, we had higher ed and education.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you were out there, you were at the kickoff meeting.

Kate Sonka: I was, yeah, I was really, really fortunate to have gotten in there. They kind of mentioned it at the CSUN ATC conference in that year, which is usually March. March, yeah. And then the kickoff was later in April, I believe. And so I heard about it, was able to make arrangements to get out there, so was able to be at the kickoff. And then there are, of course, some multiple other people that were there. But really it was kind of like everyone got in the room and it was like, well, here's a thing we're trying to address. What do we do about it? And so a lot of brainstorming in that initial couple of days — I think it was about a day and a half. There were some initial working groups or task forces that came out of it, trying to address a lot of different aspects that we still are working on today, or, you know, continue to work through. But it was all to address what you mentioned earlier, which is: how do we get more students learning about accessibility, digital accessibility, while they're still in school? It's not a required topic. And so initially we were really focused in areas like computer science, HCI, UX. Because — what do you mean, a student could go through a four-year undergraduate program and never hear about this or learn about it? And so, to be fair, there are faculty who had been teaching about it, and they were in the room, and they're valuable partners in this work. But broadly speaking, it's not a required topic. And so how do we start to close what we call this accessibility technology skills gap? So the idea that industry is looking for recent graduates who know something about these topics, whether it's general knowledge or maybe some technical skills, and they just can't find enough. There just aren't enough graduating who know at least a little bit. And so that's really where it was born out of. And then over the years it's just changed and morphed into a different organization, which is a 501(c)(3). So in 2016 it was purely a bunch of volunteers. We came together and said, what can we do? And worked that way for a few years. And in 2021 we got our 501(c)(3) status, and so we became an official nonprofit organization. And at that point started building, or continued to build out, a staff. So I actually stepped into this role part time starting in 2019. So for two years I was doing this part time while I was still working as a faculty member at Michigan State University. And then in 2021 went full time, and continued to build out the team to have — now we're at four full-time staff. And the mission has remained the same: how do we get students learning? I would say, you know, a lot has changed over the years; the mission has not. But where we've, you know, as we've looked at our scale and our ability to scale, where we really see the most and have and continue to concentrate our attention on is the faculty themselves, or the educators. And you'll hear us use that word 'educator' really intentionally at Teach Access, because anyone who's spent any time around a higher ed institution knows that there's all types of people teaching on a campus. Not only tenured faculty — we've got grad students, librarians, instructional designers, IT folks, etc. So we use that word to be really inclusive, that we are thinking about anyone who's on a campus who may be teaching and has the ability to share this knowledge with their students. But we really have found that that is our sort of multiplying effect, is working with the educators. Because you can imagine, Kirk, you know, if we were only working with students directly, we reach one student and that's amazing, but that's the one student. Whereas if you're teaching a class every semester of 50 to 100 students every semester, that's 50 to 100 more students that are learning about it. So over time, our resources, our training, our materials have really become focused on what do faculty need to be trained themselves in these topics, if they don't know about them or are interested in learning more. So training opportunities of a variety that we offer, as well as resources. So maybe you're ready to teach and you're looking for some ideas. We have a Curriculum Repository with a lot of materials that are under — it's an OER, open educational resource, under a Creative Commons license. You can go take that, adapt it, use it in your class. So we offer a lot of different resources in that way, geared towards faculty. And I will say, I mentioned—

Dr. Kirk Adams: What would you say the key strategies are to educate the educators, or give the educators resource, or build the capacity of educators? I don't know which language you use, but, you know, what are the key strategies, and how are those implemented tactically? What are your program activities? What do you all do?

Kate Sonka: I love that — practical, tactical. Yeah, our sort of key strategy in working with faculty is meeting them where they are, and then encouraging small teaching, which — there's a lot of good research out there on small teaching as a practice. But the idea being, we are approaching faculty who are already teaching. They're already teaching a class where they could be, should be teaching accessibility, and they may not be. How do we help them start to introduce that into their curriculum?

Dr. Kirk Adams: And so I just will pop in. So do you reach those educators who are already teaching by engaging at the institutional level with the educational institution they're part of? Or do you reach out more from Teach Access to the individual educators? How are you connecting with folks?

Kate Sonka: Kind of always. So, you know, it really depends on who the contact is at a university, if they're — or a college — if they're maybe a department head or a dean or something like that, who has the ability to introduce us to a lot of folks. Or if it's an individual who's found us through whatever means, or we've connected with them at a conference or something, they help open the doors to their colleagues. So it's really kind of how they found out about us, or we connected with them through something. So it's pretty organic most of the time, I would say. Yeah, a lot of word of mouth. Although, you know, there are things that we do, like I said, at conferences, or we've done some press releases over the year about information that we have or training, so people come to us that way. Or, yeah, are introduced to us by someone else. But yeah, so it's really dependent on how did we get in touch with that organization or institution. But yeah, because we are looking to work with faculty who are already teaching, and educators, it's really understanding and, you know, providing information on — you're teaching this topic, here are some of the things you could be teaching. We have something called our fundamental concepts and skills framework. That is a document, a guideline, a framework for faculty to kind of figure out, what could I fit into my class? You know, what I'm teaching in maybe a technical writing class about accessibility could be different, or is different, than, you know, a capstone-level computer science course. There's different topics to cover. And so we have information on and ideas on what faculty could teach. And the idea is really, you know, I'm really going in on that piece of what they're already teaching. Anyone who's worked in education, higher education, knows that introducing a new class takes a long time. There's a lot of things, you know, a lot of levels that has to go through of approval. And if you're going to introduce a class, is it required, is it optional? If it's required, what does that do to the rest of the curriculum? So our approach has really been, let's start introducing it in classes you're already teaching. So that it doesn't become, you know, an elective where it's like, sure, a student could still get through a program without having heard of it because they didn't take the elective. And we want students hearing about it across many classes. So maybe I get a little bit in my writing class, and then I'm over here in my management class and I'm hearing about it here, and then I go, you know, across the street to my graphic design course, and now I'm hearing about it in the graphic design discipline. So, you know, that's what we're looking for, is we want students hearing about it in many classes. So it becomes a — yes, there it is again. It cuts across all of these things, and any type of job I might have in the future.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wonderful. And I noticed, I think one of the people at our dinner — thank you again for dinner — was, I think the title was fellow, like a teaching fellow at the University of Washington. That's right. Right. Yep. What does that look like?

Kate Sonka: Yeah, great question. So the training opportunities we have for faculty range anywhere from fully asynchronous, meaning they're doing it on their own. We may never even talk to them other than we see that they signed up to access our materials and they're off and running, and that's great. So anywhere from kind of completely hands off to very hands on, very involved. And that's our Fellowship program. And so this is a year-long, over 12 months, program where we engage with fellows, a cohort of faculty, to really move them from, maybe you've never heard of these topics before, so let's introduce you to them so that you understand them, to, what does it mean in your discipline specifically? So what are you going to teach in the courses that you teach? To developing those materials to introduce into your course, and then teaching them in the fall. So how did it — you know, being able to talk about what's going on with your students, how are they engaging with the material, what's working, what's not? And then the materials that are created are fed into our Curriculum Repository for future educators to use. So we've run this program for a few years now. And of course it's kind of changed over the years. And so those are our fellows. We also this year have a shorter — just completed, or kind of finishing up, a Summer Institute. And this was a shorter, four-week, condensed, I'll say, version of our year-long, if you can imagine condensing a year into four weeks. But really with this Summer Institute cohort, it was, it's faculty that either we've worked with before, or maybe we haven't worked with, but they have been teaching accessibility themselves. And it was meant to be, and is, an accelerated option to say, okay, here is a concentrated amount of time and support for you to be able to, you know, maybe enhance something you're already teaching, or be able to focus on creating something new to teach about this topic. So those faculty are already aware of what is accessibility, why are we doing this work. You know, so we don't need to spend the time doing that, which is where we're able to really condense that program. So those are kind of two of our signature programs where we're engaging with faculty regularly to see what's going on, support them in their teaching, and so forth.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And so this is a very long-range systems change project. And formally under the 501(c)(3) structure and permanent full-time staff for five years. So what are some of the indicators that the things are working? Are there— I don't know how you measure outcomes, whether they're anecdotal or more formal, but we'd love to hear some success stories.

Kate Sonka: Yeah, absolutely. Mindy, do you want to share any? I know I've answered a lot so far.

Mindy Kolin: Sure. Well, one of the biggest success stories for us: in 2020, a goal was set for Teach Access to reach 1 million students by 2030. And in 2025 we surpassed 1.5 million students. So, five years early, not only did we meet the goal, but we smashed the goal. And so that's—

Dr. Kirk Adams: When the board says, new goal.

Mindy Kolin: Yeah. Well, always, right? There's always a new goal. We know that. But that definitely was a big one for us, and proof of concept right there. So we're running with that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. And so, since we're talking here, Mindy, I know the challenges of bringing resources into any organization. How are you finding the environment these days? What are your key strategies as far as making sure that the organization is properly resourced?

Mindy Kolin: Yeah, thank you for asking. Yeah, it's definitely challenging times for a lot of nonprofits. We are lucky in that we have so many amazing partners. So funding for Teach Access comes in through a variety of ways. We have your typical annual corporate sponsorship, corporate partnership, that ranges from $10,000 to over $100,000. We have specific event sponsorships for our Student Academy, which is a one- to two-day virtual event that typically happens in February. And we have usually a global attendance of students and lifelong learners or practitioners in accessibility coming to learn some new skills. And we're expanding. So we now have Teach Access Europe underway, and we've got a steering committee and working groups furthering the mission across Europe. And so we're getting ready to launch some new sponsorship opportunities specific to Teach Access Europe. So, yeah, so looking at all the ways. And then, as an organization, we do have the ability to do contract work, which Kate can speak about. But so we're always looking to diversify our funding. And of course we have individual donors that we greatly appreciate. But the bulk of our funding does come from corporate or private foundation support.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I'm curious, if enforcement of the European Accessibility Act, is that not been a catalyst for the work in Europe?

Kate Sonka: Yeah, this is Kate. It definitely has. And so we're in the middle of a three-year strategic plan. And part of that strategic plan when we wrote it was, yeah, we're going to explore what does it mean to kind of, quote unquote, officially expand our work outside of the US. How do we support what's happening across the world? Where do we begin? What does that look like? And of course, as things have shifted here in the US in a variety of ways over the last year and a half, it became very clear this is a great time to look at where there might be growth that we could explore outside of the US, in conjunction with the EAA and the enforcement of that. And so we're still really early stages of establishing what does it look like, the work that we're doing over there. In the coming month or so, we'll be putting out a couple surveys that will be trying to capture information around what's happening around Europe in terms of who's already teaching accessibility, what would you need to be able to teach it if you aren't, or even if you are — as well as trying to kind of get at that earlier accessibility technology skills gap I mentioned, of what is industry saying over there? Are they finding enough, especially in light of the EAA and what that looks like? So I think there's a lot of really interesting conversations that are happening there now, of course, as well as work. And so it's been a very fun time to kind of try and, you know, meet some folks and say, hey, we have materials, we'd love to share them. We know that some of those materials will work, some of them will need translation, of course, and localization and some of that. So just kind of working through it. But definitely it's been a good thing for a lot of reasons, including us being able to think about doing this work and supporting this work outside of the US.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. And Mindy mentioned contract work. Is that consulting that Teach Access does, or [unclear 00:31:30]?

Kate Sonka: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, work.

Kate Sonka: Yeah, we're— it's still very much sort of case by case, as people approach us or as a specific opportunity seems to align. But some of the things that we have done for our— with our industry partners — and this is really important because, one, of course, bringing our expertise and our work to their work, but also it helps us keep our resources and materials free and open to educators. So when we have the support of industry and these sorts of things, you know, maybe it's a specific training for an internal group at an organization, the funding there is able to help us keep things free and open. But we've been able to do some research-type projects for some environments, sort of learning environments, understanding what could make this environment more, either more accessible, or just, how might we introduce this into these spaces? We've also been doing some work with some teams on just sort of general, sort of, how's the team working together? What are they trying to accomplish? Really framing it though, under it being a learning environment, right? That's what our expertise and our skills are in, is teaching and learning environments. And so when an organization says, hey, we kind of have this thing, we're trying to figure out what it looks like, might you want to talk to us about it? We're happy to do that. So at this point, it's still very much we're kind of exploring that, seeing what industry is looking for and where can we maybe help out. And if it's not us, of course, there's many other really great disability organizations and accessibility organizations that can help with that work as well. So just working through that, navigating what that looks like.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, the time flew by, as it always does when talking about something people are passionate about. Teach Access is doing great work. I've been privileged to be observing for the ten years. And you have made great strides, making great progress, and congratulations on reaching a million and a half students.

Kate Sonka: Incredible. Thank you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So how can people get involved? How can people be in touch?

Kate Sonka: Yeah, thank you, Kirk. This is Kate again. Of course, you can visit our website, so you can go to https://teachaccess.org and see all the information about all the programs we have. If you're someone who's on social media, you can find us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Those are places where we post about all the things we have going on. Of course, we have a monthly newsletter, which is what it sounds like. So, here's what we're up to, or here's what's coming down the line. We often throughout the year have various projects where we look for volunteers, and we put those sorts of requests or call out maybe in the newsletter or on our social media channels, because we always want to be informed by what's actually happening. So there are many ways that we want to engage with industry, with education, with disability and accessibility organizations, on resources and training and so forth. So those are great ways to kind of understand what we're doing and what we're up to. Of course, as Mindy mentioned, we really appreciate financial sponsorships and funding where that makes sense. But we're happy to talk with organizations, present with maybe ERGs or BRGs or any of those sorts of internal teams, to share about what we're doing, and find ways to partner and connect and support.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Fabulous. So go to https://teachaccess.org, sign up for the monthly newsletter, and get involved in supporting this great initiative that will make the world more accessible for all of us. Thank you for your great work. And you can go to my website, which is https://drkirkadams.com, and sign up for my monthly newsletter. And you can also click on the link for my business book that launched in July on Amazon. It's called The Disability Dividend: Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion. It's a playbook for employers to win the war for talent by being inclusive of people with disabilities. So thank you, Kate. Thank you, Mindy. Thanks, everyone, for listening. And we'll see you next time on the next episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. Thanks.

Kate Sonka: Thanks, Kirk.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Thank you.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share, or leave a review at https://www.drkirkadams.com. Together, we can amplify these voices and create positive change. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep making an impact.

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Daria Marmer, Founder, Cookie Voice Recipes https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-07-08-2026/

In this warm episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk, a lifelong, enthusiastic blind cook, talks with Daria Marmer, founder of Cookie Voice Recipes, a hands-free, voice-first cooking app built with blind and low-vision cooks in mind. A product manager and Cordon Bleu-trained cook, Daria explains how the app began as a fix for her own annoyance, dirty hands, no way to check the recipe, and, after she showed a prototype to the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, Massachusetts, became something far bigger. She built it herself using AI coding tools (Codex and Claude). Users pull any recipe into a clean, ad-free view and simply ask "Cookie" questions out loud, how much sugar, read the ingredients, what's step three, even "I ran out of sour cream, what can I use instead?", with AI answers grounded in the actual recipe. Kirk, who brailles out recipes on a Perkins Brailler and clips Braille pages from Cook's Illustrated, connects the app to two audiences: older people losing vision to conditions like diabetic retinopathy, and young blind people setting up their first kitchens. Daria shares favorite feedback (a woman who no longer has to eat Stouffer's every night), the roadmap (Android next; partner-provided recipes for people brand-new to blind cooking, via the Carroll Center), pricing (a free tier plus a $3.99/month or $30/year AI tier), and where to find it, the App Store (iOS), [email protected], and @cookievoiceapp on Instagram. Kirk asks her back in six months.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment, and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences, and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that Dr. Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have a guest that I share a passion with, and that is for cooking and eating. And today I have Daria Marmer, who is founder of Cookie Voice Recipes. Hi, Daria.

Daria Marmer: Hi. How are you?

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm very, very well. I'm very excited to talk about your project — the app that helps people who are blind and visually impaired cook efficiently and happily and seamlessly in their kitchens. I cook a lot. I'm a Braille reader. I have a notebook full of recipes that I brailled out on a Perkins Brailler. I have Braille pages cut out of Cook's Illustrated and Better Homes and Gardens magazines, which I get in Braille free from the National Library Service. And it's a big, untidy mess. And as I search through recipes and don't have them well organized, the favorites are all covered with remnants of cooking. So I'm very excited to start using the app. For those of you who don't know me, I am a blind person. My retina is detached. When I was five years old, I went to a school for blind children for second and third grade — learned my Braille skills, blindness skills: reading, writing Braille, using the long white cane, typing on a typewriter, so I could go to public school when I was ready, which was fourth grade, when I was nine. I'm the oldest of three siblings. When we turned ten, my mom told us we were responsible for making dinner for the family one night per week, and she would help us understand what we wanted to cook, and get the ingredients, and help us cook it. So I've been in the kitchen as a totally blind person for a long time. I will throw my brother under the bus to say that he made hot dogs and baked beans out of the can every week — he did not vary his menus. I was much more adventurous, and I cook a lot. My wife and I love, love to enjoy good food together. And I met Daria, and when I found out about your project — just so exciting. Want to share it with everybody who either loves to be in the kitchen as a blind person, or would like to be. And, Daria, I'm just going to turn it over to you and just ask you: where did the idea come from? What was the genesis? How have you developed it? Where is the app at today? And where do you see things going? So I'll hand you the talking stick. I'll reserve the right as host to pop in with random questions as they occur to me. So, it's all you.

Daria Marmer: Thanks, Kirk. So, I come at this from the cooking and tech side of things. I went to culinary school a long, long, long time ago, and then have had a really wonderful career in technology. And a couple months ago I had this problem, which is: I would hate reaching for my cell phone when I was cooking, because my hands were all dirty. And so I would ask my family in the kitchen just to tell me what the next step was in the recipe, or how much of a certain ingredient I needed. Because the way recipes are written, they say 'add the sugar,' 'add the flour,' 'add the salt.' And then you're like, well, can you remind me how much sugar was that? So I used to ask my family those questions when I was cooking in the kitchen, and I realized, hey, why don't I solve this problem for myself? I prototyped a quick app on my laptop, and that was kind of going to be the end of it, until I had this thought, and I said, wait — not looking at my phone, that's kind of an annoyance for me. I am sighted. But for people who are blind and visually impaired, this could be a real game-changer. And so then I started doing a lot of research. I partnered with the Carroll Center in Newton, Massachusetts, and kind of showed them the prototype, and I said, hey, is this— would this be interesting? Should I go forward with this? And they were like, oh my gosh, yes, absolutely. And it was born.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, I was the president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, which was Helen Keller's organization. It was an honor to have the opportunity to lead the organization. But we're pretty publicly known, so I got contacted so often by big-hearted, lovely, well-intended sighted people who thought they had come up with a great solution to make the lives of blind people easier, without ever talking to a blind person, getting any feedback. And oftentimes it was, 'That's already a free app,' 'That's already taken care of,' or, 'We don't really need that.' So I just wanted to highlight the fact that you contacted a very reputable organization — the Carroll Center for the Blind, named for Father Carroll, in Newton, Massachusetts — and you got feedback, you got input. So, hats off to you on that.

Daria Marmer: Yeah. I mean, it was so interesting. In my life, I've gone to hundreds of cooking classes now. And, as part of developing this app, I went to a cooking class that was specifically for people who had lost their vision. And I had never done a blind cooking class before. And it was really interesting and fascinating — just, I got to see firsthand some of the challenges that were involved in that. Because, you know, you have a Braille recipe next to you, you're completely dirty, you're going to completely mess that page up, it's going to become hard to read. So, for all of the reasons, I thought, this is really interesting. And then, yes, the teacher of that class saw the prototype, and she said, 'Yes, we should definitely— this app should exist.' And then that's when I said, okay, cool, I'll build it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice, nice. So, do you have the technical skills? Did you develop it yourself, or did you bring in app developers? Or what is the process of having an idea and doing something on your laptop, and then now it's an app that we can download on our phones?

Daria Marmer: Yeah. So, I am a product manager by training. And so that means that I've been building software with the help of engineers for many years now. But I didn't really do a lot by myself — I didn't code a lot by myself. And recently, in the whole universe, this idea of vibe coding and AI agentic coding has come up, and I decided that I was going to do it myself and really use those tools to get this product out the door. And I've been proudly using both Codex and Claude to make this a reality. And I have done it myself.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Amazing. And so, tell us about the app. What's the user experience like? What can I accomplish in the kitchen using it?

Daria Marmer: Sure. So, the first thing that I have to dispel — people are like, 'I don't want to just cook cookies.' Yes, I know. This is not an app— just a cookbook. This is not a bunch of cookie recipes. Okay? So the idea is, you can pull basically any recipe that you have into the app. You can do that through our share extension, you can do that through copy-pasting the text, you can do that by finding the URL and then putting in the URL, or using the baked-in search that is in the app already — selecting the recipe that you want, and then it'll pull it into a really nice recipe view. And in this recipe view, you've gotten rid of all of the ads and junk that often clutter recipe pages. So it's really, really simple. So that's just the first thing that is amazing about it. And then, once you have that, then you can start asking any questions that you want, out loud. And you can say, 'Cookie, how much sugar do I need?' 'Cookie, read me all of the ingredients.' Or, 'Cookie, what's step three?' And it will give you answers based on everything that's in the recipe. And one of the things that I think is really cool is, you can actually stretch it further, and you can say, 'Cookie, I just ran out of sour cream. What can I use instead?' And it will send that to AI and get an answer that is based on the recipe that you're actually making right now. So it will give you something that will actually work in that space. So that's what it will do.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Is it just my recipes that I put in? Or is there a database that's broader than my personal collection of recipes?

Daria Marmer: So, you can build a collection of recipes into the app by searching for anything that's available on the web. It also has, like—

Dr. Kirk Adams: I can say, I want to make— I want to make beef Burgundy. Give me a recipe.

Daria Marmer: Exactly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Daria Marmer: Okay. And then pull that in. And then, once you have that in your app, there's a section of the app for 'my recipes,' and then you can see everything that you have cooked, and really start to have a menu of different things that you can pull up. Well—

Dr. Kirk Adams: Another thing I've done is remembered a recipe, and remembered a couple of the ingredients but not kind of the whole thing, and say, you know, 'I know it had leeks, and I know it had bacon and eggs, and I think it was a frittata,' and you could give me some ideas of what I'm trying to drive at, I assume.

Daria Marmer: Yeah, absolutely. So you can put all of that into the search, and it will come back and say, 'Do you want to make a bacon, leek, and cheese frittata? Or a bacon— vegan quiche?' Or whatever it is. So you can put all of that into search, and it will come back with some interesting recipes. You could choose which one you want to make.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's great. It's out there now, right? People can download it — which I'm going to do after this episode.

Daria Marmer: Yeah. We're close to 1,500 downloads now.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And iOS and Android?

Daria Marmer: Good question. Right now it is only iOS, but Android is very high on my list as something that I'd like to really get out this year, hopefully.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And what kind of feedback have you gotten? I assume there's a way for you to get some sort of data or feedback as people are using the app.

Daria Marmer: Yes. I have gotten a lot of feedback, both constructive and just laudatory. So, on the constructive side, I do work very, very closely with people who are blind and visually impaired to make the app more usable and more friendly. With every iteration that I do, that's front and center in my mind — about what the VoiceOver experience is like, and generally how this all works. So I get lots of feedback there. And then also, I think my favorite piece of feedback so far is from a woman who lost her sight later in life. And she said, 'I used to love to cook, and this is one big step for me to not have Stouffer's every night.' And, somebody who really likes to cook and likes to eat, the idea of eating Stouffer's every night is just so sad. So, thrilled that this would be something that really helps her eat better.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, I'm just thinking of— most people who are blind and visually impaired have lived most of their lives as sighted people, and have become visually impaired as part of the aging process. So, as you go up the age range, the percentage of people who are legally blind increases with age. So I'm thinking of that population. And then I'm thinking about kids, in the end, that end up moving into independent living — move to go to college, going to move out of the house, set up their own household. So I'm thinking the older folks and the younger folks really come to mind as people who could really benefit from Cookie Voice Recipes.

Daria Marmer: Yeah. And I will say, it is made for being accessible, but when I think about accessibility, I really think that it's for everyone. It is also for people who are sighted, who just don't want to touch their phones. And, you were saying, children— my daughter made an amazing raspberry cupcake recipe last week, and she used Cookie for it. And it was amazing just to see her. And when she got stuck on something, she would ask. And it's just really, really nice to see that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Fun. How old is your daughter?

Daria Marmer: She'll be 12 in September.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice. Nice one. The 11-year-old daughter makes some raspberry pastries for mom.

Daria Marmer: Oh, yeah. I got all of one. She, like, 'No, these are— these are for me, and I'm choosing to give them to you.' But I did sneak one in.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Good. So, tell— if you don't mind backtracking quite a ways back. You mentioned pretty casually you went to culinary school a while ago. What was that like?

Daria Marmer: So, I went to Cordon Bleu in Paris. It was an amazing experience. I think the thing that most people don't know about culinary school is that the first semester— and it's a three-semester program, or three-trimester program, and I was lucky enough to do the first trimester, but I had to go resume normal life instead of completing the full degree. But the first semester, it was all of the techniques of cooking, and they really didn't care about flavor. And that was something that was really, really interesting. It was mainly like, this is how you have to learn all of the different cuts, this is all the different sauces, and this is all of the different types of proteins that you would ever need to cook. And here are some classic French recipes while you're at it. But we used salt and pepper and nutmeg — those were the three spices, the three seasonings, that we ever used. And that was really surprising. And I know that they start using more things in the intermediate and advanced groups, but that was very surprising to me when I jumped in, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is actually quite boring. I haven't cooked anything from the recipes that I did at culinary school — they're all very heavy on the cream and butter, and I was like, oh, I want more fresh things. But, yeah, that was really fun.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Another thought — again, I'll ask random questions. So, diabetic retinopathy is one of the leading causes of blindness as people age. So, I know recipes that are compatible with people living with type 2 diabetes — the low-carb lifestyle. Are there ways to ask Cookie to give me those types of recipes?

Daria Marmer: Absolutely. The search that you could do— you could literally write 'low-carb cheesecake,' and you would find a recipe for a low-carb cheesecake, if you want. Now, I'm not sure I would really recommend a low-carb cheesecake, but, you know, I suppose you could do it without the graham cracker crust, and that would be okay. One of the things that I'm really looking forward to, as the app progresses, is partnering with different organizations to automatically pull in recipes for their audience. And that's something that I'm working with a couple organizations right now to do. So, for example, I'm working with the Carroll Center right now, and thinking about how to get some of the recipes that are written specifically for people who are brand new to blind cooking. And so, if you purchase the app, you will see all of those written out, so that they are so detailed — so you can learn how to move around the kitchen safely, and what to do around the frying pan, and how to set it on top of your stovetop and then not have to move it around again, so you don't accidentally— you don't have spatial awareness for that. And so, she's working on a bunch of— not apps, a bunch of recipes that people might be able to buy through Cookie. And then it becomes the platform. And that's something that is hopefully going to come out in the next year. It's a really exciting part of what we're doing right now.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, other than downloading the app at this point, how can people get involved and support the project? Would that be the main thing you'd like people to do — download, use, and give you feedback?

Daria Marmer: Yeah, absolutely. And if there are any ideas that you have for features and functionality, I do incorporate a lot of the things that get sent to me. I think that's really, really valuable. There's a 'give me feedback' option within the app that I read absolutely every single one of them. And if you put in your email address in that feedback form, then I will respond to you. That's optional — you can give me feedback without your email address, but then I don't know who to respond to. But I do read everything.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Fabulous. And, so people are aware — is there a cost to the app? Is there a free version and a paid version? How is that structured?

Daria Marmer: Yeah. There's a free version, and there's always going to be a free version — I think it's really important to do that. I don't want to be inaccessible by any means. So, yes, the free version will always exist. There's also a paid subscription version that adds on some AI features, and that is $3.99 a month, or $30 a year.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I'm going to do that one, because I'm trying to get with the AI generation. I'm trying to use AI, trying to incorporate AI into my life. I think— I don't know, I think it's here to stay. So I would like to know how to maximize the value of the resource.

Daria Marmer: But it is pretty magical.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, other than the feedback form on the app, are there other ways people can connect with you?

Daria Marmer: Yep. You can send me an email at [email protected]. And also— I just, just yesterday, finally launched my Instagram page. So you can follow me at @cookievoiceapp. So there's not much on my Instagram yet, but, starting from nothing, the only way is up. So there's gonna be more happening there shortly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great, great. So, as for me, people can reach me at my website, which is — 'doctor,' as in D-R — https://drkirkadams.com. And I'm always on LinkedIn every day, which is Kirk Adams, PhD, on LinkedIn. So, Daria, what I'd like to do is have you back in about six months to talk about where Cookie Voice Recipes is at that time — making great strides and great progress. I'm really glad we connected. My passion for cooking and food, your initiative to combine your culinary training and your tech training to create the app — marvelous. The fact that you sought initial input from the Carroll Center, and now you continue to gather feedback from users, including blind and low-vision users — terrific. And just really enjoyed our conversation. Looking forward to next time.

Daria Marmer: Yes, thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And, with that — happy cooking to everybody. Get in the kitchen, cook something, and enjoy with joy. By yourself, a solitary, quiet meal can be a wonderful thing. So, either by yourself or with friends and family — but let Cookie Voice Recipes help you be very creative in the kitchen. That's a lot of fun. So, with that, I'll say farewell, and we'll see you next time on Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams.

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