Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams

🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Anthony Candela, Retired Vocational Rehabilitation Professional, Disability Inclusion Champion, Author & Essayist https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-04-21-2026/

In this warm, wide-ranging episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk reconnects with longtime friend and colleague Anthony "Tony" Candela, a retired vocational rehabilitation professional, author of four books, and prolific essayist, for a far-reaching conversation that travels from the state of the VR system to the shape of a well-lived blind life. They trade notes on what's changed (and stayed the same) over Tony's 50-year career in the field, including today's more holistic, whole-person approach to serving blind consumers, the near-universal acceptance of assistive technology on the job site, and the very real threats now facing the $4-billion federal vocational rehabilitation system as government shutdowns and efforts to dismantle the Department of Education loom. Tony shares his own journey with retinitis pigmentosa, the late-in-life lesson of learning Braille at 34 (and his emphatic advice that kids be taught Braille young), and the first step he recommends for anyone newly navigating blindness: reach out to the consumer organizations, the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind, because they will welcome you unconditionally and teach you how to learn.

The conversation also turns personal and literary. Tony walks through his four published books, Vision Dreams: A Parable; the memoir Stand Up or Sit Out: Memories and Musings of a Blind Wrestler, Runner and All-Around Regular Guy; the essay collection What Should Not Remain Silent; and the new romance-adventure novel Fire on the Desert Sands, co-authored with his partner Juliana M. Kotis, and explains the roughly weekly essays (66 and counting since late 2024) he publishes on his Facebook page. Kirk connects Tony's athletic background as a wrestler, runner, scuba diver, and skier to his own doctoral research on blind professionals in corporate America, where sports and other physical pursuits consistently surfaced as the crucible that built a strong internal locus of control. Tony pushes back gently on the "superhuman" framing of high-achieving blind people, offering instead the governing philosophy of his memoir: don't shy away from the struggle, go through it, and get good at going through it. The two close with reflections on how far accessible technology has come since the slate-and-stylus, paid-reader days of the 1970s, a shared appreciation for the organized programs and support systems that still matter enormously, and a mutual call to keep defending the institutions that make blind employment and full participation possible.

TRANSCRIPT:

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Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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 podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle Washington, Washington. And today I have the pleasure of reconnecting with a longtime friend and colleague all the way across the country in the Bronx. But Tony Candela is here today. Tony is a retired vocational rehabilitation professional and a true leader in the disability community. A champion for disability inclusion, he is an author of both fiction and nonfiction, a prolific writer of essays, both of us share time spent at the venerable American Foundation for the blind AFB and Tony. Say, say hi.

Anthony Candela: Hello, everybody.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. Great to hear your voice, Tony. It's been too long. You are always so good about texting me on special occasions. Holidays. I am a very poor correspondent. Back to you. But I do appreciate you so much getting in touch and so glad you reached out that we're going to catch up in public here on on the podcast. But for those of you who don't know me, I am Kirk Adams. I am a blind person, have been since age five when my retina is detached. I had the honor of serving as president and CEO of the American Foundation for the blind, and prior to that, those same leadership roles at the lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle. My PhD is in leadership and change. My doctoral dissertation was called Journeys Through Rough Country, an ethnographic study of blind adults employed in large American corporations. And I currently am managing director of my own consulting practice, Innovative Impact, LLC. And I've also started a new, a new adventure stepping into the role of executive executive director for a nonprofit based here in Seattle called the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. So really looking at inclusion from a 360 degree view and thinking about race and gender and disability, sexual orientation and economic status and immigrant status and veterans and intersectionality and really finding it very inspiring to be involved with some, some great inclusion, diversity and equity champions. So I think Tony, you, your journey has been one of inclusion and fighting, fighting hard and consistently for inclusion of people with disabilities and people who are blind in particular. So I would really just like to hand the talking stick to you. And I always say Tony, where have you been? Where are you now? Where are you? Where are you headed? What? What's working for you? And what challenges are you? Are you facing these days? So the the floor is yours. And I'll, I'll reserve the right as a host to pop in with questions which may seem random at the time, but as they occur to me, I will ask. So Tony. Yours.

Anthony Candela: Thank you. Kirk. I appreciate it, and it sure is good to hear your voice again. We really are old friends and colleagues, and your your newest initiative is a quite gutsy adventure given the political atmosphere out there, especially at the federal level with regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion. So God knows we need all the help we can get to not only to obtain, but as your institute sounds like, to sustain. Yes, this kind of effort. And it's it's just a tough time. And, and I have

Dr. Kirk Adams: My, my dad, who was a high school basketball coach, would often say the times get tough, the tough get going. That's right.

Anthony Candela: Yes. Which reminds me, my New York Knicks are fighting already for their lives. And it's only the first round of the playoffs, but we'll just keep that off to the side for now.

Dr. Kirk Adams: How about that? Cj McCollum of the Atlanta Hawks. Tony.

Anthony Candela: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Unfortunately he he took it to him last night.

Anthony Candela: He he. Yes. And that it's a hard way to to lose when you've been leading the entire game. And then at the very, very end of the game, you lose the lead and you lose the game. So it'll, it'll test the mettle, I guess, of both teams. So we'll just have to keep watching that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: There you go.

Anthony Candela: As for me, I'm in. I'm in right now. I'm in kind of a retirement. I don't even want to say lol. It's more like a waiting and watching game. I was a part time employee for the last few years with the Mississippi State University, the National Research and Training Training Center on Blindness and low vision out of Mississippi State University. And I ran a program where we trained existing new blindness professionals in how to do good rehabilitation with blind, visually impaired consumers. And we gave them four graduate courses and that the program did not get refunded. And so here I am in retirement just waiting to see what might happen next. I don't have to really actively pursue anything. So if something comes up where it's a natural fit for me where, where they, you know, they would value what I bring to the table, which is a, you know, semi-retired person who's been around a long time, but I'm still semi-retired. So they, they, they'll probably have to see something in me as we talk. And maybe then I'll join, I'll join whatever that effort happens to be. But right now I'm happily I'll call myself in a retirement lull. Okay. I am pursuing my, my I guess my, my, my latest vocation is, is writing.

Anthony Candela: So I do a lot of writing and over, over the last seven years, I've published one, two, three, four books. And the most recent one is, is a romance adventure novel with, with a co-author who happens to be my, my significant other. Juliana. And so she and I have published a book called fire on the Desert Sands. So I'll just get in my plug for that one book. Yeah, it's out there. And at romance adventure all, all the, you know, the things that the formula requires and, and also a bunch of science that I think maybe would add to the demographic because it's about a, a young woman archaeologist going to try to find going to a dig a dig site and to try to find some of the secrets of some ancient civilization. And and all of the intrigue as there are bad guys that don't want them to find this information and there are good guys and there all sorts of things that go on in the book. So it's, it's good. It's a fun read. At least I think it is. And I've only read the book about 150 times.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Say the title one more time.

Anthony Candela: Fire on the desert sands.

Dr. Kirk Adams: On the desert sands.

Anthony Candela: The desert sands. Got it. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So I, So I did have the question pop into mind when you talked about Mississippi State and National Research and Training Center on blindness and low vision. And I had the great experience of being on their advisory council for a time. And they they do great work. But you were teaching people who are new to blindness field professionals and rehabilitation. So you've been in the mix for a good long while. So I'm curious, what are, what are 2 or 3, however many things that come to mind that have changed in the space from when you first got your, your, your feet wet in vocational rehabilitation to the point where you're newly, you're teaching people new to the field. What, what are, what are some big takeaways as far as things that have changed?

Anthony Candela: I think things that things that you would, you would expect actually, you know, the, the, the system, the system is operating very similarly. Now to, I hate to say it 50 years ago when I entered the field, that the overall system is working about the same. But the you know, the, the, they're much more liberal in terms of well, diversity, equity and inclusion. It includes, it includes how we, you know, how we work with the people who need our services much more of a well-rounded approach to the people. Not, not just that they have a vision impairment, but that they, they are a whole person. I think there's much more awareness in these younger professionals to, to that more holistic approach. Okay. They, they get to use and help, help you know, to procure the technology. We don't have, we don't have to fight the battle of justifying the value of and the, and the, and the usefulness of spending money on technology because the technology is so obviously helpful, especially for the job site, especially for, you know, the world of work that you're not justifying or they, they are not justifying nearly as much as we used to have to do back in the old days when people didn't understand the technology. The heck, we hardly understood it ourselves back then. So, so there's that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Anthony Candela: They, they now the people that take that, that took the course that, that I offered kind of are a selected group because they literally aggressively applied for and sought admission into this program, which was going to make them have to take four graduate courses distance education online format over a one year period, which really probably doubled their workload between what they do for their jobs and then what they had to do for the classes, etcetera. And so they were the dedicated smart people. I was very gratified in the dozens and dozens of students that I came across in the few years that I was there. Just really, really dedicated, smart people.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's great.

Anthony Candela: We're still, we still have a predominance of females in the field. And but, but there's enough males to, you know, make me remember that, you know the field does attract both genders. So that's, that's a good thing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes.

Anthony Candela: And and yet, you know, sometimes they get bogged down in some of the bureaucracy that I remember from way back when. So they, they do have to, they do have to do the paperwork and they do have to follow the rule structure. Only thing I can think of that's a little different today than back then is we didn't have the federal government threatening our funding as much as, I mean, I, I had I had a couple of people who got furloughed right in the middle of our class, and they got furloughed for like an entire month because of some, some you know, flow of money problem or something that the feds were saying to that particular state. Right. And so we, we didn't quite have as much of that back in the day as as we do today. And and then also, I never thought about worrying about whether the system would survive back in, in, you know, up until ten years ago, I didn't think to worry too much about whether the system would survive. But now, now we even have to worry about the, you know, how the system survives and the shape that it will take and whether, whether we, we will get more restrictive in how we serve and who we serve. All those things that I say are the good things that happened over the years? We're kind of sliding backwards a little bit, or at least I'm afraid we're going to slide backwards a little bit.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, for for those of you who don't know, most of you probably are. We're talking about the vocational rehabilitation system, which is under the big umbrella of the Department of Education, which is under a sub sub umbrella of the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Federal dollars flow to the states, who then put resources to good use to support people with disabilities, blind and other significant disabilities in achieving or maintaining employment. And it's about a $4 billion budget. So there's lots of resources and lots of staff. And like many federally funded programs, the government shutdown has become a popular political strategy in recent years. So many various programs, including vocational rehabilitation, do get affected. And then there's the, the, the efforts to either dismantle or greatly reduce the scope of the Department of Education. So of course, that's worth a threat of a big change looms. So we we will here at, at podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams and at my website, doctor adams.com. We will certainly advocate for maintaining a national focus on rehabilitation services for people with disabilities, as only 35% of us or so are in the workforce, which is about half that of the general population. And I always say our our employment outcomes are either twice as bad or half as good as the general population, whatever, whatever metrics you're using and not of course, not only detrimental to people with disabilities who aren't engaged in the workforce and would like to be, and the resulting poverty and the stresses and strains and adverse life impacts that poverty have. But we're also robbing our society of the contributions of really uniquely talented, motivated people that can really bring great resources to the community. So that's my, that's my little synopsis of the VR system. And Tony, I, I invite you to add on to that or you started to talk about your essays, your books before I interrupted you.

Anthony Candela: Well, first of all, very well put, very well summarized. And I have, I did notice one thing that I think has been the same for a long time when we were, I was working on some other projects with the National Research and Training Center, helping them out with some of their, their research projects because that's their main job at the National Research and Training Centers. They, they run studies applied applied research studies to see like, what are the best methods to to provide good service, educate employers, etc.. They adapted a job skill, a job placement skills training program. And then I was helping them test run the adaptation. It was a mainstream program. And what, what I noticed in that was how alone a lot of a lot of us are if we, if the best thing that could happen to us and it's just, it's just you know, what, what happens to us in our lives, whether we have this or not, but the best thing that could happen to us is if we have a really good support system around us. And there are a lot of people who don't have a whole lot of, of a support system around them or don't have any support system around them. And and they're out there and they're alone and they're blind and they don't they don't know. They don't they don't know how to bolster their skills until they get into organized programs. And I think, I think there's still a tremendous need for organized programs, because it's not the kind of thing you're just going to absorb from the thin air.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right? Right. So, you know, I mentioned at the top of the top of our conversation that I've been blind since I was five when my retinas detached. So I went from sighted kid to blind kid really quickly. So what, what's your journey as far as your visual impairment goes?

Anthony Candela: Born legally blind, partially sighted due to retinitis pigmentosa, which is a deterioration of the retina over the years. And there's different forms of it. The form I have is kind of your classic standard form of retinitis pigmentosa. So I had straight ahead vision only with eyeglasses. Best correction. I actually was improved to 2070 vision, which meant if I sat in the front of the classroom, I could see what the teacher was writing on the chalkboard. And for a long time I could read regular books. Not as fast as as a regular person could, but I could do that. So I was blessed with the with the fact that I could learn visually for a long time. And then as I got into late high school, early college, the eyesight was getting worse. And I started using alternative techniques back in my day when this was happening like around 1970 when this was happening, 1971, when I started college what we had were basically recorded books. Yeah. And an open reel tapes, which eventually became cassette tapes. And then, and then I think CDs for a while, and now everything is downloaded. Praise the Lord. So, so so that that and and faster, faster to obtain the materials you need to learn. So that that was what happened to me. And then then I just got less and less visual. And by the time I was in my late 30s I had given up my eyeglasses. I had given up really trying to do anything visual at all. I was pretty much totally you know, non visual. I learned Braille when I was 34 years old. Never got fast at it. Big, big regret. Rule of thumb, if you can get a kid to learn Braille when they're young, even if you have to force them a little bit. This is my opinion. Make them learn Braille if they're going to need it later. Because then they have a chance of getting fast. I never got fast, but.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It's a brother.

Anthony Candela: Yes, sir. So that's it. And then I was basically, I've been, like, totally blind you know and because it progressed so slowly, I don't actually know when I became totally blind, but for the last 25 years, for sure.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Okay.

Anthony Candela: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Thanks for that. So every, every, every journey is different. So. Yeah. It's I'm, it's interesting. Thanks for sharing that. So essays you mentioned before we started recording that you sounds like every week or so you're generating an essay and I love, love to hear about that and what the, the depth and breadth of what you're contemplating. And as you write where people can access that wisdom.

Anthony Candela: Sure. Right now I'm just posting to my Facebook account. So, so not not really out there yet, but I, I did start writing a collection which, which went from 2021 to 2024. And I actually published that in a, in a book, I self published a book called what should not remain silent, which is might not remain. What should not remain silent. Okay. Basically that's my excuse for opening my big mouth whenever I want to.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay, I like it.

Anthony Candela: So, so that got published self published in 2024. And then I started writing again. I started writing more essays. So I just just took a look. As a matter of fact, I've got 66 essays written since late 2024. So almost, almost one a week. And the topics range from there's a, there's an awful lot of, of political topics mostly focused on our president and the people that he surrounds himself with and how they are functioning. And a lot of it has to do with how they're functioning not necessarily what their politics are. Like. I, I just posted an essay the other day that that had to do more with the, like the emotional of our president and, and, and some of the people around him especially you see it when like right now he's probably got gotten himself under more pressure than he probably ever believed he was going to going to be under. And he's done it to himself. And, and so there, there's, it's not so much anybody who reads my essays know exactly where I stand politically and how I feel about everything. But I don't, I don't push that as much as I do, you know, what are some of the underlying things that are going on here and the people that he surrounds himself with, it's like birds of a feather stick together. So, so if you, if you think about what those birds all look like, they, they do look a lot alike in, in terms of their kind of their, just their personality functioning and their, their character. I've also.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I just, I was just thinking about the book, I'll get the title slightly wrong, but about Lincoln's cabinet, a team of rivals or a. Yes, yes, a group of rivals. He intentionally brought in people who had very differing viewpoints.

Anthony Candela: Yes, I have read that book.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I guess it was. I guess he was a decent president, Abraham Lincoln, so. Yes.

Anthony Candela: Well, he was willing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: He was.

Anthony Candela: Yes. Because he was willing to do the hard thing. He was willing to have people, people who basically. Not only did they occasionally fight with each other, but they also. They also told him of, you know, their differing points of view. And if they disagree with him and they they made him hear the hard things. They they were not they were not sycophants at all. They they were they're individuals who told him what they thought he needed to hear.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right. Well, I just I just opened up Bookshare and I went to search and I went to author Search and I put in Anthony Candella. And I say, I see vision dreams, parable. I see stand up or sit out memories and musings of a blind wrestler, runner and all around regular guy. I see fire on the Desert Sands by Anthony Candela and Julianna M Kotis.

Anthony Candela: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I see what should not Remain Silent by Anthony Candela. So those are your books. So you are. You're a wrestler, as was I. So talk to me about that. Yeah. And running. I ran cross country. You know before I ask you to talk about that. My dissertation I mentioned earlier and I you know, talked to blind people who self-identified as successfully employed in large companies whose names we would all recognize. And first I asked them, you know, what, by what criteria did they self-identify as successful? And everyone in some form or fashion said money, income, a salary financial freedom, you know. Enough wherewithal to be able to make life decisions and, and make decisions on how to use their resources. But then I, I asked people you know, what were the, what were some of the factors or what were the factors that they felt led to their ability to succeed in corporate America? And almost everyone talked about the strong sense of agency or strong internal locus of control, that they felt that they were able to forge their own path, that they could overcome problems, that they could figure things out, you know, as opposed to a strong external locus of control where people think, you know, things happen to me and I can't do much about it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But then digging deeper, they almost all talked about some event or series of events that gave them that strong internal locus or sensitive agency. And they are almost all physical. Many times outdoors horseback riding, rock climbing, downhill skiing. One, one guy who's totally blind and has a computer science degree and a law degree said, you grew up in a neighborhood where the boys, the 12, 13 year old boys would do these bicycle tricks, ride their bikes and jump off ramps and stand on the handlebars. And he said he he did that with the guys who ended up in the emergency room a number of times. But just curious about your reflections about that, your long career and vocational rehabilitation around that sense of agency or internal locus of control and perhaps reflecting on your own experiences with with, with sports and the other, the other corollary is another factor people talk about was being part of a team, whether it was a choir or a sports team or a debate team. So thoughts?

Anthony Candela: Yeah. Well my dissertation psychology dissertation, which I didn't quite finish was, was on a, a different a different concept in the, in the same realm as as locus of control. It's called self-efficacy. And, and it was, and, and the dissertation was on exercise behavior as a, as a correlate of self-efficacy among blind and visually impaired persons.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Anthony Candela: And then what happened was I, I two, 2 or 3 things happened all at the same time. I, I had a second mortgage, I kept getting promoted and I didn't have a caseload that was going to be able to easily reach into, to get my test subjects and, and a few other things that I could have easily overcome all of those, but I had been going to school part time for so long that I just. I needed to stop. But there therein lies kind of the, the, the genesis of, of the memoir stand up or sit out. Because it is about life lessons learned through being a blind athlete. And so all the, all the sports that I mentioned in the title wrestling and running. But there, there's other sports in there too, like, like downhill skiing with a special, special you know, skiing organization cross country skiing, scuba diving, things like that. I was a certified scuba diver at one time. And, and all the adaptations. I even even published an article on that scuba diving way back in 1984 in the Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness. Okay. It's it's there somewhere. I just but, you know, you know, I mean, they didn't I don't know what I would do because the computerized diving watch was not really that powerful then. So given that there wasn't that technology. Yeah. Diving watches and it told you some information, but it wasn't so much that you couldn't just make shift with hand signals, tactual hand signals and things like that.

Anthony Candela: You didn't feel like you were missing anything. You didn't, you didn't do a lot of the calculations to see like, how long can you dive at a certain depth? You had to do those before the dive. You know, with, with pencil and paper, literally. Now, now the technology is so good that I, I, I could get lost trying to figure out how to adapt to technology, but that so, you know, as an example of sometimes when you didn't have the technology and you were forced to do things the old fashioned way, you just went ahead and did them, you found a way to do them. And, you know, and it's just an example of, you know, like you mentioned, teamwork, how to work with you know, on the wrestling team, you're with your buddies. And when you're running, even when you're running, if you're a blind person, you're with a running partner and that team work. And et cetera. Et cetera. So all, all this was in, in that memoir, that memoir was an awful lot about the last, the last part of the title, by the way, is wrestler, runner and all around regular guy. And the most important thing there, my philosophy is that we, we must, we must be careful not to super humanize some of us high achieving blind people.

Anthony Candela: Because then we're not, we're not the best role models, though it does tell you what is possible. It does. And that's a good thing. But a lot of people will feel that maybe that low self efficacy or that, that, that, that external locus of control. So to bring them along, we have to, we have to kind of make sure that we, we let them know that not every, you know, we're not all perfect and we all struggle. And the key is to go through the struggle. Do not shy away from the struggle. Go through the struggle. That's what you have to get good at. Get getting through the struggle. And then if you, if you pursue like that, then then the good things are probably going to happen to you. And I wanted that message to be out there that, you know, we're just all regular guys in the end. And don't, don't super humanize us too much. Because then once you start doing that, you, you almost like dehumanize us. And I didn't want I want to make sure that we stay very, very human. And it's, it's coming from me. It's my personal, you know, way of looking at the world. And so that that's been like an overriding philosophy is, is like go through the struggle all the time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You talked earlier about people who are isolated, who don't have support systems. It's obviously much easier to go through a struggle if you have a support system. But you also talked about the fact that organized, structured, intentional programs can provide people with levels of support they wouldn't otherwise have, which I imagining lends great greater, greater possibility of successfully making it through the struggle. Yes. So if people are listening who perhaps are trying to figure things out, maybe new to being visually impaired or have someone in their family who's new to the situation, or like my parents had certainly never met a blind person before. My retinas detached and I became one. And we, we, we were not connected to communities or, or resource resources. I was fortunate, so fortunate to be that my family is directed to the Oregon State School for the blind, where I received so many gifts of high expectations and blindness skills and in that sense of agency. But the recommendations for, for people who are trying to figure this blind thing out.

Anthony Candela: Yes, yes. I mean, the easiest one, the one that will work and, and is reachable is not, is not necessarily, you know, go to the VOC rehab system. Not, not maybe not the first thing, the first thing I would recommend are the consumer organizations, National Federation of the Blind American Council of the blind, and they have the national chapter, the National Organization, and they have the local chapters. Because they will start piling information onto you. And you know, like with the organized programs one of the valuable things that you start learning how to learn, I mean, in the beginning, you may be in a vacuum, you may have no clue about anything at all, and all of a sudden you're getting information and you're also getting instruction formal or informal in, in how to start to problem solve and also how to start to learn how to function as a, as a blind person. And, and, and learning how to learn is a, like teach a man how to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. Well, there you go. Learning how to learn is about teaching a person how to fish. So I first, first step, I would go to the consumer organizations because they will welcome you. They'll welcome you. They're not going to give you, you know, say, well, you're not eligible for our services. Like.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Are you blind? Come on in.

Anthony Candela: Are you blind?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Anthony Candela: Do you think do you think you're blind? Well, we'll take you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, do you think you'll become blind? Yeah. That's right. So aacb.org for the American Council, nfb.org for the National Federation. And I think you're spot on, Tony.

Anthony Candela: Now I want to tell you about my my favorite most recent essay. It's on a lighter note. And it's just, it's a fun thing. I, I recently read a book which now they just made into a movie. It's a science fiction movie. Because I love science fiction and it's called project Hail Mary.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I've been hearing the buzz.

Anthony Candela: Yeah, I'll, I'll email you a copy of the essay. Kirk because you'll just have fun reading. But what what it's what, what the essay is doing is essentially it's a book review. It's a, it's a review of the book. And it mentions that they had made, and it's the same guy that wrote project Hail Mary is the same guy that wrote The Martian, which was out a few years ago. It's the same guy and Andy Weir WEIR and so my, my fun thing that I have done in the last couple of weeks is to write a book review on Project Hail Mary. And if you're into science fiction and you are willing to stretch credulity a little bit you, you have to, you have to, you have to give a break to the author.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Suspension. Suspension of disbelief.

Anthony Candela: Yes, yes. Especially if you think about how they they travel at almost the speed of light to, to do some of the stuff that they're going to do in the book. That's you know, a long ways off in terms of our ability to do things. But you, if you, if you suspend the, you know, credibility just long enough, you will enjoy that book if you like really hefty science fiction.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right.

Anthony Candela: Because this author does a lot with math and science and all that stuff, but I only bring that up not so much to promote the book and the movie and all that stuff. It's more to say it's just a fun thing that I will let myself do once in a while. Just just for the heck of it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool. And people can find essays on your Facebook page. Is that under Tony or Anthony?

Anthony Candela: Anthony R Candela. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Anthony R Candela. So people go to Facebook and follow you and they'll get. Yeah, about every week they'll see some of your writings. Yes. And again, I read the titles of your four books. I did not. I actually did not did not know about the writing side of your life. So this has been very enlightening for me. And I know I've, I've respected you greatly over the years. I was certainly not, not, not, not too many years, but some years behind you and really understanding the community the various organizations, how all the systems work. And I learned a lot from you. When I, when I first got engaged in the, in this work and I really appreciate that. And

Anthony Candela: I, I was working for the state of California and you were working at the Seattle Lighthouse, I think when we first made contact.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's right.

Anthony Candela: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But there's there's a lot more work to be done. I will say you know, you're reflecting on technology. When I, when I I started my undergraduate work in 1979, so a few years after you, but I took my notes every day in class with a slate and stylus. And in my dorm room in the evening, I would recopy them on a Perkins Brailler. And I sometimes could get my, I was at econ major. I could sometimes get my textbooks from recording for the Blind and dyslexic, usually read by a volunteer who was not an econ major. So the descriptions of the, the graphs were usually pretty, pretty interesting. And then you know, paying being fellow students who needed to read the same books, paying, paying them something like four, 25 an hour, whatever the minimum wage was so that they could read the books. So if you're going to be blind, now's a pretty good time as far as technology goes. And the promise of all the technologies that are emerging. So I.

Anthony Candela: Would, I would say what you could do today is you could record the lecture and then run it, run it through some software. Yeah, it'll upload it, it'll, it'll give you, it'll give you a Microsoft Word document. It'll, it'll give you something that's Braille convertible. You'll load it to your high speed Braille printer or just to your device.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Just read it on Refreshable Braille Refreshable Braille device.

Anthony Candela: Right, right, right. What am I saying? High speed rail. You don't need that. You have a refreshable Braille device. And And there you go. And you could go off and just drink a lot of beer while all that's going on.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Exactly. Okay. Hear that? Hear that? Kids? Advice from Uncle Tony. Use your technology and have fun.

Anthony Candela: There you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Go. So let's let's have you back again. Tony. And just great catching up with you. The time flew by. So how can, how can people Facebook. Best way to connect other ways, ways people can get in touch.

Anthony Candela: Yeah, I don't mind people email. I don't mind giving out my email address. I do it it's, it's anthonycandela [email protected], so [email protected], and the website is https://AnthonyRCandela.com. Anthony R Candela.com.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Perfect, and if people want to get in touch with me my website is https://DrKirkAdams.com, DrKirkAdams.com. I have a newsletter you can sign up for that, which I would appreciate. And you could also look at the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. The website there is I number four, SDI dot ORG. https://i4sdi.org. And I really appreciate everyone listening to another episode of podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. Very glad to have my friend and colleague Tony Candela as my guest today. Tony, have a great rest of your day and a great week.

Anthony Candela: Thank you Kirk. It's been so much fun. Look forward to the next time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Me too.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor 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 Eddie Pate, IDE Practitioner, Author, Speaker, Consultant and Board Member, Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (ISDI) https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-04-16-2026/

In this thought-provoking episode of podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams sits down with Eddie Pate, longtime IDE practitioner, author, speaker, consultant, and fellow ISDI board member, to trace Eddie's journey from Army brat and All-American Humboldt State football player to senior inclusion, diversity, and equity roles at Microsoft, Avanade, and Amazon, where he ultimately led IDE strategy for a one-million-person worldwide operations organization. Eddie explains why he intentionally leads with the "I" in IDE, framing inclusion as the true engine of sustainable change, and he unpacks his signature "pebbles and ripples" philosophy: small, intentional, daily inclusive behaviors, interrupting the interruption of a woman in a meeting, being deliberate about who sits on an interview loop, expanding "who's in your kitchen," and "spending your privilege" to create visibility for others, that compound into lasting cultural and systemic change.

From there, Eddie previews his book, Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders: A Guide to Building a Culture of Belonging, walking through his 2IL model of inclusive leadership and the book's structure around the full employee life cycle. Dr. Adams shares a personal "spend your privilege" story involving his daughter and a car purchase, and the two turn candidly to the current climate for IDE work. Acknowledging the real harassment practitioners are facing, Eddie voices renewed hope grounded in collective resistive action, peaceful protest, local community engagement, and, above all, voting in November. The episode closes with a teaser for a follow-up conversation on power, privilege, meritocracy, and intersectionality, plus details on how to reach Eddie and order the book at https://inclusivepebbles.com.

TRANSCRIPT:

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Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody to another episode of podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today, I have the pleasure of introducing you all to Eddie Pate, who is a long time practitioner of. I'd. And e some of us say DEI. So I will ask Eddie to talk about why he prefers I'd and e as a title of his work. He's a longtime practitioner and author. We met when I joined the board of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion here in Seattle. And Eddie is a board member. And Eddie, say, say hello, and I'll be back to you shortly.

Eddie Pate: That was great. Hey, Doctor Kirk and audience it's it is wonderful to be here. I can't wait to have our conversation.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great, great. And for those who of you who don't know me. I am currently the managing director of my consulting practice, which is Innovative Impact LLC. And I'm also privileged to be in the role of executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. We'll talk about that a little bit more. I'm the immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the blind, Helen Keller's organization. Prior to that, I had again the honor of leading the lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle, where we employed 250 blind and deaf blind people in a variety of interesting businesses, including aerospace manufacturing. My, my, my doctor comes by the way of a PhD in leadership and change from Antioch University. And my, my dissertation is called Journeys Through Rough Country, an ethnographic study of blind adults employed in large American corporations. And I know, Eddie, you do you do quite a bit of work in that corporate America space. So I bet we'll talk. I bet we'll talk a little bit about that. But really just wanted to invite you into a conversation. That was great to hear about your journey. Where, say where you've been. Where are you at? Where are you going? What's working for you? What are some challenges you're seeing? And we would really like to hand hand the talking stick to you.

Eddie Pate: Well that sounds great. Thank you. You know what? I'll. I'll start with kind of my journey and where I've gotten where I've gotten is a lot because of where I've been. And I think that's probably what you're getting at as well when you're asking this question. So I'm an Army brat and I'll start there. My dad was in the Army for 22 years. I was born in Frankfurt, Germany. My mom met my dad when she was over there. She's died young. But she met my dad when she was working in Fischbach, Germany, where she was born. And my dad was a soldier, my mom was German, and they met. And the next thing you know, they're married. They have three kids. And the whole spiel after moving back to the United States. I was born in Frankfurt, Germany. We moved back. We moved all over the place. I think part of my kind of passion and understanding and love for difference and unique experiences and moments that matter has to do with me being an army brat, a military brat, traveling everywhere. So if you fast forward a bit, my dad retired in 1980 and and moved up to the Bay area and lives in Union City, which is in East Bay. And because of that, I ended up going to the Humboldt State University where Kirk, you'll you'll laugh at this, but I think you might know this about me, I studied wildlife management.

Eddie Pate: Yeah, I, I really thought I was going to be a field wildlife biologist. But at the same time that I was getting my degree in wildlife management, I played football at Humboldt. And when I first went to college because I was only 17 when I went, I just turned 17 and started college. I was I hadn't hit a growth spurt. I was six feet tall, £160. You know, showed up to, to play football at Humboldt. And within the first year I gained three inches in 40 to £45. And so I ended up having some real good success as a football player. I was an All-American a couple times all West Coast receiver, all this kind of stuff. So what that ended up doing was leading me into what I had hoped to be a long NFL career, but unfortunately two ACL tears back in the late 80s. Ended that. So where I was in the Chargers camp, San Diego Chargers back in the late 80s, torn ACL. Ended up having a negotiated separation. Got surgery, spent a few years trying to hook up with a number of teams and then finally realized that my medical history was just an anchor on me, so I hung up my cleats. And then I started down the path of management and leadership kind of roles. And I started back at Humboldt, actually as the assistant director of admissions and school relations. And and from there I was, I was married at that time and we were living in Humboldt where I was working.

Eddie Pate: My wife Val was working. We had a little girl and, and when she was six months old, we had both finished our undergraduate degrees and a master's degree. My master's degree was in sociology, comparative race and ethnic relations and social psych, and my wife was in social geography. So we meshed really well. Right. And we and we had a major professor say to us all right, you two need to go get PhDs and doctors doctorates and teach. And so Val and I left Humboldt, which is in very Northern California, and we went to the University of Washington here in Seattle, and that was back in 1993. Doctor Kirk So I'm, I'm aging myself in a big way. And so started the doctoral program in 93. We had a second kid in 98 Arthur. So we have one daughter and one son. And and then I finished my PhD in 2000 and my PhD was in sociology as well and was comparative race and ethnic relations and social psychology. So and then I was, it was at that point, I wasn't sure if I was going to go down the path of academics and academia and be a professor, or if I was going to go into the corporate space and you know, the path ended up pointing and I'll leave the history of why I decided not to go into academia unless you want to, you know, want me to elaborate on that further? But I decided to go the path of the corporate space.

Eddie Pate: And I ended up meeting an incredible woman, Laverne, LaVonne, Dorsey, and LaVonne introduced me to who was the head of at that time, diversity, because that didn't say Dei or. Yeah, inclusion, diversity back then. It was just diversity at at Microsoft. And his name was Santiago Rodriguez and Santiago was incredible. And Santiago and I clicked and he knew of a role, in at Microsoft, but not in the HR within the HR function, but within the line of business. And that was really important because my first taste of I'd and E work inclusion, diversity and equity work was in a line business where I reported directly to the senior leader of a, of a group called the Enterprise and Partner Group. And that was Microsoft's. And I think it is still today. That was that was Microsoft's primary sales arm for not only the United States, but global. So here I was in a situation where you had to be, you know, culturally competent and understanding global differences in norms and cultures. And my job was to make sure that people understood I'd and E or diversity back then, as we said, principles and, and and dynamics. And so it was a great starting point for me. And then I'll speed up. And so then.

Dr. Kirk Adams: No, that's fine, but I'd love to. Let's, let's pause here and talk about why. Why you prefer I'd and d as a as a descriptor of the what you practice.

Eddie Pate: Absolutely. So look, I said d e and I for several years and it just started dawning on me that while I think diversity as, as, as, as you think about diversity, equity and inclusion, so diversity being the differences that people bring to the table, it's who you are, right? It's your background, your experiences, all those things which make up your diversity. But what I was, what I really wanted to emphasize and show was the power of really thinking about inclusion as the true mechanism for having and making change. And so and by putting I, the, I first and I'd and e and then diversity second and wrapping it up with equity. I was emphasizing the inclusion piece. It's not that the diversity piece wasn't important, but I, I used to talk and tell people, you know, diversity is about, you know, the diversity part is about, I don't know, 30%, right? 60% of what we should be doing is inclusion and inclusive activities and behaviors to make people who you bring into your organization feel like they belong to feel comfortable, to have a say. And so the inclusion piece and putting the I first just emphasized that point. And then the equity piece wrapped it up and, and, you know, made this just this wonderful, you know, perspective of thinking about how do we do this work? It's not the, it's not the strategy of bringing people in that we should be focused on. We'll do that. But it's how do we make them feel included? And how do we literally look at whether we are achieving an equitable outcome with our goals and our strategies? And that's why I lean towards I'd and E and, and gotten many people over the years to convert to that perspective as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I, I, I like it. No, I I'm against exclusion. I'm for inclusion. So I like, I like having that up front.

Eddie Pate: Put it, put it first.

Eddie Pate: My friend put.

Eddie Pate: It first. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So just a quick question. So Lavon Dorsey is a name that really rings a bell with me. And what, what what was Lavon's role when you were connected?

Eddie Pate: Lavon was in in Microsoft, and she was not she wasn't a recruiter, but she was a, a, a leader within the HR function. And, and I ended up meeting Lavon and she was a great connector for me in getting me to meet people at Microsoft. And we just hit it off when we met. And she wanted to make sure that I was connected in. And then again, Santiago Rodriguez, who we referred to as the Pied Piper of diversity back then.

Eddie Pate: Incredible.

Eddie Pate: We followed him everywhere.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I want to give a little shout out to my friends over across the lake in Redmond, Washington, at Microsoft. So when I was at the lighthouse for the blind here I walked into an organization that had a relationship with Microsoft already, and a gentleman named Howie Dickerman, who became a board member, was in charge of one of the work groups developing Excel. And he thought to himself, you know, I think blind people will probably want to use this. And I don't know anything about how to make it accessible for them. So we got up the phone book and looked up blind and found the lighthouse for the blind and drove over and introduced himself and you know, set up a user testing and getting input. So my Microsoft has really done some things around I'd and e that I think are exceptional. And you know, they have Several hundreds of of blind individuals on working, working at Microsoft. And they're not they're not just in accessibility roles or ID and roles. They are coders and programmers and managers and marketing people and HR people. And they.

Eddie Pate: As it should be.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes. So they've they've included people with a wide variety of disabilities throughout their organization. And they're a shining example. So I just want to point that out.

Eddie Pate: And I.

Eddie Pate: Love that. And one of the things that I like about Microsoft back then too, is, you know, as you bring different people onto, onto your teams, you know, there was an, there was an assessment that was made. And if you needed any accommodation, there was actually a part, an organization within Microsoft. And I'm assuming and hoping it's still intact where you would just go and you have a chance to you know, sample and see the type of assistive technologies that you may need and use them. So it was a central function for managers and hiring managers to come in and do this. And I thought that was I thought that was incredible. And part of the diversity team work that we did. I started out in PG, but within a year and a half, they pulled me into the the broader function and I was promoted and I had global role then for the diversity team. And part of what we did is we had one. We had one person on our team who was responsible for us working with people with disabilities and accommodations and assistive technology, and making sure that we worked in people with disabilities into our strategic approach to what diversity is. And it wasn't just about black people and women, as we used to say, right?

Eddie Pate: It's just like not just.

Eddie Pate: About race and gender, right? It has to.

Eddie Pate: Do.

Eddie Pate: With veterans, you know, status. It has to do with even size, right? It has to do with, you know, and with people with disabilities and veterans and, and, you know, and, and LGBTQ. So we, we really made sure that we had a part, you know with, with people with disabilities and, and, you know, assistive technology, it was, it was a great way to start my career, I think.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Then what next?

Eddie Pate: So after Microsoft, I, I ended up being head hunted out and I moved to Starbucks and I was at Starbucks just a couple of years. And I have to say, and it's, it's no, it's, it really isn't a knock on Starbucks, but it just wasn't what I was looking for. I found it to, it was it took too long to get things done. You had to have meetings to have meetings to decide who's going to have a meeting and then move in that kind of thing. And, and after being at Microsoft, the pace of work is so much faster that it really was grating to have it just be so kind of slowed down and bogged down. So I actually left Starbucks and started my own consulting company, which I had for three years. Back then I did consulting for three years and was getting my feet wet, learning what it means to be a speaker and a consultant. And then I had held off a company called Avanade several times throughout those three years saying, no, you know, I'm not interested in jumping back into the corporate space, but at one point I, you know, they came to me and said, look, we really want you to come join this company and help us design and move globally and inclusion, diversity and equity strategy.

Eddie Pate: And so I ended up joining Avanade and I was the vice president of inclusion, diversity and equity for them for five years. It was an incredible role because it really was Avanade is very much a global company, and so I had opportunities to travel abroad and really think about the, you know, I'd and e from a, from a global lens. And then after Avanade, I was headhunted out to Amazon, where I was the director of inclusion, diversity and equity for worldwide operations. And it was one of the groups at Amazon where, and you'll know the group because it's the one that has all the fulfillment centers, distribution centers, the airplanes, the minute you are, you know, any family member hits, you know you know buy and the product is sent to you. That's worldwide operations. So and, you know, I joke with people all the time, Doctor Kirk that you know, it's this tiny organization that I was responsible for. I had 18 people on my team at the largest and we were responsible for 1 million people.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Eddie Pate: So it was incredible. So, but it was again, it was a, it was a really important experience for me because it had not only could I build on all the past experiences that I had, especially the Avanade one and the global nature of it at that point. But you know, it's, it's, you know, it had such a global feel. I had, you know, I had multiple trips to India, to Singapore, to throughout Europe and just had a real strong responsibility of driving inclusion, diversity and equity across a broad network of individuals, different cultures, different backgrounds. And, and when you have that, you have to figure out how to make it work and how do you scale? And that's, that was a lot of my job is to help figure out how do we scale to a million people? Yeah. So it was, it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Was my my mind boggling. For me. I mean, I, I managed an organization with 400 people, but a million, a million and scaling and communicating and getting shared language and shared values established seems monumental, but I'm sure very rewarding.

Eddie Pate: It was rewarding. So that's the that's my that's kind of my corporate career. And then I retired in 2020, which you know what, I can't believe it's it's been 5 or 6 years since I've retired from corporate. It's crazy. And but now I, I I, and one month after I retired, I knew I just wasn't, I didn't want to not do something. I wanted to keep my mind fresh. I wanted to make sure that I was finding those moments that matter and having an impact. And so I started educate speaking and consulting, and I've been doing consulting work and speaking keynotes, workshops. And as you mentioned earlier I wrote a book with someone who used to work for me at Amazon.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Well, you know, I love and if you want to frame this any way you want, but certainly I'm sure you, you reflected upon some of these things in your book, and you do so in your speaking. But what are some of the key elements that people should keep in mind when they're really trying to create that culture, that inclusive culture in organizations? What are some either must must do's or please don't do's and, and, and maybe a couple of, of examples of good successes of people moving toward a more robust corporate culture around inclusion. And then you know, on a, on, on a little more somber note would love to get your thoughts on the current environment. Right. And some of the not full frontal assaults that practitioners such, such as yourself are living with.

Eddie Pate: Yeah, absolutely. So you know, there are a number of things that I think people need to do to actually be impactful with I'd and e and this kind of work I have for years, I have heard people, you know, I've had leaders come up to me. Executives say, okay, Eddie, give me 2 or 3 things that I can do right now that just will move the needle. And in the back of my mind, I always go through my mind. I would say oh boy, you, you, you need a lot of help because there's, there's no one or 2 or 3 big things that anyone can do, in my opinion, that will actually have a sustainable impact and change for an organization in terms of wanting to become more inclusive or more equitable, or, you know, a company that integrates people from all over the planet in a way that's truly effective. I really believe, and this is a kind of a philosophy and an approach that I've developed over the years. If you really want to have an impact, you need to think about what are those daily practices that you could do that are inclusive and creates belonging. And and, and, and actually, this is one of those elements that is not overwhelming to do. You know, over the years, you realize, I've realized that everyone's so busy in the corporate space. And if you give them a big old project to do and, and they can't remove other pieces from their plates, how do they make room on their in their busy lives at work to do it? They don't or they don't do anything well, and they try to incorporate what you're talking about and they piecemeal it or do this.

Eddie Pate: But I have found if you give them a daily practice that they can do. Right. You, you teach them what you know, intentionality is all about. If you, if you, you know, have them understand who's in their kitchen, right? As, as a, as a particular pebble that has an impact. If you and I can explain what all these are in a moment, but giving you broader context. So it is a matter of teaching people to do daily, inclusive, practical things that over time lead to systemic and cultural change. And let me let me give you an example of this. And then I can touch on some other pebbles and some other kind of guiding principles that I think are important for people to implement for I.d.e.a. To work. So one of the examples I often give and, and, and I'll set the context. The other, the other piece of context before I give you the example, is this whole notion of and dropping a pebble which causes a ripple. And so if you drop a pebble that causes a ripple, those ripples cause someone else to drop a pebble, which causes a ripple.

Eddie Pate: And those ripples cause someone else to drop a pebble, which causes a ripple. And those pebbles are those small, inclusive activities or behaviors or actions that lead to systemic change. And my, my argument is that's ultimately what leads to us, to the change that we're looking for. And here's an example. So you're sitting in a, you're sitting in a meeting and, and we all, and especially the women who are listening to us or will listen to us in this. It will understand this example and appreciate it. Women are cut off 7 to 10 times more often than men are right in conversation. And so if you're sitting around a table in there and you're having this heated discussion, there's tense discussion and you're trying to get everyone's input and let's say Curt, you know, you know, Doctor Kirk, you, you cut off Barbara and you speak over her. And then in that very moment, if I drop a pebble by saying, hey, Doctor Kirk, why don't you hold off for a second? I want to hear what you have to say. But you you interrupted Barbara, and I really find what she says is super valuable. We'll get right back to you, but I want to make sure we. She has a chance to finish her thought, and then we'll get back to you. And so I dropped the pebble that causes a ripple. And so let's say the next meeting, you go to this next meeting and you witness the same thing where someone else cuts a woman off.

Eddie Pate: And now that you've had this experience and you understand this, you might say, hey, hold on a second. Let me hear from her first, and then we're going to do this. And this is how people who keep dropping pebbles in ripples. So that's one little example. And if you think about a meeting of eight people, if eight people go to their next meetings and then you have, you know, it just extrapolates and gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and before long, it becomes part of the the culture of an organization to not speak over people and understand the dynamic of what we're doing. And in fact, I've done this very thing where I've said to make it a learning moment for people. I'll say, hey, Doctor Kirk, I, you know, I really want to hear what you say. But, you know, unfortunately, women are often spoken over way more often than men. So I just want to hold this off. Let's hear from her. And then I want to get your perspective. But in that moment, I also, not only did I allow or make it possible for her to speak, I made it a learning lesson for you. And so that's how this works. And there are just obviously hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of examples of what I just gave that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Shows the value.

Eddie Pate: Of inclusive pebbles.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I assume the book has some some additional examples of pebbles that might, might, might be commonly picked up. Yes.

Eddie Pate: And dropped in the water. Exactly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And.

Eddie Pate: You know, I mentioned a few of them, like teaching people to be intentional. Right. Is this pebble that. So in situations where, you know, you have a true gap and this is one of those ways that you can have an impact, right? Let's say you have a gap on your team where you know, an HR functions, for example, usually about seven out of ten people in HR are women. Yeah. And that tends to be the data, right. But but that's for the lower levels of an organization. Suddenly when you get to director VP, you know, CHRO those numbers flip. Right. And so all of a sudden you have more men percentage wise in a lot of companies than women. So these organizations are led by men when the majority of the people in the organization are women. So intentionality would mean that we need to, the next time that we hire or we promote, or we think about who's going to join the ranks of director, VP and, and make up part of that leadership team. We should be very intentional in our efforts to make sure that we have women on the interview loop. We are. And if we. And so if it's not a if it's a company like Costco, for example, that likes to promote from within, then what you do is if, if you have senior managers are the ones that ultimately get promoted to be directors and then become part of that executive team.

Eddie Pate: So at that, at that senior manager level, are you intentionally having development programs for women? Are you making sure that they have visibility to senior leaders and maybe having a mentor mentee relationship with senior executives on the on the leadership team. Right. With those high performing women. So in other words, you want to be intentional in how you approach these problems. And, you know, and when you get the pushback from some people saying, but isn't that reverse discrimination? Or are you, you know, and you just you just say, look, there's not reverse discrimination for one that doesn't exist. And the other piece is look at if we've allowed this dynamic to go unchecked and who keeps getting promoted and who keeps doing this are men. Because there's some biases, obviously maybe unintentional built into the process. So let's be intentional. Let's address that gap and then and make sure that we are giving women the equal opportunity and equity, you know, equitable opportunity to successfully compete for these jobs. So that's what I mean by intentionality. So it's a small tweak in how you think. And then I'll give you one other example.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Eddie Pate: That is a little, you know, easier to think about. I like the phrase who's in your kitchen? And we talk about it in our book. And actually it's got an interesting story. It is an expression that Doctor Martin Luther King coined and used back in the civil rights days. So he realized he needed to recognize who's in his kitchen, advising him and talking to him and helping him. Because who we invite into our kitchen are those people who we value, we feel comfortable with the ones that we are closest to are the ones in our kitchen. But unfortunately, we don't always have the right people in our kitchen to help advise us. And he recognized that he needed other voices that weren't just saying yes to him or agreed with him. So he needed other voices. So we teach people a simple pebble that you could drop that causes a ripple is how do you expand who your network is? How do you expand who's in your kitchen? And then not only how you expand who's kind of part of your permanent advisory group or who's in your kitchen. But how do you recognize in certain strategic decisions you have to make or problems you have to solve? Who you add temporarily to your kitchen to make sure you have a different voice. So it's just a technique for someone who's starting out to try to solve a problem, to say, okay, who's in my kitchen that I would normally use for this? Who should I be adding? It's an easy thing to do and it doesn't take it's not this prolonged three month activity. It could be something you can do in an hour and think about, man, you know what? I'm going to tap into Doctor Kirk because we definitely need some assistive technology and we need to be thinking about people with disabilities. So I'm going to make sure the doctor cooks in my kitchen for this discussion. Does that make sense.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah it does. And so you referred to the book a couple times. So let's let's talk about the title and, and what, what, what's involved in the book and what people will get out of it if they, when they finish listening to this podcast and order your book. What are you saying?

Eddie Pate: So we'll start out with the title. So the title is Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders A Guide to Building a Culture of Belonging. And the guide part is very specific and very intentional. You know, it's almost like a, you know, a field guide for birds or mammals for you, you dog ear pages. And you go and reference things and you don't have to necessarily read it from cover to cover to understand what you're talking about. You can go straight to this piece. So we wanted to make it a guide for daily practice of inclusive leaders. And so the first half of the book, it really deals with the foundation of inclusive leadership. So we talk about, you know, why leaders are key to daily practice of inclusion. And we really tap into what's called what we call the 2IL model of inclusive leadership. And it's a model of inclusive leadership, right? And so I've had this model that I've developed over the years as a as an executive and leader in the indie space. And we have these pieces of this pie. And I would argue that if you want to be an inclusive leader, you need to think about cultural competence or humility. You need to understand ethnocentrism. And the part that that plays in how you interact with people. You need to definitely understand your unconscious biases and how to acknowledge that and work with that in your organization. Stereotyping we do. In my model there's a part that talks about micro-inequities. You might like microaggressions, micro invalidations insults, those kinds of things.

Eddie Pate: And then the platinum rule is one of those pieces where, you know, you understand the golden rule is do unto others as you want done unto you. Right? Actually, we talk about shifting your thinking to the platinum rule, which is treat people how they want to be treated, not how you want to be treated. So that's a piece of the pie. And the last piece that we talk about in my in my 2IL model, is this whole notion of what it means to be a tempered radical. And that's a and, and, and so, and so I spend the first half, we spend the first half of the book talking about the two YL model, what leadership is all about. And then, you know, really helping people understand, you know, daily wisdom, daily courage, daily heart and structure and accountability. The first part. So that's the first half. The second half is, as the book is designed, is based off the life cycle of an employee. So from the moment you start recruiting an employee till you recruit the employee, you bring them in, it's you know, their introduction to the organization. You know, a, you know, we look at internal movement, we look at representation by level and, you know, and we look at how people leave the organization. So the full life cycle of the employee. We have inclusive practices in pebbles that fit every piece of that life cycle. So if you are sitting in a meeting saying, what can we do to be better about bringing more diverse talent in? You can go to the section on that.

Eddie Pate: We have that deals with with talent acquisition and recruiting and what daily practices you have or, you know, what is it that we can do as a leader overall to be more inclusive? And you can go to the guiding principles section in the, in the back of the book that talks about lead with equity as the in game, lead with intentionality, you know, humanize your stories, really, truly listen all these things that are not super hard but are super effective that you can put into place, right? Using your voice keeping it simple, you know, understanding. Here's one for you, Doctor Kirk understanding the power of spend your privilege and, and people have, you know what I've said and I've talked about spending your privilege. People are going, okay, wait a minute. That's a cool sounding concept. What do you mean? Yeah. And the whole notion is we all have certain privilege and, you know, you have privilege just by being a part of an organization, period, in the story. Everyone has privilege, but you have to recognize that there are other privileges that are your basic that are very basic to you. Men have certain privileges that women don't. White people have certain privileges that people of color don't. Right. But a black male like myself will have probably more privileges than a black woman. Right? So the difference is how do I leverage what privileges I have to create opportunities for others. So spend my privilege. So I'll give you a perfect example of it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Eddie Pate: What I would do is since I was always in an executive role in leader in the company, I often spoke at, you know you know, all hands events or I had opportunities to speak to leadership teams or, you know, at a company meeting or something like that. But what I did is I said, I'm going to spend my privilege. No, I, I, someone from my team will speak, but it's not going to be me. I actually want my E to speak and have an opportunity to do this presentation, because she has aspirations of being a project manager and moving out of that executive assistant function. And so I want to create visibility for her. And I have the privilege to do that. So I spent my privilege, I enabled her to be on the stage speaking. And honestly, this is a true story from my Amazon days. And Cynthia is now a project manager at another company. But doing this, she's no longer doing e work. And it was the start really was her opportunity to be seen and visible in a different role outside of what people expect from her. So it's spending your privilege.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, I'm going to give you my quick spin privilege story, and it's a family story. So we're living in Arlington, Virginia, and the pandemic struck. Our daughter was living in New York City. She opened an office there for a Bay area startup. She fled the city. She came to stay with us in Arlington, which the pandemic soon, soon came there too. But she decided she was going to move to Los, move back to California. And she wanted to she wanted to buy a car in Virginia because it was cheaper to buy a car in Virginia and put it on a train than buy it in California and pay the taxes. Wow. Smart, smart, smart young lady. Yes. So I'm I'm married to an African American woman. I'm white, our children are biracial, and Rachel is a 20, 20 something lovely young brown woman. And she came to me and said, dad, here are the numbers of five Honda dealers, and I want you to call them and say, this is Doctor Kirk Adams. I want to buy a car, a Honda Fit. Da da da. Model number. I'm going to pay cash and I want to buy it tomorrow and see what kind of deal you can get me. So I did that. We started out at 22 something and ended up at 17, but I but I say that and I think about intersectionality. Maybe we can talk about that next time. Now, if I had walked in there with my long white cane I might have had a different result if she would have walked in there with her 24 year old young lady self, she probably would have had a different biracial self. Yeah. Right. So, so there, you know, there are I've experienced privilege as a white man. I've experienced lack of privilege as a person with a disability. So it's just, it's just a very interesting kind of shifting set of dynamics depending on context. And I'm sure you find that often in your work.

Eddie Pate: Absolutely. And, and really the cautionary tale for both the stories that we've told about is how do you do this and not center yourself? So, you know, and I think that is I think that's a really important piece. And that's why I love that part is you didn't center yourself, you gave her the opportunity to do it. And it's the same way I didn't go up on stage and say, oh, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm going to give this opportunity to, you know, Cynthia, to speak and do this because that would be centering me. I simply create an opportunity for her to have visibility. So that's the cautionary tale is, is do it in the right way. Create visibility for others. We're not there to rescue anyone. I'm not there to be the great male savior or the great white hope, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. So I think your story is fabulous. I love that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I, I, I just thought you were so smart of her to understand privilege and affluence and power dynamics.

Eddie Pate: And it's real. It's it is, it's absolutely real. And we, I, we'll have to come back on and, and, and talk about power and privilege and intersections of meritocracy and.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. But I do want, I know we're coming toward the end of our time, but I, I, again, kind of addressing the realities of our current environment, any, any thoughts, reflections on how people can keep moving toward a more inclusive world and any, any bright spots you're seeing or just any reflections you have?

Eddie Pate: Well, so yeah, I, yeah, my, my reflections on this is, and one I always like to start that acknowledging that it is truly painful. It is truly hard out there for people. And you had earlier you referenced people who do this work and what they were experiencing. I want to acknowledge that people in current ID and roles in companies are being chastised and harassed Asked and you know you know, talk down to and you know, I, I've even experienced this in my current consulting one of my gigs where I did a presentation. I do I do human centered leadership work too as part of what I develop and, and having someone just question, why are we talking about Dei? I thought we weren't supposed to, right? It's this kind of thing. So I want to acknowledge that piece first, that I understand the pain and the reality of it. Now I do have hope and, and I think if you had asked me six months ago or nine months ago, Doctor Kirk, I might not have had as much hope as I do now. Okay. And where that hope comes from, quite frankly, is the collective resistive actions of just normal human beings. Nothing was more impactful or empowering than the people in Minneapolis, the people in Minnesota, and what. For me, it showed that you can shift and block authoritarian and racist and sexist and homophobic behavior by collective action. I am, I've always been a believer of, of peaceful resistance and, and protest as well as being very intentional in our approaches with people who are negative.

Eddie Pate: Right. And so for me, I am more and more encouraged because of, of that groundswell of support. If you look at the no Kings days going from, you know, a million people, I think in the first set of no Kings protests. And now the last one was 8 to 10 million. And now you have people protesting in starkly red states, red districts. You have people protesting no kings in Hungary. And look what happened to Viktor Orban, right? Yeah. So so you're seeing some movement in in a way where people are just saying, wait a minute, this doesn't feel right. And, and like, yeah, I get, I get upset and mad about like there, you know, you, I hear interviews with people saying, oh, it's just gone too far. What the, you know, we need to stop doing this. I know I voted for him and part of me wants to say, well, that's part of the problem, right? Is we knew what was he was going to do. He said it constantly, right? We knew what the Trump administration was going to do, but people still voted for them. So part of my reflection is I'll never truly understand that because it was so starkly clear what they were going to do and why people ended up supporting and voting for him. Right. Not understanding what he was going to do will always escape me. I'll never understand that. But I do have more hope. I encourage. I encourage people to look. It's too hard to constantly be worrying at the national level and trying to shift change up their way that way.

Eddie Pate: Right. Find ways within your own sphere of influence your own communities, your own neighborhoods, you know, your ability to like we live in shoreline, Washington, just north of Seattle, and we go to the protests. We go to organize functions, we support neighbors. I started, you know, when I first moved here, a chat group with all the neighbors all around us, we had this wonderful community that we now share articles and discussions and events that we go to. So I encourage all your listeners to find the ways that you can impact what's right around you and be part of resistive actions that show the collective nature of what we want in this country. And then here's the number one thing you can get everyone on, on, on your listeners and everyone to pay attention to is in November. Vote. Get everyone else around you to vote. If you have people pushing back, get them to vote. And that is. That is, you know, the best thing that anyone can do because we're seeing this. We're seeing massive turnouts because of resistive action. People are aware of the issues. They're not they're no longer being fed, you know you know you know, one bit of news because they always watch this. They're only hearing one voice now. They're now they're, it's expanding. So now use that same voice to get people to vote in November and, and move in the direction of human centered, you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So that's a, that's a dropping of a pebble in your local pond, right? When you get someone else to vote 100%.

Eddie Pate: Exactly. It causes many ripples. That's how, that's how change will happen, quite frankly. One voter, one individual, one person. You know, it could be as simple as is, is if you see someone or if you know someone who is an immigrant and is undocumented or something like that, they have a kind word for them. Those moments matter. That's what we're talking about. And in that very moment where you have a nice, you know, just say, hey, are you okay? Is everything fine? Like, you know, and it's, it's those moments that matter that we need to bring empathy back with. We have to be more empathetic. We have to understand the moments matter when we engage on individual actions day to day, right? We don't have to, we don't have to. We don't have to solve the big problem. We just have to be nice on a daily basis, quite frankly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So everyone be nice. Yes. So this time has flown by. I'm looking forward to next time. And we'll talk about power and privilege and meritocracy. It'll be another deep, rich conversation. But let's let's hear the title of your guide book, your how to how to Drop Those Pebbles in the Right Places book.

Eddie Pate: It is Daily Practices of Inclusive Leaders A Guide to Building a Culture of Belonging.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Thank you. I have it right here in my book. Share. There is a Braille ready file for you Braille readers out there. It's a bookshare and you can read it and enjoy it and learn from it. And again, Eddie, how can people get in touch with you?

Eddie Pate: So multiple ways. I am an open book. So. [email protected]. So. EddiePate the numbers [email protected]. You can go out to my website. Just type in Eddie Pate speaking and consulting. You'll see my website and then https://inclusivepebbles.com is where my book is. And send me an email. I will share all my contact information with you. Phone everything. Shoot me an email at [email protected]. And if you want to talk, if you want to set up a time to maybe have me come in and speak to your organization or you know, just have a connected good to get to know you. Happy to do it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wonderful, wonderful. And for me, my, my website is https://drkirkadams.com on there. I have a newsletter sign up and I'm on LinkedIn every day. @KirkAdamsPhD on LinkedIn. And I think Eddie and I are both involved in the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. And we are going to launch a community coalition this summer. So we would both invite you to go to the we call it is ISDI to the ISDI website and sign up for email alerts. And that is www dot letter I numeral 4 SDI.org. And this has been a Wonderful, thought provoking episode of podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. Thank you so much, Eddie. Lovely to have you back. For everyone listening, we'll we'll catch you next time.

Eddie Pate: Thank you, thank you, thank you, I loved it.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor 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 Claudia Lorant, The Quantum Architect, 3X #1 Best-Selling Author, Speaker, Creator of the Quantum Omni Mindset Framework https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-04-07-2026/

In this deeply reflective episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams sits down with Claudia Lorant, bestselling author and creator of the Quantum Omni Mindset framework, for a candid conversation about trauma, healing, and transformation. Lorant shares her own history as a survivor of profound abuse and explains how years of therapy, study, and self-experimentation led her to develop a five-pillar framework aimed at helping people move beyond surface-level "positive thinking" and into deeper healing through meditation, subconscious reprogramming, and nervous-system awareness.

The episode becomes especially powerful as Dr. Adams connects Lorant's ideas to his own experience of childhood blindness, hospitalization, and the lingering trauma that can follow disability, loss, and exclusion. Together, they explore how trauma can shape identity, habits, and self-perception over time, and Lorant argues that true healing requires more than mindset slogans, it requires rebuilding how we see ourselves and respond to pain in real time. The result is a thoughtful, personal discussion about resilience, disability, and what Lorant calls moving from a "trauma-informed" to a "trauma-reformed" perspective.

TRANSCRIPT:

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Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. And I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And my guest today is all the way across the country. And her name is Claudia Lorant. The Quantum Architect. Claudia is a three time best selling author in the US and Canada, and she is creator of the Quantum Omni Mindset framework. And Claudia and I had some very interesting conversations about trauma and how she has learned to help people address trauma. We're going to talk about that. Particularly interested in looking at that through the lens of those of us who have become impaired and face disabling situations. But say, say hello, Claudia.

Claudia Lorant: Thank you so very much, Doctor Adams. I appreciate your time and it's a pleasure to be here. Hello to everyone. Blessings to everyone.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes. And we'll be we'll be back to to hear a lot more from Claudia in a moment. For those of you who are tuning in for the first time, I am the managing director of a consulting practice called Innovative Impact LLC. And prior to that, I was president and CEO of the American Foundation for the blind, which is Helen Keller's organization. Prior to that, I had the honor of having those same leadership roles at The Lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle, where I was involved with an organization that employed hundreds of blind and deaf blind people in a variety of businesses. I am a blind person myself. My retina is detached. When I was a kindergarten kid at age five, so I went from being a sighted kid to a blind kid overnight. And speaking to a therapist 10 or 12 years ago, I saw I was having some, some issues. I think related to the grief cycle. And I talking to a talk therapist and she asked me, you know, what? What did what have you done to to address your childhood trauma? I said childhood trauma. She said, well, yes, you were hospitalized multiple times. Painful surgeries in the hospital alone as a five, six, seven year old. Yes, my friend, you did experience childhood trauma. So when when Claudia and I had our first conversations and she started to talk to me about her quantum omni framework, I was just very intrigued about how that might apply to my own life. But Claudia's story is powerful and impactful and fascinating. So I asked her to join me today on the podcast. So Claudia would love to hear about your journey because it has been a journey.

Claudia Lorant: Oh yes, it has. It certainly has. And, you know just to follow up on your statement about when you saw the therapist and she asked you about how you were dealing with, you know, your trauma from your childhood. And I think that it's important that we all understand that no matter who we are, no matter what a difficult adversity or trauma, whether it be emotional, psychological or physical the scars, the low vibrational frequency of energy that gets pre-programmed into your system is something that is not for, for surface level modalities of healing. Say, for example, I will use myself as an example. Okay. I am a multiple trauma survivor. And I am very much open to share. Just, I'm going to touch a little bit on that. And I'm a multiple Survivor of incest. Started when I was three. Molestation. Two rapes. Some physical and some psychological abuse. And so from a very young age, I decided I had two out-of-body experiences as well. And after my second out-of-body experience, when I had a gun put to my head and I was told, you know, I brought you into this world, I can take you out. And I was barely 15 years old. Still just an innocent little girl, really. And I'm obviously a very late bloomer, but you know, I had this out of body experience, so I am witness that there is a greater power that is beyond the realm of humanity.

Claudia Lorant: There is an energy, whether you want to call it universal intelligence or the source or God, Muhammad Jehovah, Allah, whatever you want to call your God. I believe that there is a a higher frequency of energy that connects us all. And so what I began to study were the thinking processes of the human mind. What causes a person to perpetuate, you know, traumatic behavior? What causes a person to have the strength to break that cycle and break those generational traumas that really impact our lives in the present moment? That we're not taught about this in school? Okay. No church, no, no educational system that actually addresses this specifically, obviously, through the advancement of bioscience and quantum physics and quantum entanglement, you know, quantum consciousness, neuroplasticity, epigenetics. We are now at a stage of our human evolutionary existence where we've determined through research, and it's highly documented by authorities and experts. That trauma leaves residual low vibrational frequencies of energy that until they are addressed and resolved, they will continue to follow you throughout your life and will affect every single decision that you make in your life about your life, about your profession, about, you know, your culture, about your community is affected by the unresolved frequency of trauma and adversities. Doesn't matter what level the trauma is trauma. It's a low vibrational frequency of energy. And as we all know, energy doesn't die. It transforms. Right? So to give you a little insight, I have gone through more than 20 years of psychological therapy, not psychiatric, but definitely psychological.

Claudia Lorant: And after, you know, 20 years of spending thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. And believe me, they helped. The modalities that I sought after through psychologists helped me to I describe it this way, no disrespect to anybody, but it was like putting a band aid on the scar. It helped me to psychologically understand and comprehend and dissect the thinking process of, you know, why things happened or why these things were done. You know, what causes the human being to do these things, right? But after, you know, 20 years of therapy, I still couldn't talk about my trauma because whenever I discussed it, it would take me back to that low vibrational frequency of unstable energy. I would cry, I would get upset, I would get apprehensive. I would start thinking about what are they going to say? What are they going to think? You know, all these patterns of habitual pre-programmed behavior that was instilled in us when we didn't even have a choice because we were just kids, right? Because we obviously have the pre-programming of the subconscious mind through whatever our parents, their circumstances, whether they be familial or cultural or religious, that those environments that they grew up in, along with the unresolved traumas of their parents and their parents, parents. And so.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, you know, when you start talking. That's what came to my mind is I've, I've become aware that that's a thing I carry trauma from previous generations of your family into your life. So I, I hope we have some time to explore that, that that that that is a mind blower.

Claudia Lorant: Well, let me let me share a little bit of, of how I came to create, to creating, you know, a very high level, profound framework that encompasses all of the vital and important modalities of therapeutic healing that I had to create on my own. Because for the last 25 years I've been diagnosed as a autodidactic polymath. So I'm self-taught. I didn't have the opportunity to graduate from college. And so I've always been a seeker of knowledge and a thirst for wisdom. And so for the last 25 years, I've been studying psychoneuroimmunology, quantum physics, quantum entanglement, neuroplasticity, Epigenetics. Positive psychology and metacognition. And the reason why I began studying these different modalities is because I realized that the therapies that I had spent so much money and dedicated so much time to, never taught me about how the trauma is in your ancestral lineage and how biologically it is transferred to your offspring. And so for me, that research led me to write down at one moment in my life, I had a what people call a dark moment of the soul where I really questioned everything. And so I just, I'm a writer and an author. So I just wrote all of my emotions down. I wrote them down. I mean, I literally just cried onto the paper as I wrote and I feel like that was so cathartic in and of itself. So I ended up sending it to my agent in LA, and I was cast as a part of a cast of six castmates. For the first ever documentary style reality television show about spiritual transformation and trauma healing. So I have not only done the research, I have literally done and documented the actual work that I've done for the whole world to see. And what I have, you know, come to terms with is that after all these years of research and dedication to healing, I was able to heal myself by implementing these five different modalities of therapeutic transcendental healing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And that's the framework.

Claudia Lorant: Yes, that is the framework.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Claudia Lorant: And yeah, and then touching on what you mentioned about the ancestral lineage and the trauma as it is inherited, obviously, and now we know that for a fact. There are different actual work that you can do on yourself. Like past regression hypnosis. There is a lot there are different neurological neuroscience that tactics that can really help you to evolve through that process. So you know, I actually talk about that in my I've got a ton of resources on my website, but what I, so what I did when I began to do is I used myself as my own case study and I implemented my quantum omni mindset, which is a paradigm shift, but this is a A quantum leap in paradigm shifts because of the fact that I created the five pillar framework, which consists of quantum omni vision, intuition, and perspective. Okay. And then I, I incorporate it into my framework, which has now expanded into quantum omni intelligence and quantum omni architecture. And what I have concluded from all of my research is that most modalities of healing really touch on surface level behavior. They want you, they, you know, they really preach that you should, you know, teach I'm sorry, level up your mindset because everybody and their grandmother right now is talking about mindset and leveling up your mindset. Well, that really touches on superficial, not a deeper dive into connecting the mind, the body, the entire neurological system of your body. Everything that is entailed and what trauma touches. So what I did is I built this framework that's not built on theory alone. It's a directional align. It's directionally aligned with modern research across behavioral sciences like neuroscience, psycho neuro immunology habit forming patterns metacognition and pardon me, there was just huge thunder and lightning outside. All of a sudden. So pardon me for that metacognition and contemplative sciences. And so while most you know, modalities are impersonal development focused on mindset, I operate at a level that actually creates a new architecture. A cognitive architecture and an identity architecture where we do subconscious programming. We address nervous system regulation and it's a perceptual architecture.

Dr. Kirk Adams: We are back. So Claudia mentioned a huge flash of lightning and a huge peal of thunder, and it disconnected her internet. I did mention earlier that she is far away across the country. I'm in Seattle and you are in.

Claudia Lorant: Miami.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Miami, Miami Beach. So I just I just imagined myself in Miami Beach in a big thunderstorm, so I can.

Claudia Lorant: Yes. Thank you very much for reconnecting.

Claudia Lorant: I appreciate it. So

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I did want to ask so you.

Claudia Lorant: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You talk about the framework and you talked about your research and you talked about the five I think is modalities, the word you use pillars.

Claudia Lorant: The pillars.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you help. You help guide people through. Applying this framework to their own circumstances, their own lives. And you started with yourself, it sounds like. But could could you walk us through the five pillars and maybe give a little. Example or deep deeper explanation of each one. Is that something that would work for you? Because I would like to I would like to hear that.

Claudia Lorant: You know.

Claudia Lorant: A lot of these different modalities really operate at a level of conscious cognition, but without restructuring your actual identity at its core, the internal model that governs perception, behavior, and decision making. So what I discovered and created is the roadmap so that you don't just upgrade your thinking, you upgrade the thinker, you upgrade the not just your thinking, but your internal architecture in connection with your cognitive architecture. And when you apply metacognition, I teach you how to take a quantum leap beyond to the realm of the five Sensory Perceptive Society, the multi-sensory Perceptive Society, into what I have coined, the Quantum Omni Perceptive Society. And that is where you are actually capable of aligning your subconscious and conscious minds through your Higher self so that you evolve your your, the vision of who you are, of how you see things, which obviously at that point, once you see how it is that you think it's an, it's an observation and a perspective that encompasses many different. Paths to what the situation is you're dealing with. So instead of being linear, thinking, it's multidimensional and it allows you to reprogram your subconscious and conscious mind so that it's a whole process. And you know, there's a meditation in the morning. You can pre-program, you know how you at night before I go to sleep.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I am a, I am a every morning meditator myself. So I.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Get that.

Claudia Lorant: Yes, that is amazing. I think it's such a wonderful thing to see how society as a whole is a collective consciousness is really taking the the modality of meditation to heart. It's a huge movement. And so it's a beautiful thing to see that people are elevating their consciousness as a collective. So I actually created the roadmap through implementing implementation of my framework so that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I could.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Could, could you walk me through the five pillars of the framework again, and maybe a little bit of an explanation or an example, something I, I hear the words, but I want to internalize it more.

Claudia Lorant: Absolutely. Okay. So the first pillar is quantum omni vision. That's the first pillar of my framework, which I designed to elevate level up your vision of how you see yourself through the alignment of your higher self. So that's evolving your perspective as to how you see yourself. Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And meditation, the meditation part of that.

Claudia Lorant: The meditation is what you use to connect to your higher self. Yes, sir. That's the first.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Claudia Lorant: And then once you've gone through the the courses that I have and you get you pass the exam, you get your certification, then you go into the second pillar, which is quantum omni intuition. And through quantum omni intuition, what I, I guide you through through the meditation process is to learn how to align your conscious and subconscious mind to universal intelligence. So you tap into the frequency at a quantum level. So what that connection and alignment does for the human psyche is that it opens you up to all the possibilities that the universe has. So your perspective, not just how you envision yourself, but how you go inward and feel physically, the alignment at the quantum level.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm super interested in that and learning how to follow my intuition. I've been pretty, pretty much sketch out the roadmap and follow the roadmap. And I've ignored, I've, I think I've ignored a lot of intuitive information that I shouldn't have ignored in my life. So I'm trying to.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Know, I'm really trying to learn about that.

Claudia Lorant: Well, thank you. I'm so happy to hear that because you're not alone. You know, hundreds of millions of people in the world have never heard this because I created it and I literally researched, there is not a combination of the different modalities that actually encompass the entire scope of the human body, the psyche, the mind that, you know, your nervous system. You know, it's just, it's brilliant.

Claudia Lorant: So okay, I can.

Claudia Lorant: Say that myself. But so the third pillar is quantum omni perspective. And so that is the process of you learning how at night before you go to bed, you listen to different guided meditations and they can be, you know, five, ten, 15 minutes. It can be 20 minutes or 30 minutes. I've developed them all. And what you do is you pre-program your subconscious mind. So as you're falling asleep and your brainwaves are going deep into your subconscious through the theta brainwave, you are actually reprogramming while your conscious mind is still working, and you align that while you're sleeping. And so what I, what that, what that causes is for you to be able to have the roadmap to when you wake up in the morning and meditate again, your cognizant, Your conscious mind is now subliminally and subconsciously aligned at the quantum level. So you are more it's more conducive for your thinking process throughout the day when you set your intentions for the day. You are now setting them in alignment with universal intelligence and divine frequency at the quantum level.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool.

Claudia Lorant: Yes. So I'm really excited for the opportunity to share this with you all. I'm very excited. I'm really just I sometimes have to just pause and breathe in deeply. Because I really feel that presence of that alignment and it's just such a joyous and beautiful feeling of certainty and confidence. And it's like you tap into such a quantum level of intelligence and wisdom that really is impactful to your life. And pardon me, I'm going to drink a little coconut water.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay?

Claudia Lorant: What it also does is that and this is something that is very important that I share, which is that most people don't realize that because we have not been taught this, that through neuroplasticity and epigenetics, you know, the way your gene expressions are able to transform through your thoughts, through your ability to connect to your higher self through meditation. How neuroplasticity. Now, you know, we've just now are touching on this point of our human evolutionary research and knowledge and data that we now have, right? And so to be able to implement a framework That not only teaches you how to overcome your trauma, but this is the key here to my framework, is I teach you and guide you through the transcendence of your past traumas and adversities. So you're not just somewhat putting a bandaid on it and then having it resurface, because subconsciously it'll resurface automatically because you haven't resolved that trauma. So through my, through my process, what I guide you through is you not only transcend the trauma, but then I take you a step further through quantum intelligence. And that is a deeper, higher level of alignment at the quantum level, which helps you and guides you, teaches you how to transmute once again through meditation, that low vibrational frequency of energy that was created physically, cognitively, that affected your architecture that you weren't taught how to resolve.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Claudia Lorant: So it's transformation and transmutation of.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And.

Dr. Kirk Adams: What's the fourth pillar called?

Claudia Lorant: Oh, quantum omni intelligence.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's what we're talking about right now.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Right now. Yes. So I just.

Claudia Lorant: Walked you through the, the process as I teach it. And then finally it's I've institutionalized, I've been very fortunate in that I've touched enough people's hearts that I've been asked to help create the curriculum for the first AI technical high school here in.

Claudia Lorant: Miami.

Claudia Lorant: County. So I see the impact that transcending and transmuting your traumas is having and how quickly people are starting to pick it up because they've been yearning for it. They just didn't know how to articulate it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Yes. And so and.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm not I haven't abandoned my linear thinking yet. So now I need to write down the name of the fifth pillar.

Claudia Lorant: Okay. So the the fifth is the quantum architect you become.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Claudia Lorant: The quantum omni architect. So you actually, I teach you how to become the architect of your psychological, physiological, neurological, cognitive identity through this process. And so now you're capable of implementing your own architecture customized to yourself so that then you can go back and do the work that you need. I mean, I can hold your hand and guide you through it, or you can work on it for yourself and then reconnect. And I can see that. And I have assessments, obviously, that I take that I have my my clients take whereby we actually have, you know, key performance indicators that show what, which pillar is working best for you. And then we focus on those that you really need in order to transcend and transmute.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I mentioned my childhood trauma when you described the traumas you've experienced. Some of them occurred when you were a small child.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Trauma also happens throughout life. Some people.

Claudia Lorant: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I guess everyone experiences some levels of trauma, but you know, some, some have their most traumatic events as adults and, you know, most blindness is the impairment that I'm most familiar with. Think about the most. So most of us are not totally blind. Most of us have some usable vision. Many people acquire their visual impairment as they age. So for instance, I know a lot of people with a condition called retinitis pigmentosa That starts usually with night night blindness. Then the peripheral vision erodes and erodes until a person is seeing through a smaller and smaller little tunnel, like looking through a drinking straw. At some point, and then for most people, it closes. So a person becomes totally blind. These people may be in their 30s, 40s 50s, but they've lived as sighted people. And then they one of the most things people remark on the most is having to give up driving and that independence and freedom. And then it's, you know, not being able to read a book like they are used to or, or read their mail or you know, enjoy watching their grandchildren. So, you know, I, I would think those would fall into the category of trauma, but they're kind of ongoing. And then of course, we have higher incidence of accidents because we can't see you know, people with mobility impairment, you know, people in a wheelchair will. You know, I'm invited to a party and I get there and there's two flights of steps and I can't go in.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You know, some.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Sometimes we call those microaggressions. But I could also, I could also call them mini traumas.

Claudia Lorant: Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So how does your framework apply to kind of that fluid continuum of trauma?

Claudia Lorant: So this is the thank you. First of all, thank you so very much for sharing, because hearing it, reading about it and then hearing it is from a person who has experienced it just really takes me to a whole different level of understanding and empathy and sympathy, obviously, because, you know, most people don't think about those things, but I'm not most people. So to answer your question interestingly enough, this is why this framework As you apply it in your life. No matter what degree of trauma you have had or you are currently going through, through my framework, you're able to learn how to transform the energy of that trauma so that you can perceive through metacognition and identify in real time when you are falling into the old habitual patterns of preprogrammed behavior that was caused by the trauma where you can now identify. It's like you program your subconscious and conscious mind, your psyche to identify. And so now you're capable of preventing that low vibrational frequency and pain of the trauma to extend into all other aspects of your life. So this is an on going evolutionary therapy that actually helps you address the trauma at its core, and then helps you to identify when your old patterns of behavior.

Claudia Lorant: Which become habits, which is why when people just talk about, oh, leveling up your, you know, think positive, change your mindset.

Claudia Lorant: Well, that.

Claudia Lorant: Yeah, that's not at the deeper level that I'm talking to you about. I'm talking about real time. You actually program your mind and your psyche to identify in real time when that pain of the trauma is coming to affect you, because ultimately, without you even knowing it, and no matter how simple you want to think the trauma was or how much you don't want to think about it because you don't want to go there. That trauma extends into the way you think, the way you the way your thinking processes how you think of yourself, how you see others and your own personality and opinion of yourself, your belief system of who you are is what translates into you having a thinking process that is affected by that one linear perspective.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right, right, right, right. So when you say superficial, what I think about is when I see comments, positive vibes only, I always think, well, that's you're not, you're not dealing with, you're not dealing with the world.

Claudia Lorant: Exactly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You're not dealing with the world the way it is.

Claudia Lorant: That it?

Claudia Lorant: Thank you.

Claudia Lorant: You just hit.

Claudia Lorant: The nail.

Claudia Lorant: On the head. That was the perfect example, right?

Claudia Lorant: Absolutely. It takes much more than just Thinking your way to changing your habits, you actually have to reconstruct and re-architecture your own identity through your cognitive perspective. And so yeah.

Claudia Lorant: I, well, I.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Claudia this time has flown by and I, it's just, I feel like I've gotten a taste. I certainly have a deeper understanding. And the first time we had a conversation when you introduced your framework to me the first time. So I'm looking forward to going deeper. And for those who are listening, who want want to learn more, what's the best way they can connect with you?

Claudia Lorant: Well, my name is Claudia, C L A U D I A, and my last name is the Spanish spelling of the word of the name Lorant. It's spelled L as in Larry, O as in Oscar, R as in Ralph, A as in Alpha, N as in Nancy, and T as in Tom. So you can go to https://ClaudiaLorant.com, where I have a ton of free resources to guide you through the understanding of the terminology that will help you truly evolve your mindset at the quantum level.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I really, really appreciate the fact that you reached out to me and that we connected and are getting to know one another and helping support each other's good work. I look forward to breaking bread with you next time in Miami, or if you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Find yourself in.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Seattle.

Claudia Lorant: And thank you.

Claudia Lorant: So.

Claudia Lorant: Much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And for those listening who want to get in touch with me, my website is Dr. as in doctor, https://DrKirkAadams.com and you can sign up for my newsletter there. We can keep in touch. And Claudia, it's been a pleasure and I look forward to talking with you again soon. And I just want to encourage you to keep up your good work. The more harm, the more trauma. We we can heal and deal with in this world, the better for all of us, right?

Claudia Lorant: That's exactly right. I am not into trauma informed perspectives. I'm into trauma reformed perspective. So thank you so much for your time, Doctor Adams. Blessings to you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And you enjoy your thunderstorm.

Claudia Lorant: I will do that. Thank you so much. Com. Okay my dear. Take care. Bye bye.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Bye.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at WW. 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 Sucheta Narang, Founder, Accessible World, Creator, Access Trader https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-02-27-2026/

In this insightful episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams welcomes Sucheta Narang, founder of Accessible World and creator of Access Trader, an accessible, screen-reader-compatible trading assistant, into a wide-ranging conversation about independence, inclusion, and financial empowerment. Born blind in a traditional North Indian family, Sucheta describes learning early that "waiting for a fix" wasn't an option, then charts a path through mainstream education, international disability work in India and the UK, and corporate roles where she embedded accessibility at scale, including work with Wipro, Google (Chrome team), and Adobe.

Sucheta explains that losing her job became the unexpected catalyst for building Access Trader: when she tried to diversify her investments, advisors turned her away, and the trading world's dashboards and charts proved overwhelmingly visual, forcing her to confront how much "financial independence" still relies on sighted assistance. She shares how she used AI to translate visual market data into structured descriptions her screen reader could interpret, turning a personal workaround into a platform designed "by and for" blind users, with benefits even for sighted beginners who feel overwhelmed by dense trading interfaces. Dr. Adams, drawing on his own background as a former securities broker, highlights the privacy and dignity at stake, and Sucheta closes with an invitation to sign up for early access and see Access Trader's next steps, including a planned CSUN presentation.

TRANSCRIPT:

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Advertisement: I can't see it.

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Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of podcasts with Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have a really interesting and amazing guest. Sucheta Narang is here. She's the founder of Accessible World and creator of Access Trader, which is the first accessible screen reader compatible trader trading assistant. So we're talking about securities and trading securities here. So say say hello. Sucheta.

Sucheta Narang: Hi.

Sucheta Narang: Everyone. And thank you Doctor Adams, for inviting me here. It's a pleasure to meet you. Before I actually could you. How do I address you? Is it like Doctor Adams or Doctor Kirk?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Kirk. That's fine.

Sucheta Narang: Okay. Thanks. Kirk. Yeah. Nice to meet you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The doctor title comes in handy in certain circumstances, but

Sucheta Narang: Sure. I didn't want to offend you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, for those of you who don't know me, I'm a blind person. Have been since age five. My retinas detached, went to a school for blind kids. First, second and third grade. Then on through elementary. Middle school. High school. Undergrad. Master's, PhD. I was the only blind student in all of my in all of my schools. After I left the school for the blind.

Sucheta Narang: Wow.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But yeah, but for the first ten years out of college, I was actually a licensed securities broker. I worked for a small local brokerage firm here in Seattle that mostly underwrote tax free municipal bonds. So I was involved in underwriting new issues of tax free municipal bonds. But I also had a series seven securities license, and I did sell other securities, but I was certainly not a trader. I was a buy and holder, but I have I have been a little bit in that world. And so when I met you, I was just so, so interested in what you're doing and what your journey has been. So would really I'd love to hear from you. Your

Sucheta Narang: Sure.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Experience with with visual impairment yourself and what motivated you and what your background is. And we want to learn everything about you in the next half hour.

Sucheta Narang: Thank you. Thank you for you know, your kind words. So, like, probably like Kirk did describe my name is Sucheta. I am a blind. I'm blind from birth. And I was born in a North Indian traditional North Indian family. I have bilateral cataracts and microphthalmia, which meant the surgery isn't you know, straightforward or guaranteed. So very early on, I understood that waiting for a fix isn't an option. So I built my life around independence. Just like you did. You all probably do. And so today I am here because I started Accessible World last year, and I built an accessible, screen reader compatible trading assistant for blind and low vision users. And it's equally powerful for anyone who is new to investing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So what's your background? How you don't just build something like that? No.

Sucheta Narang: No.

Dr. Kirk Adams: What is your background that led you to the point where you had the capabilities to develop something like this?

Sucheta Narang: So early on, like, you know I did studied in the mainstream schools. But obviously there was no parallel systems waiting for me, so I had to go through textbooks, exams expectations, social dynamics, and especially being in India, you know, you have to fight the stereotypes as well. And then you know, what I, what I was what I was finding was like, I was often the only blind person in a room, and that forces you to be more resourceful. So after completing my education, I did my studies in economics and political science and then moved into international development sector, where I worked with you know, disability organizations, employment public health.

Dr. Kirk Adams: This was while you were living in India?

Sucheta Narang: Yeah.

Sucheta Narang: So I started with international organizations like Handicap International, which is now called as Humanity and Inclusion. And then moved to the UK as well. Where I worked with Leonard Cheshire Disability, which is the largest disability organization in UK. My work has largely been on disability, employment, public health policies, education and inclusion overall. One thing that I realized that was so common is like the people, cultures and countries across have the same pattern, which means, you know, there is universal talent, but the infrastructure is not there. So community communities weren't it wasn't like communities are not prepared. Communities were there, but the infrastructure the systems didn't support. So, you know for us to live like a blind and especially like, you know, with a low vision you're basically in between. So after doing work for good ten years the realization was like, I don't want to advocate for the disability inclusion from outside. I wanted to redesign the infrastructure. So that led me to the corporate where, you know, the where scale lives, basically. So I worked with Wipro embedded in inclusion in all their hire to retire policies.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And what was that? What was the name of that company?

Sucheta Narang: Wipro technologies. Okay. That's a global IT services company headquartered in India. But they also have their offices all over the place. So I worked for them in, in the US as well. So I designed their hire to retire processes inclusive. And Wipro did received zero project award back in 2017 when I was working with them for innovative employment policies. And then you know, then I worked at Google with Chrome team, where I did realize that one design can affect millions of people. And similarly, you know, when I moved to Adobe, I integrated accessibility into procurement And product life cycles. So in all of these roles, what throughout my journey, one thing that stood out was accessibility if done systems, if it's accessibility is embedded in the system, it there's possibility of independence. But if it isn't, if you retrofit it, then it does not it then it's it's barriers. So yeah, I mean, throughout my life, I've been fixing broken systems, including inclusion in everything I did from disability, employment, public health education policies to product and accessible procurement life cycles. So you were also mentioning about, you know, you were in securities earlier on like so tell me what what you did because I, I really since I built Access Trader, I was very I would say I thought that there would be people who might be interested in trading, but but the way I saw that was like, oh, the systems itself are not accessible. So how some of us were able to, you know get through to it. How people do the investing is something that is really interesting for me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, it was a long time ago, so it was very analog. So it was sales was it was talking on the phone. So I Oh, okay. You know, I, I had the experience when I graduated from college with a degree in economics, I had a Phi Beta Kappa and a lot and all good, good academic accolades, and I started applying for jobs in finance. And, you know, I would send out my resume and my cover letter. These are these are actually sending letters typed.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And 1983 when I graduated from college. But you know, I'd get a phone interview would go, well, they'd invite me in for the in person and I'd come in and then you know, they'd be very confused because I'd walk in with my long white cane and a slate and stylus so I could take some notes in Braille.

Sucheta Narang: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And, you know, they had never, probably ever worked with a blind person, so could not imagine, you know, how could this blind kid do this job he's applying for? So then I started disclosing my disability and my cover letter and just saying I've been blind since I was five. Here's how I've done what I've done. Here's how I'll do the job. And then, you know, I wasn't even getting the phone interviews, but my.

Sucheta Narang: Oh, yeah, that's that's that's that's.

Sucheta Narang: Actually so similar for me too.

Sucheta Narang: Yeah.

Sucheta Narang: Like when I started looking for the jobs back in 2000 and you know, people would look at your CV and they would be very impressed. They'll call you for interview. But the minute you tell them that you are blind, they will be like, oh, how are you going to work? At that time we didn't like had a lot of yeah. Like, you know, the screen was being developed and stuff. The infrastructure wasn't as developed. But that didn't mean that, you know, we can't do the job. So.

Sucheta Narang: Right. But my.

Dr. Kirk Adams: My, my resume landed on the desk of a sales manager for this brokerage firm. And he'd gone to my same college, also a econ major. He called some of the professors we'd had in common and basically asked, could, could Kirk Adams sell tax free bonds on the phone? He said.

Sucheta Narang: Sure.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So anyway, it was it was calling people talking to them about these upcoming issues of new municipal securities.

Sucheta Narang: Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Securing the orders. And then, you know, we we had sales assistance. So when I got an order, the sales assistant would fill out the the order ticket. And so my, my job was 90% of the time was just talking, talking on the telephone. And I did that for ten years. Straight.

Sucheta Narang: Ten years. Yeah. Wow.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. Commission made good money for a kid in his 20s. Got I was able to get married and buy a house and kids and do the things, but.

Sucheta Narang: Wow, that's.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It wasn't what I wanted to do the rest of my life. So I pivoted into the nonprofit sector and, you know, eventually you know, had the privilege and honor of leading the lighthouse for the blind and then the American Foundation for the blind and going to get my PhD in leadership and change. And now I have my consulting company. So it's been a it's been a kind of a long, long.

Sucheta Narang: Winding, long ride.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Long winding road. But I've learned. Always learned a lot. Along each, each phase and and met some wonderful people along each phase.

Sucheta Narang: But but you've done so well. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, you know, I know Harrison Hoy is is a blind gentleman who's a broker who's involved in securities. He's interviewed me on my I've been on his podcast, which is called careers for the for the blind. So I know he's interested in securities. I know Gina Harper blind woman who's awesome, who retired as one of the top wealth advisors for Morgan Stanley.

Sucheta Narang: Oh, wow. Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So I know there are blind people out there who I'd be happy to. I'm happy to work with you to to connect, but I'm. I'm intrigued. You know Leonard Cheshire, Google web pro, Adobe, these, these jobs you've had. And then how does that lead you to thinking I need to make trading accessible for people? Are you were you are you know.

Sucheta Narang: So it was it wasn't that simple. Like the trading wasn't something that I thought I would get into, but I forced. But I was like forced. So like, I have been a guinea pig in, in a lot of things, but this was something I never expected. So, you know two years ago, I got laid off my role was eliminated, and that changed everything. So people would think, like, okay, you got laid off, so you're supposed to look for a job. But I was actually looking for areas where the registered investment advisors. Because my portfolio wasn't diversified. So I come from a background you know, a traditional Indian background where you know, women are not women really don't have to deal with the money. It's it's just like usually men, most of the times it's like that. So they are the earners and you know, you would think, oh, they they give you money and you spend. So I was financially I was not really I would call I was literate, I would say.

Sucheta Narang: Okay.

Sucheta Narang: In that way. So you know, I started reaching out to these investment advisors to figure out what am I going to do with the you know, my, my portfolio because everything is in just one stock, and these investment advisors would turn me away because they would say, oh, you're not a millionaire, you know? And so we will not be able to work with you. And then I started you know, checking with fiduciaries who are supposed to, you know, they are the ones who keep your interest. They're legally obligated to you know, protect your interests first. But they were quoting thousands of dollars just to begin with. And come on. I just lost a job, you know? I was just asking for something. That is pretty normal for. I would say so, you know, that that you could teach someone and and, you know, help them understand. And so the problem was I was like, okay, you know what? I'm going to deal with it myself. So I started using I did some courses and I also read books and everything was so over whelming. Visually, the charts, the dashboards, the indicators, the signals, everything is visual.

Sucheta Narang: The system actually assumes that everyone who's trying to invest has sight. And that was my frustration that I built. It's been like two decades I spend fixing broken systems across globally. And here I was needing, you know, sighted assistance for my financial independence. That's that's just I just couldn't take that anymore. And I was like, okay financial independence is non-negotiable for me. And so I started experimenting, using AI to translate all those visual charts and dashboards to make sense out of it. And over time, I realized that, okay, AI can actually help me. It can be it can translate your visual data. Visual clues into structured semantic descriptions that my screen reader can interpret independently. And I was able to then start trading. And that realization was phenomenal, that if someone who comes from who was like, who has never dealt with any stocks equities before and now is, you know, she's starting to trade and she is able to like, you know getting some traction. So some something that started as a personal workaround to pay my bills, to pay my mortgage.

Sucheta Narang: Yeah.

Sucheta Narang: Actually evolved into a trading platform that was that that I built. And then I started sharing with, you know, some close people to see how they are trading or even how do they invest long term investment, short term, you know, short swings or whatever, you know, day trades, options. And I did meet some people. And when I showed them what I was using to you know, I the way I got my AI, I optimized my AI to translate the. Complex market data into structured semantic natural language descriptions, which I was able to interpret, and my screen reader was able, you know, I could use the screen reader to independently place trades. And when I.

Sucheta Narang: Shared.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That this this is accessible, but it's also useful for people who don't need nonvisual access. So just.

Sucheta Narang: Correct.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yes, any person who would appreciate learning this way rather than visually people with other print disabilities or people who's chosen way to learn and absorb information would be text based rather than visual.

Sucheta Narang: Could be. Absolutely.

Sucheta Narang: Actually, it's like you know, it's a very simple interface where you would look, look up for a star stock and then, you know, you can verify accessible charts, you can review the news and view the fundamentals. And then, you know, just ask AI anything that you don't understand. And then place a trade with the simple order form. This use case, this simple app we've tested, you know, we've had a good three week pilot program in December, which not only included blind and low vision people, but it also included sighted people who just because you know, people get overwhelmed with so much data, which is out there visually it's dense dashboards and people find it hard to even understand what it means unless someone is already educated. Someone who knows trading hard trader like from years, you know.

Sucheta Narang: Yeah.

Sucheta Narang: So with using AI to translate the non. So translate the basically complex market data which is visually into structure structure I would say structure so structured descriptions that a screen reader is able to interpret is something that was not existing when I was struggling to find. And you know, the the traditional brokerage platforms have partial accessibility. We are able to go through everything and, you know have the information, but they are not designed with accessibility in mind. And access trader from day one is designed by and for blind people. Our team is all the accessible and inclusion, accessibility and inclusion professionals, experts. And they, you know, they they are helping me develop this. And the pilot program we did in December really had a very strong feedback and we refined on it. And now we are like almost ready to launch at season in March. And we are also open for like early access. So people who just want to like have financial take charge of of your financial independence, please go on and, you know, try it out. Let's build something that we all need ourselves.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And how can people connect people who are who are listening, who are interested in learning more and exploring and following along. How? How do people engage with you?

Sucheta Narang: Yeah. So.

Sucheta Narang: People can go on to access trader Dot net and sign up for early access. We are currently, you know, the site is accessible. You should be able to see what it is and, you know what information you need or just reach out to me at support at Access Trader Dot and.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Access Trader net.

Sucheta Narang: Correct.

Sucheta Narang: And you know, we will we will be in season. So come see us. We will be presenting on I think it is March 13th at 10:00. And, you know, I would love to see people there who really want to take charge of your own finances without sighted assistance or, you know, compromising any privacy.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You know, it's really interesting. You're using AI and you're addressing an area that's really a touch point because of privacy and the fact that blind people such as myself, have have so often needed sighted assistance on matters that can be considered deeply private. One being medical, one being financial.

Sucheta Narang: Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You're really addressing some wonderful things and also empowerment. You know, culturally, you mentioned the culture of in India, women are not empowered to handle their own financial matters, but you, you certainly take taken that on head on and you're, you're dealing with that. So there's there's lots of interesting dynamics here.

Sucheta Narang: Yeah. I think, you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Where do you see things going? Ideally, I'm sure you have a vision for what you'd like to see Access trader become. What are you thinking?

Sucheta Narang: Yeah. You're right. Actually, you know using AI can be sometimes skeptical. But if you use AI you know, you could control and optimize it. And the way we have used AI in Access Trader is basically, you know, providing that AI all the feeds which are which you would see on a brokerage platform. And then when you ask AI any question, it doesn't hallucinate. It only gives you the interpretation of what it sees on the screen. So if you have like a chart open and you go back and ask AI what you know, what you want to know about that, that particular stock the AI would refer the information that's been fed to it by the access trader platform, and then it translates you translate the information to you, which you can very well verify by, you know, going through the rest of the information that has never been accessible and now is through access trader meaning one UI that gives you news, you give that gives you fundamentals, that gives you accessible charts and that gives you AI, and that also gives you portfolio and positions to see over time how you are doing. And, you know, you have the order forms to, you know, you you can place the order independently. And right now this is like just stocks and ETFs. But we the way I see this is so accessible. Access trader is a is starting as a trading assistant. But essentially it's actually the accessible layer that fintech never built. So we're building an infrastructure where accessibility is at core. Everything that is going to be available on that platform is going to be accessible from day one, rather than retrofitting it. Well, and, you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: If the if the young Kirk Adams, at age 21, embarking into the world, trying, trying to be a part of the world of financial matters and banking and securities and investments, if I had access treatment I can't imagine how different my world would have been.

Sucheta Narang: So yeah. Same here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: There are some. There are some young people or parents of young, blind people listening to this right now who are getting very excited and they're jumping up and they're going to access Trader Net, signing up for alerts. And you're just so I'm so happy that we connected.

Sucheta Narang: You know, same here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm so many wonderful people doing so many transformational things in the world to make it more accessible for us and more inclusive of us. And you're one of them. So I just really, really, really, really appreciate you.

Sucheta Narang: Thank you. I just feel like, you know, we we just have to stand up for ourselves. And that's what I have learned. You know the systems would scale if you have accessibility from the beginning. But if you try to retrofit it and bring it later, it won't. It will be a barrier. So you know, I just feel like I would. I am so grateful for the opportunity that because of me, at least, some people, even if, like a small percentage of people are able to benefit, then I would, you know, I would feel like I did something good for the community. And, you know, I'm using it daily. So, you know, I and I will be so excited to share with you at the time of season. We can give you a demo, how it works and everything. So, you know, come see us.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And I said your name wrong again because JAWS says Sucheta not Sucheta. So Sucheta Narang, thank you so much for being my guest. Everyone go to https://AccessTrader.net. Connect with Sucheta. And as for me, Doctor Kirk Adams, you can go to my website, https://DrKirkAdams.com, and sign up for my newsletter. Or find me on LinkedIn. @KirkAdamsPhD. And the time flew by Sucheta and thank you. See, you will be. You will be a triumph at CSUN.

Sucheta Narang: And thank you so much I.

Dr. Kirk Adams: We'll all we'll all follow the journey by going to https://AccessTrader.net. And thank you so much and thank you.

Sucheta Narang: Have a nice day.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. We'll see you all next time.

Sucheta Narang: Thanks. Awesome.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Doctor Kirk Adams. Bye bye.

Sucheta Narang: Bye.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor 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 Mike Calvo, CEO, Pneuma Solutions https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-02-19-2026/

In this candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams sits down with accessibility entrepreneur Mike Calvo, co-founder of Pneuma Solutions, for a wide-ranging conversation that blends personal journey with big-picture systems change. Calvo shares how he navigated vision loss, a nontraditional education and work path, and early tech experimentation to become a longtime "for us, by us" builder in the blindness tech ecosystem, connecting the dots from early assistive tech days to his groundbreaking work at Serotek (including pioneering web-based access tools) and ultimately to launching Pneuma.

The heart of the episode centers on the urgent, practical stakes of ADA Title II digital accessibility: what the rule means for public entities, why inaccessible PDFs and online records still block equal access, and how the coming compliance deadlines are forcing agencies to confront massive backlogs. Calvo explains why traditional document remediation is slow and expensive, then describes how Pneuma's tools, including Scribe for Documents and AI-assisted "augmented" workflows, aim to remediate content at scale, fast enough to meet real-world demand. Along the way, Adams and Calvo trade grounded optimism (and healthy skepticism) about AI's accelerating impact for blind users, and they close with a call for advocacy and practical action, pushing listeners to use the law, ask hard questions, and insist that access be treated as a right, not a favor.

TRANSCRIPT:

Advertisement: This podcast brought to you by Pneuma Solutions.

Advertisement: I can't see it.

Advertisement: ADA Title II has a real compliance deadline. April 2026. Public entities are required to make their digital content accessible, including websites, PDFs, reports, applications, and public records. If a document cannot be read with a screen reader, it is not compliant and if it is not compliant, blind people are still being denied equal access. For a clear explanation of what the rule requires, visit www.title2.info. It's one of the leading resources explaining what agencies must do and when. This message is brought to you by Pneuma Solutions, we have remediated hundreds of thousands of pages in days, not months or years, aligned with WCAG 2 AA guidelines at a fraction of traditional costs. Accessibility isn't a privilege, it's a right. Now that you know, ask your agencies a simple question, are your documents actually accessible?

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington, and talking to an incredible guest who I am really enjoying getting to know who is about as far away in the United States as he could get. Mike Calvo. Hi, Mike.

Mike Calvo: Hello there from sunny Miami. Don't get mad.

Dr. Kirk Adams: There you go. There you go. And Mike is co-founder of Pneuma Solutions, which is a company that's really leading the way, producing accessible digital content. We'll we'll get into that in a in a moment. For those of you who don't know me again, I'm Kirk Adams. I am a blind person, have been since age five, and my retina is detached and became blind very suddenly. Went to a school for blind children for first, second and third grade and got my blindness skills down solid like a rock and sink or swim into public school. Then all the way on through was the only blind student in all the schools I attended. After the Oregon State School for the blind, I got a degree in economics, spent ten years in banking and finance. I moved into the nonprofit sector went back to school, got a master's in not for profit leadership. And after lots of twists and turns was fortunate to become the president and CEO of The Lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle, where I worked alongside 250 other blind and deaf blind people in a variety of businesses, including aerospace, manufacturing, making parts for all the Boeing aircraft, and then was recruited to join the board of the American Foundation for the blind, Helen Keller's organization. And again, had had the terrific honor of being the president and CEO of AFB. And you know, when we moved to New York City in May of 2016, if I, if I was having a rough day and needed a shot of inspiration, I could walk down the hall and sit at Helen Keller's desk and play with her typewriter, which was an awesome feeling.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Very cool. And yeah, for the past three and a half years, I have been the manager managing director of my consulting practice, Innovative Impact LLC, where I say I just look for fun, innovative, high impact projects that will make the world a more inclusive place for people who are blind and people with significant disabilities. And I'm really interested in employment and creating career pathways into meaningful work. I do have a PhD in leadership and change, and my dissertation was called Journeys Through Rough Country. My dissertation, an ethnographic study of blind adults employed in large American corporations. So I interviewed a bunch of blind people working at a lot of companies whose names we all know, and learning about what led to their successes and the challenges they faced. The the, the consistent theme of disappointment and how challenging things were in order to thrive in those workplaces. And, you know, one of the nine success factors that people talked about was accessibility and that they couldn't do their jobs if the materials productivity tools, information systems that they were needing to, to use for their jobs were not accessible, they could not be successful. And I know, Mike, you have devoted your life and have a burning passion for making the world a more accessible place. You've been at it for a long time, and I applaud you for everything you've done and are doing and will do. But you know, we'd love to hear your story, your your journey. What what led you to the place you are now? And I'm going to hand you the microphone.

Mike Calvo: Doctor Adams, I have never heard that story. About your upbringing. It is extremely interesting to me at how similar our paths are. I also have detached retinas. Mine detached. Well, mine were detached. I was born with them detached, and then they kept getting more and more detached. And I kept losing my sight. Lost it by the time I was 18. Different than you, though. I went to Michigan school for the blind. I'm. I'm a son of Cuban immigrants, and I was raised in Miami, Florida. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and of which it's funny because I don't sound Cuban. I don't sound like I'm from Georgia, but, hey but my folks took me up to Michigan School for the blind, where I got my training there. And I was mainstreamed in the third grade. Okay. And it was so different than your than your than your journey. It really was mine was Miami Street's craziness. Parents, you know, immigrant parents trying to trying to make a living, trying to, you know, deal with the system. That was I mean, what? 504 was in 1973, I think it was. And I was born in 67. So you can imagine my my parents, my Cuban parents you know, blue collar folks third, you know, fourth grade education kind of between them and raised in the revolution, you know, in the Cuban Revolution and got here and had a blind kid and didn't really understand how to advocate and it was just a very interesting upbringing, but I found it intriguing at how we started, very similar in that, you know, our visual impairment, our education. Yeah. And, and went through so many different weird paths. That is that is super cool. And it just goes to show I, I trained blind people for, for a couple of years. And back in 1989, I found myself working at a bank and, and you know, and got trained on how to use their systems because I'd been doing music for years and years. And

Dr. Kirk Adams: Don't skip over that.

Mike Calvo: No. Well, I was raised, I was raised in Miami, and at 11, I started doing radio public access radio. My voice hadn't changed yet, and the public access radio station thought it would be cool to have this blind kid on there, and I did that. I I started working at a skating center when I was 13 and and deejaying there, and all of a sudden realized that they liked watching the little blind kid deejay. So I started getting invited to adult clubs because of the performers act and started in music there and just kind of got very, very involved in the Miami nightlife in the 80s. Craziness. That Miami had to offer of pharmaceuticals, entertainment.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Miami Vice.

Mike Calvo: Oh. You know, I tell people Miami Vice was a team version of Miami. Okay, back in the day, it really was. And we I mean, Miami, I, I just recently moved back to Miami in in 2001, I moved away from Miami to raise my kids. Didn't want them to be raised in this environment here. And then my wife my wife and I just moved here because it was better for her business back to Miami. And, you know, it's interesting. Miami is a lot more involved in the United States than it used to be. When I grew up, we didn't here. Washington was way over there, you know? And we just we're here, dude, you know, type of thing. And it wasn't so it wasn't easy. Now you're hearing me in Miami. So it was. It was, you know, that was that was just kind of how I was raised. I dealt with just trying to make it. Trying to get out there. Didn't understand bureaucracy. Came from a world where I learned really early that work going and and doing the corporate climb, kissing the corporate butt or ring, whatever you want to look at it. Just dealing with I was always rebelled against authority. Authority was my my, you know, my problem. Okay. Because I learned at a very young age whenever I was going to put myself into the hands of someone in authority over me, they were going to shoot way for the low, and I was going to shoot way for the high. And that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Expectations.

Mike Calvo: Oh, dude, you don't know it was. Well, yeah. You do. Okay. Yeah. Yeah you do. And that's the that's the thing is so, you know, just realize really early that if I could either, you know, struggle and make very little at a menial job you know, with because I dropped out of high school, I ended up dropping out of high school because of a lack of. In my 12th grade year, my teacher forgot. My itinerant teacher forgot to order my books. Oh in my 11th grade year for my 12th grade year. So 12th grade year came along. And here you're teaching this kid who was a DJ at clubs and this and that to go get readers. What are those? You know and my parents didn't know how to advocate for me, and, you know, it was just crazy. It was it was a, you know, too long to explain here, but it was interesting. And then later, as I, I worked into, you know, I've got more involved in music, opened up a recording studio started putting out Miami records and in the 80s and, and, you know, just really liked it, but had a kid in 89. Had to get a real job. Started working in a bank and learned how to use my computer. Trained my first blind person at the bank. And did my first while at the bank, I also did my first corporate presentation of just technology and at and what we could do for an organization and work for the Division of Blind Services. I actually stood in for Greg Luther, who was probably one of the greatest mentors I've ever had. One of the only people that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: What what were you using? I mean I just I was out I was at CSUN for the they were celebrating the 30th anniversary of jaws. Oh, so so what were you using?

Mike Calvo: I started I started using telesensory systems. Virt plus.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Mike Calvo: With that. Pros 4000 baud. Man, that was a little crazy. And then and then.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I had the. I had a versa Braille, so.

Mike Calvo: No, I'm a little bit after the verse of Braille.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. That was my that was my first the.

Mike Calvo: I saw the verse of Braille. I saw the verse Braille at a camp for the blind. I used to go to the Florida Lions camp.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Mike Calvo: And and I saw a verse Braille. It was so cool that you put a cassette in it and.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, exactly. It was on cassette, but Braille display.

Mike Calvo: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it was it was, it was, it was an amazing product. I, I did, I did get into the opticom though when that, when that came out and it was, it was very helpful to me in junior high school and stuff. But again, it, it was, it was not to be. I went to I went to the bank and worked there and, and I, I learned there that unless we really advocated strongly for ourselves and really just shined, we were going to just, you know, as as my supervisor said at the time, We don't know what to do with you people. They basically said you know, we all all that you were, you know, the person that set it up your job, set it up and said, here's the guy who knows how to do that, and that's it. We don't know what you're capable of, what you're not capable of. So you can do what you can. And, and and I said, so wait a minute. So if I do really good, if I'm a good dog, what do I get? Well, 5% raise from the 13 five that I was making back in 1985, 89.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Mike Calvo: And and I said, so wait a minute. So did some quick math. I've always been good at math. So after 20 years, you know, basically I'll be making about 50,000, at which point I'll get a roadmap, a sandwich and maybe a watch. Will it be Braille? No. You know, so Greg said, well, you know, if you don't, he said, you know, you you need to learn that computer behind that computer, you're an equal.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And Greg.

Mike Calvo: Greg Luther is my my mentor from the state of Florida, from the Division of Blind Okay. All right. And he. He believed in me. He's like, I know you're going to take to it like a duck to water. Greg was from Iowa. So. So and And he was right. Got into the computers, raised my productivity at that point we had a patronizing blind productivity rate and a normal. And I'm not even kidding when it was written that way. Normal employee productivity rate.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wow.

Mike Calvo: This is pre Ada man. And so so yeah. So it was it was it was interesting. They so I raised my productivity to a crazy number by putting in an auto dialer and things like that that would like through scripts on the screen would go and pull the phone number and send it to a modem, and it would dial the phone number and then my, my shirt would read all my my my, the information on the credit card, whatever that I was doing. Collections. I would do collections in the morning and customer service in the afternoon. It was insane.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wow.

Mike Calvo: But it was great. I mean, I, you know, it sharpened me up and and, you know, I, I can I look back and, and I understand the adversity that all of us go through. But you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Yep. And I've just learned to be resilient. I truly, to this day, as running this company, do not know where my next paycheck is coming from and do not know what I would do if this company didn't work, because who's going to hire a, you know, 58 year old, very highly opinionated blind guy who's never worked for anybody dropped out of high school in the 80s. You know, I mean, it's it's just crazy. So aside from the 85% unemployment rate. So so if you're out there use our services, please. No, but not not not not just for for for niceness, but because we actually provide great services. I think I got involved in that. I got, I got, you know, I moved forward in two I, you know, one of the things that I don't talk a lot about but I was very involved in the drug scene here in Miami distribution of such items at that small time. But it was part of my story and got out of that in about 1995. You know, got involved a lot more in spiritual things, church and whatnot, and really turned my life around, changed things. And that was truly a line for me to say, you know, I got to do something with my life. I was an angry blind guy, really pissed off, really just had enough, didn't believe that this world was for me. I was constantly being told, you know, to not strive to high, you know, don't rock the boat. Quote be normal, you know, whatever that means. And in 95, Just really just found it. Found myself in a place where I needed change. And in 2001, I kind of floated around for five years trying to figure myself out, trying to figure out where I was going to go. And in 2001 started Sterile Tech, which is a company that did a lot of firsts.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Now, I didn't know you or who you were, but I certainly knew Ceretec. So why don't why don't we talk about that for a few minutes?

Mike Calvo: So, ceretec, you know I used to be very angry. And I'm righteously angry, I guess, these days, but for whatever that means. But but I was very angry, and I used to just, you know, tap my head and be like, this is the brain that just some really disturbing people in the world have had, and I'm going to make a better world, and you guys are going to benefit from it, you know, blah, blah, blah, and and righteous crusader. Yeah, I guess, I mean, you know. And so very kind of you just a I looked at myself as just a very pissed off blind person and, you know, and, and so I, I got this idea because the internet, I wanted my piece of that internet pie, man. You know, I wasn't hustling on the streets of Miami anymore or whatever. I found that that the internet was the best hustle ever. But I couldn't get there. I couldn't get on there. There wasn't anything accessible, you know? And there was AOL at the time. So I set out to make an AOL type box and came up with a box called the Freedom Box. And you could talk to it and all that kind of stuff. And that that launched me really into 17 years at tech, providing the world's first web based screen reader. That was free. We had a battle with Freedom Scientific, a lawsuit. And and it was a truce. Okay. They didn't like that we called our products freedom. But what was really what they were really mad about was the fact that we were coming out with System Access to Go, which was the world's first web based free screen reader before.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Free.

Mike Calvo: Pre Nvda. And I was getting I was getting emails from people just on cruise ships, you know, saying, I'm on there, I'm on a computer that doesn't even have a screen reader. Like, wow. Yeah. So it was, it was it was an amazing time. Matt Campbell I have the honor of working with Matt Campbell my business partner today, my former CTO over at at Ceretec. And and he he's just an amazing blind guy. We are a for us by US company. We believe in the in the refrain. Of course, nothing about us without us, you know. And we've we.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You know, I've shortened that. Okay. Just to let you know it's nothing without us.

Mike Calvo: So nothing about us?

Dr. Kirk Adams: No. Just nothing without us.

Mike Calvo: Oh, nothing without us. You know, that makes sense. Yeah. I I'll tell you. I mean, to me, I, I think that we we've got a great, a great community. The internet has been one of the most amazing things that has happened to our community. Technology has changed so much, and I, I find that we're currently at a crossroads because somewhere along the line, D-I got mixed up with blindness and because of things of an administration that is just angry and whatever, you know, and I'm not going to get political, but, you know, just the we have lost his we've lost 20, 30 years as a community, you know, years, you know, hundreds of hours, thousands of writings of of pages of advocacy. You know one of the interesting things is title two compliance is is where all local, state and federal organizations have been have been compelled or you know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Talk to us like for five year olds. Now, as far as the title two of what.

Mike Calvo: Yeah. So title two is a part. It's a, it's a Department of Justice put out a ruling a couple of years back that said that all local, state and federal organizations need to be compliant with this title two mandate. And what it means is that all of their websites, all of their software, in other words, mobile apps or what have you, and all of their documentation, which is where I live, have to be accessible.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And that's under the umbrella of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Mike Calvo: Correct. And they and they have to meet wcaG standards, which is the, you know, the standards that we all live by and, and web accessibility guidelines. And the biggest challenge with doing that for an organization is, first of all, most a lot of organizations have thousands and thousands and thousands of pages that need to be remediated and up to we and a few others started doing what we call augmented content remediation, which means computer assisted, fancy way of saying computer assisted remediation. It has to be done by humans and it costs it takes a human 30 minutes just to do a standard page of content and to the tune of $15 a page, $16 a page, as you can imagine, it's going to be very difficult for an organization that has thousands and thousands of pages to remediate and bring themselves up to compliance. But hey, the government said you got to do it. So we've been building a remediation platform that aligns.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And we is now.

Mike Calvo: Numa solutions have been.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Spell that, spell that for those who want to search engine it.

Mike Calvo: That's the joke. We put a P at the beginning. It's p n e u m a solutions.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. New solutions.

Mike Calvo: Yeah. Serotec serotec. Everybody. What happened to Serotec? We had a great run at Serotec, but my business partner in 2017, my business partner, Michael Fox got dementia, and he, we lost him last year actually. But Michael stepped down, and it was just Michael was our chief operating officer. And it was it was just legally better for us to walk away from tech. We didn't know anybody, any money or anything, but it was just it was it was just too, too much of a of a mess to do it another way. And gotcha. Technology had moved on. Technology had moved on. There's just a whole lot of reasons. And then Matt went to go work at Microsoft on narrator for a few years, and we both got the itch again. I was like, man, let's do something. And and, you know, and we did Numa and we started back in 2020 with scribe for documents is the name of the platform we during Covid, we gave the platform away to home educators so that parents could remediate their own kids documents. And what remediate basically means is to make these daily. They upload them to our service. Our service turns around and says, okay, what do you want to do with this? You want to make it, you know, braille, large print, MP3, daisy, whatever from whatever you upload, including untagged PDFs.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Mike Calvo: And, and okay. And during, during Covid, we basically gave that away and, and product that really didn't get a lot of recognition, but we, we kind of built it around our technology back then, and it was accessible for, for accessible meetings. And it was, it was, it was, it was cool and and it worked well, but just didn't get picked up because everybody went back to work, so. But

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right. Gotcha.

Mike Calvo: Yeah. Fast forward to title two. And then and then our other kind of claim to fame is a product that we brought over from Serotec called Remote Incident Manager. Rim. And Rim is probably one of the most used remote training and support products for the blind community. It's been around since 2007 from serotec. And Matt and I brought it back in 2021 trying to make some money because, you know scribe wasn't quite ready for prime time yet. It wasn't doing what it's doing today. Ai just changed the world for everybody. And it made us it just it AI doesn't do what we do. But boy, did it really speed our time to market. It speeded up our time. And that's a story in itself. My son David is our our our AI guru in house. And David is just he's a graduate of Johns Hopkins in computer science. And he's just an amazing young man and has developed this platform has worked with Matt to redevelop this platform from what Matt started. And we now have a platform that makes accessible documents. And in instead of Hours or days or years or months. We can do. We just did. Lately we've done December. We did 180,000 page remediation for a very large content provider which I'm prohibited by contract to talk about, but but we did it in two days.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So. So is it based? Is it based on the scribe for documents product that you talked about that you're giving away to educators during the pandemic? Same.

Mike Calvo: Yes. Yes it is.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Basic. Okay. Yeah.

Mike Calvo: It is. It is a platform scale.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Instead of a parent or a teacher uploading a document to put it into an accessible format for a student, you're dealing with thousands and thousands of pages and making them accessible.

Mike Calvo: Yeah. With our platform, you can either, you know, we can. We can do it for you or or you can upload a zip file to our platform of just straight, inaccessible PDFs. We will process those PDFs. We'll tell you how many pages there are, how much it's going to cost you, and we take your money. Of course you upload them and a few hours later, depending on how many documents and I'm talking about, you know, we've gotten, you know, three, four, 5000 documents at a time. And people are amazed. Oh, there's 50,000 pages there. And you got them back to me in an afternoon. Yeah, yeah, that's what we do. So we we've been really excited, but the challenge has been nobody takes I hate to say it like that, but it's just true. I don't think anybody takes this administration seriously when it comes to accessibility. They don't think. I think everybody, as a friend of mine said recently, everybody's been hoping for an 11th hour reprieve from the Department of Justice, and they didn't do it. So now.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So that deadline, that deadline is around the corner, brother.

Mike Calvo: And and not even around the corner is literally up the street. I mean, it is like it is we as we record this, we are on February, in February and today, February 20th, 19th, 19.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Something like.

Mike Calvo: That. Yeah. And, and the deadline for and I don't understand this. So for municipalities, for agencies that serve more than 50,000 people, they have to be compliant with this. Title two. This title two deadline by April of 2026. If you serve less than 50,000, it's April of 2027. I don't get it. Unless it has to do with budgeting or something like that. Why? You would put it that way, I would figure it would be the other way around. But but anyway. But so, you know, we have it's been very challenging because we started last year to really work into the product in earnest and hoped that that it would, that it would just take off, that everybody would be, you know, really interested in doing this title two compliance. And after January of last year when we got back, bright eyed and bushy tailed from the holidays to do title two, we looked at Inauguration Day and said, oh my goodness.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah. So so let me ask, let me ask an advocacy question. So some new neighbors moved in next to us here in Seattle, and we bought this house in 1989. And there's, there's a fence. And we've always thought, man, that fence is really close to our house. I'm wondering if it is on the proper property line. So as the house is our dear neighbors, we love to gotten elderly and passed away, and the house was left to a child and was up for sale. So we said this would be the time for us to figure out where our property line is. So I did my research as a King County Assessor's office. You could get a copy of your plat. So I went through the process and I got a completely inaccessible something, electronic something. So according to title two, that document should be accessible now. So if someone's listening, who's blind or visually impaired, disabled, dyslexic needs an accessible document and they are dealing with a local municipality and they cannot get an accessible document. What what do you think? What would you advise they do?

Mike Calvo: I think that they need to reach out to their local local, you know, consumer and nf-b ACB self-advocacy, of course. I mean, you know they if if, I mean, let me tell you. Because even if, even if organizations kind of, you know, say, well, you know, don't take the deadline too seriously, there are others, there are other rules that go into place in other parts of the world. So organizations are paying attention. They are doing stuff. It's just that we're not getting a lot of United States stuff right now, but we're seeing more and more people come to us as the dates get closer. But really, self-advocacy is the way to go. If you if you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And and can Mike can Mike Calvo and numerous solutions provide some language and some references to the regulations and laws that they could use.

Mike Calvo: Absolutely. We can we have a website that we have it's called title 2.info. So it's title, the number 2.info, and it's a community of of people that are talking about title two. We have a monthly newsletter that goes out. Right now we are running title two. Announcements. Just just kind of, you know, little prompts saying, hey, title two is coming. If you need advocacy, go to your local governments. This is the time to really stand up and let yourself be heard, you know, and we're not we're not being, you know, we're not being, you know real, real adversarial about it. It's just like, hey, this is the law. And if you, you know, we've got an opportunity, you got a soapbox to stand on. So go get out there and do it, you know, and and we we can back you up in any way we can in, in, in any way that's as possible. It's why I'm doing this, you know, and things like it, you know, so. And and our prices, you know, just so we can understand each other. Right. We that like I said earlier remediating a normal page, which means just a regular, like a novel costs $17, 15 to $17 for half an hour of work per page. Wow. Okay, we brought it down to $1.75 a page and we like I said, we did 180,000 pages in two days, you know.

Mike Calvo: And the the dollar 75 actually doesn't just get you remediated once because it's in the digital domain. We remediate the whole library for you, and then we come back every six months as our technology progresses. Because as Sam Altman once said the guy from ChatGPT AI is the worst it's going to be today. Okay. You know, so. And and that is so true. I mean, this is not just about AI. We're not just going to ChatGPT and saying, remediate this document. There's a lot going on behind the scenes. And we are, you know we are you know, training our own models and, and things of that nature that are coming down the pike so people can do these things locally and not have to depend on the big things, on the big, on the big LMS large language models. But basically here we can remediate hundreds of thousands of documents from PDF to PDF, all aligned with wcaG 2.11 standards. And when the every six months we're going to come back and we're going to say, hey, can we're do you want us to remediate the entire library? We'll do it at our expense until we reach parity with human remediation, we will not stop. And I'm fairly confident that we are very, very, very close within the next 12 months.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's great. Let me just ask you about your vision with with AI. So I went to CSUN last March and AI was everything was everywhere talking about AI and, and, you know, kind of the big buzz among blind people was, you know, image description and getting visual information from AI. What what is this picture? What does that person look like? What's the view from this window? And the kind of the people who seem to have the highest level of expertise will say, well, you know, next year it's all going to be about agentic AI. You know, having AI do things for you and talking to it and telling it, you know, to help you with tasks and those types of things. And then I went to the Consumer Electronics Show CES in January in Vegas. And. You know, people stuck AI on everything. They bolted it on. I think lots of things that we would have called automation before people. Were calling it AI. And then, you know, there's people are starting to use AI resources to perform functions that screens screen reading software performing. I just connected with a startup in the Bay area called lumen, where you can process your email just with voice using AI. And then, you know, there's people who point out rightly, you know, the large language models, the you know, they're built on data. The data comes from people using technology and of course, people with disabilities. People who are blind use technology to a lesser extent than the general population. So our data is underrepresented. So there's these biases built in. So, you know, double edged sword pros and cons. Yin and yang that that stuff I.

Speaker6: Want to I want to push back on that a little bit.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. That's what I'm asking you I want you you're much more versed and immersed in it than I. So I just kind of spewed out some, you know, some reflections and observations and things I've, I've heard and seen. But I'd love your take on it. And blindness and how they relate and what we should be thinking about.

Mike Calvo: So so first let's I saw a post one time and of course it was probably written by AI.

Speaker6: But.

Mike Calvo: It said it was on Facebook and a blind person. There's a great AI for the blind list on Facebook. If you haven't gotten on there, it's a community of like thousands of blind people. A guy named Sean Keane started it. Amazing group of people, newbies, you know, old timers, just everybody. And and everybody's talking AI. I think AI is great for blind folks. I understand where we have been underrepresented. Underrepresented in the past. And and I agree. I mean, I remember the days when I would tell AI I'm blind and it would tell me I'm sorry. It's like, it's not your fault. Then

Speaker6: You know, but that's.

Mike Calvo: But that's where that's where what? Jonathan Mosen and and others at the Sina at Sina, at the NFB and ACB are doing to kind of work with and and be my eyes people with with with open AI.

Speaker6: Yeah.

Mike Calvo: And IRA is working with with others as well, doing developing their models. So they are getting the true skinny on how to talk to us, how to deal with us. And this post just said, I hear you. I saw all your posts. I've seen. So our advocacy, you know, on a normal day, we might we might hope to run into a person who knows about blind people, and maybe a person who's heard about blind people got trouble with this or that, but AI has it all. So all of our advocacy, all of the standards, everything we've ever done, it was taken into account. Rightly or wrongly. I'm not here to judge that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. You know.

Mike Calvo: I live I live in Miami, Florida. Miami, Florida at one point used to belong to the Seminoles. You know, am I going to stop living here? Because there was a war and one prevailed over the other. And, you know, I don't like the way they were treated or whatever. No, that's not my that wasn't my war, you know. And just the same way, am I going to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say, I'm not going to use AI because it perhaps was trained on this information or that information? The only thing people are ticked off about is that AI can do it faster than you and me, because if I want to write a song, if I want to write a pop song today, I'm going to study Taylor Swift. I'm going to study, you know, Harry styles, I'm going to study Bruno Mars, I'm going to listen to them, and then I'm going to go into the studio, and I'm going to try and do the best I can to roll them up, Mikey style, you know what I'm saying? And do it my way. That's all AI is doing. Ai isn't taking a couple of notes from Bruno, and a couple of notes from Taylor, and a couple of and making a, you know No, it's actually using algorithms to reproduce. And in our community, when it comes to we can literally, as Burger King used to say, have it our way. If I, you know, we, we, we have a system called the Accessible Archive that sits on a large content managed system like a large CMS.

Mike Calvo: And as content is coming through. So, for example, if you have a court docket, a court case that you're looking at, right, it will. And court cases have a particular have a particular challenge because they're all did different digital assets that are there. Everything's digital. But you could have a it could be a picture of a tax return. It could be of a picture of a light bill. It could be a picture of a bank statement. It could be whatever. So what this content management tool that we've developed does is it sits on the server and as the blind person is navigating the website, it is taking that digital content, that graphical content and remediating it, not only just like with great alt text, you know, the bird and a tree with a, with a with red feathers, you know. No no no no no no no no no. This is like this is your it takes for example, if the if the exhibit is a tax document and it knows it's looking at a tax document. Therefore it formally formats that as a tax document complete with all the blind kind of markup, you know, with all the, all the, the markup that we need as blind folks to be able to navigate this stuff with our screen reader and that when I saw when David showed me that the first time, I just about cried, man, I was like, what is that? I saw him present it to this group that shall remain nameless. And all they said when he. He did this presentation.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Showing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: David is.

Speaker6: Who.

Mike Calvo: David. David is my.

Speaker6: Son. David.

Mike Calvo: David. David is my.

Speaker6: Son. Okay.

Mike Calvo: Produces our AI.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The AI guy.

Speaker6: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Speaker6: Gotcha.

Mike Calvo: So he he he did this presentation. It was a point, a proof of concept for an organization. And at the end of the concept, the the proof of concept, you could have heard a pin drop. He's like, do are there any other questions? And everybody was like, no. Where do we get this? You know, because the blind people on the call were just amazed at, you know, at what can be done with what the AI community has done with what we as blind people bringing our knowledge to the table. You know, I am such so hopeful and yes, I, I understand the pitfalls. But, you know, again, I can't do anything about those pitfalls. Is AI going to take over the world? I don't know, I'm already seeing home prices go through the roof. I saw I saw a report the other day where people are selling acres of property for millions of dollars to AI companies that want to build data centers there, you know. And what's that going to do to our already crazy housing market? You know, so, you know, our, you know, the cost of, you know, of Ram, you know, and the cost of, of, of those types of things is going up. There's a Seagate just announced this morning that it is sold out until 2027. Every hard drive, you know. So what is it? So AI is disrupting our world and.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But but as you said earlier, your quote, Sam Altman quote, the AI is the the worst. It's going to be right now, right?

Speaker6: That's right.

Mike Calvo: And that's where we're so we're hoping you know, we're we're hoping. I mean I as a blind person, I'm very hopeful for AI. I think this is this is incredible. I wish I wish I'd had AI 20 years ago. I mean, the difference. I think any blind person the story, you know, that we would have told the future for blind people is so much brighter than it was for us because of this technological breakthrough. I think right when I.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Went to college, I had textbooks on a four track cassette recorded by volunteers at recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, which is Learning Ally Now, and I took notes in my econ classes with the slate and stylus, and at night I would copy them with a Perkins Brailler. So I would I, I welcome all time and labor saving technologies.

Mike Calvo: I gotta ask you because.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Make life easier for us.

Mike Calvo: Yeah, I gotta, I gotta ask you. This happened to me, and I used to. I used to use an IBM Selectric.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, I had that with the erase ribbon. Yeah, that was the leading edge technology.

Mike Calvo: Yeah, well, let me tell you, with the little ball and everything, how many times it happened to me? Twice. Did you type a full paper? And it was blank?

Dr. Kirk Adams: More than I want to admit. More than I want to admit.

Mike Calvo: It was so demoralizing. People cannot imagine how you go. And you. You're already flying blind. Pun totally intended. Writing this document where you don't know where the hell it is. And if you're if you're one space off or whatever. But then then you don't. Then for somebody you handed somebody like, oh, it's blank. And you're thinking, oh, stop kidding around, man. Stop. Stop goofing me. No, no, it's really blank, bro. It's like what? Oh my goodness. Yeah. I mean, it has been just so demoralizing. So, but I, I'm, I'm very excited about the future. I'm glad to be a knowledgeable old guy. Interestingly enough, my business partner, who is truly one of the the my co-founder, Matt Campbell, is one of the best, one of the best developers of blindness technology I've ever met. Him and Glenn Gordon and others like them just deserve. And, you know, Jim Fruchterman and others. Well, Jim's not blind, but but but, you know, they just deserve all kinds of accolades. And Matt was kind of resistant to AI, and he's even, like, looking at what we're doing and, and and said, yeah, you know, this is this is making a difference. This is changing. So, you know advocate, advocate and, and and if there is title two work to be done in your local community, in your state or whatever, they can afford this. They've got budgets for this. And those budgets are based around 17, 16, $17 a page. And we're charging 10% of that. You know what I'm saying? So it's a it's a it's scalable. And at that, at those prices that that kind of savings, you know, before understandably organizations would have to triage. Well, we can we can do this, but we can't do that. We can. And that's one of the things, one of the horrible things that happened in California. Back 20, 20 or so, they had to take 2.7 million documents offline for everybody, not just because of us.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Mike Calvo: Wow. You know, not, you know, because they couldn't comply. Because the state of California gave them two years to become to remediate 2.7 million documents.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Mike Calvo: So.

Dr. Kirk Adams: If people if people want to get. So if people want to get in touch, Mike, and and learn more about Numa solutions and what you can do and to get your advice on how to work with their local municipality, the language to use. How how can people get in touch.

Mike Calvo: So they can reach out to me? I'm at Mike.Calvo. That's C A L V as in Victor O at Pneuma Solutions. I will spell that for you again. P N E U M A Solutions.com. All things Title II Information is available at Title2. Title, the number 2.info. And do help us spread the word. We really we really need you to to to get out there and advocate and and definitely check out scribe for documents. That's the consumer version. So the other side that you would have been able what you would have been able to do Doctor Adams is you would have been able to if you would have had our scribe service. Right. You'd have been able to upload that inaccessible document. I invite you to send it. Invite you to send it to me if you'd like. And I'll redo it for you just for fun.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You know I will do.

Mike Calvo: Yeah, but but it it and you can bring your own accessibility. I personally believe very much that as blind people, if it is financially viable, and I know that it's not sometimes I really do, you know. But if it is, bring your own accessibility people, you know, bring your accessibility. It's just going to. Yes. Is it is it right? Maybe not. Maybe so I don't know. I don't care. I just want access to this stuff and bye bye. Whatever is the path of least resistance. And sometimes the path of least resistance is saying, you know what? I'm going to pay for this. I'm going to have it available to me, and that's it. I mean, my meta glasses, I. They're worth their weight in gold. You know, my meta, my meta AI glasses. My.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that I think that should be the tagline for this podcast. Mike, I just want access to this stuff. So I think we'll I think we'll go with that. The time has flown by. It's been great visiting with you. I'm looking forward to next time. Title two. Title two A lot of people went to a lot of work to get those regulations on the books. So leverage that, my friends. And you are entitled to have those government documents accessible to you, and numerous solutions can help. And if you want to get in touch with me, go to my website academy.com. My email address is there. Subscribe to the newsletter or I'm on LinkedIn every day. Kirk Adams, PhD on LinkedIn. So again, a great visit with you, Mike. Thanks everyone for listening to podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams and we will catch you next time.

Mike Calvo: Thank you sir. Take care.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at 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 Mark Miller, Founder, CEO, Inclusion Impact Accessiblity https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-02-12-2026/

In this mission-driven episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Mark Miller, Founder and CEO of Inclusion Impact Accessibility, for a wide-ranging conversation on what it takes to move accessibility from a one-time "fix" to a durable organizational capability. Mark shares his 13-year path into digital accessibility, from a technology career to learning the craft under early industry pioneers, before helping build the field through work on accessibility maturity models and large-scale consulting, then returning to a "boutique" approach with his own firm so he can meet clients where they are and build pragmatic, customized roadmaps.

Together, they unpack two core ideas leaders can act on immediately: accessibility maturity models (the step-by-step way organizations embed accessibility into policy, process, and the software development lifecycle so accessibility doesn't "fade" as websites and apps change) and "shift left" (building accessibility into requirements, design, and development, where it's cheaper and less risky, rather than scrambling after problems hit production). They also explore where AI could genuinely help (e.g., making content discovery easier for blind users and improving developer workflows) and where it can mislead, especially if organizations overtrust automation and skip the essential human testing that catches real-world barriers.

TRANSCRIPT:

Adverisement: This podcast brought to you by Pneuma Solutions.

Advertisement: I can't see it.

Adverisement: ADA Title II has a real compliance deadline. April 2026. Public entities are required to make their digital content accessible, including websites, PDFs, reports, applications, and public records. If a document cannot be read with a screen reader, it is not compliant and if it is not compliant, blind people are still being denied equal access. For a clear explanation of what the rule requires, visit www.title2.info. It's one of the leading resources explaining what agencies must do and when. This message is brought to you by Pneuma Solutions, we have remediated hundreds of thousands of pages in days, not months or years, aligned with WCAG 2 AA guidelines at a fraction of traditional costs. Accessibility isn't a privilege, it's a right. Now that you know, ask your agencies a simple question, are your documents actually accessible?

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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, doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And welcome everybody to another episode of podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in sunny Seattle, Washington. Today my guest is Mark Miller, founder and CEO of Inclusion Impact accessibility. Hello, Mark.

Mark Miller: Hello, Kirk.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice to have you here. Mark and I met in person at the CSUN conference last March and had several really productive conversations, and I'm starting to get to know one another. And we have have a lot of similar philosophies and passions around inclusion and impact and accessibility. So for those of you who don't know me, I am the immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the blind. Prior to that, I was honored to have those same roles at the Lighthouse for the blind, Inc. here in Seattle. I am a blind person. My retina is detached. When I was in kindergarten. Became totally blind overnight. To a school for blind kids. First, second and third grade and got my blindness skills down. Rock solid braille cane travel. Today it'd be keyboarding, but then it was typing. So I learned how to type on a typewriter so I could go into public school and did that sink or swim into public school? Starting in fourth grade, I had a ten year career in banking and finance and then into the nonprofit sector. I do have a PhD in leadership and change from Antioch University. And my my professional academic careers have been devoted to creating opportunities for people who are blind and have other significant disabilities to thrive. And I was pleased to meet Mark and intersect with Mark, and had asked him to come on the podcast and talk about his his journey, how he how he got involved in accessibility and disability inclusion, his journey, up to this point and the founding of his company, Inclusion Impact Accessibility, where he's at now and his vision for the future. So, Mark, I'll hand the talking stick to you. I as as host of the podcast, I will reserve the right to pop in with questions as they.

Mark Miller: Oh, please do.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Occur to me. So let's have a let's have a conversation. And glad to have you here.

Mark Miller: Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. I really appreciate you inviting me onto the podcast, and I appreciate your, your listeners who are joining us today and thank them for for hanging out with us to have this conversation. I you know, I've been in accessibility for about 13 years now. And prior to that, I was working in technology. And I had a friend who got a job in this niche space called accessibility. And when I learned what that was about, I thought, you know, that's what I need to do because I really I love technology, but putting another Cisco switch or firewall into an organization isn't really that satisfying. And then further, I had had a friend who was deaf. I learned American Sign Language through her, just socially put some effort into it. But I mainly learned it socially through through her and through her friends. And I myself have Add and dyslexia. So I understood a lot of the challenges that people face just based on the challenges that I had growing up in the 80s and going through the academic system in the, in the 80s. And that's something we can get into. But in a in a small way, it it helped me relate. Late, so I spent about three years after learning about this, this great space of digital accessibility through a friend of mine who who started working in the space. I spent about three years trying to get into it. And finally one day he called me up and he said, hey, I interviewed with this company and I've decided not to take the position because things changed where I am, and I want to stay there.

Mark Miller: But I think you'd be perfect for it. And he had a similar conversation with the owner of that company. And ultimately brought the two of us together. That company was interactive accessibility. And that person was Kathy Walden, who? If there's anybody that's been around accessibility for a while, I'm sure that they'll remember that name. But she was just one of the innovators and one of the leaders in accessibility. And I always say there was only a handful. If you go back ten, 20 years, Kirk, you probably remember there was only a handful of people, right? Like it was a new industry. It came out of academia. Somewhere around the late 90s. And people were doing it just because they thought it should be done. And this notion of a business really didn't start to percolate until early 2000. You know. Yeah. So when I walked into it with Kathy, it was about, you know, it was a little way. It was a little, little ways into what you know, where businesses had been truly established at that time. And I, you know, I knew what I was getting into, but I had no idea what I was getting into. But I knew within my first few days of working at Interactive Accessibility that this was the place that I was going to be, and it was going to be my final place in my career.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's a nice feeling, is it not?

Mark Miller: It was. It's it's an incredible feeling and as stressful as the workday can be. As much as you can forget, because we're always in the middle of our workday, right? Trying to trying to do work stuff. So sometimes the mission, it gets kind of, you know, fades off into the background a little bit. Yeah. But it's just really nice to go to bed at night knowing that you're doing something that's not just not just helpful to your family and finances and all that, but that it's helpful to a much broader audience, you know?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Mark Miller: So I learned a lot from Kathy. She was she was an incredible accessibility professional and really, really knew a lot. And we worked together. At one point, there were three of us in interactive accessibility. Five years later, I don't know the exact numbers, but say it was around 15 people and we sold the company to Vespero and emerged with the Paciello group. So if we're talking about legends.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Mark Miller: Mike Paciello is another one. Right. And we had been friendly. What I would call a friendly competitor helping each other back and forth with with that with the Paciello group anyways. And so we merged under them and it was sort of the second phase of my learning, you know I really had gotten an incredible foundation from Kathy, and then just being exposed to this wider group of accessibility professionals, I just continued to learn I had been involved in creating accessibility maturity models. We created one at Interactive Accessibility called Pax, the Proactive Accessibility Conformance Model. It kind of blended with what with what the Paciello Group was doing when we merged with them. So that name faded off. But I continued to work there on that and enjoyed another if I can do my math, eight years five, eight, five, six, five, eight plus five is 13. At the at what became TPG. Right. So TPG, the Paciello group and I was the I in interactive accessibility the little I.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Mark Miller: You know our logo and we just went through a lot of a lot of things in terms of building teams to you know, work with customers to bring customers on working on services, products, all of that to satisfy the needs in the industry. It was just really a great eight years. And then this summer, I moved away from that to start inclusion, impact, accessibility really wanting to go back into a boutique business situation and one where we could offer more of a concierge type service to our clients and really dig in deep. And this is so during this time, I also joined the W3c's accessibility maturity, the Model task force. I'm not going to give you the full name, but it's the task force that's creating the accessibility maturity model they're working with.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Let me pause for one second. So you know, you've gone from a fairly large in our industry, you know, pretty, pretty big player. Yep. And now you've stepped into creating your own entity. So just curious going from that kind of big universe to one where you get to shape what you do, your service offerings, the way you approach things. Maybe maybe you I think you said maybe you use the term deep, deep dive or dig into. But what? What aspects of you know, accessibility writ large really resonate with you? Where where do you feel your energies taking you in the new endeavor?

Mark Miller: Yeah. So what's interesting about that is that, you know, I can give you a very clear answer, which I will, but then there's also like an unclear side of it. So part of the excitement is the ability to chase down things that you didn't have the ability to chase down before and explore and expand those horizons. And for me, it's a little bit of a coming home, because that's what I really remembered and enjoyed from when when Interactive Accessibility was a small company. The things that really resonate with me is that I think, you know, a lot of the directions that we've seen larger organizations go in and this this is something I, you know, that's needed to a degree, But there's kind of a commoditization of the services. Right? And I think that that works in a lot of instances. But for me, it's much more interesting to meet the customer where they are and to really think about how do we how do we help this customer create a strategy for them that is going to lead to get them what they need today, right, in a in a way that's reasonable and lead to long term success. And there's a lot of buzzwords out there, and there's a lot of you got to shift left and you need, you know, but that's very, very different than really working with somebody really being able to dig in with an organization and maybe give them some things that are just unique to them, along with a lot of the things that, are, for lack of a better way to say it, I'll say, are standard, right? You know, people are going to need audits.

Mark Miller: People are going to need tooling and monitoring and all that kind of stuff. So that's that's typically going to be a part of it. And that is why the Maturity Model stuff is so exciting to me, because the maturity model is that step back and it says, let's take a look at the organization. Let's take a look at where it is now. And let's take it is a big the big version of it. Right. Unless, unless create a roadmap to bring it to a different state of capability incrementally right over time. So I think to answer your question, Kirk, it really is about that ability to be innovative with the organization, to be a true partner to to an organization and really help them solve problems instead of just you know, kind of putting, putting over services and tooling that you know, in, in kind of one way, I guess would be the way to say it, you know, more of a commoditized way.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, so for those listeners who are not as conversant in the jargon or nomenclature of digital accessibility, can you explain to us what a maturity model is?

Mark Miller: Absolutely. So. So first of all, a maturity model is not something specific to accessibility. But as soon as I say put an A in front of it. Right. So that that's the accessibility part of it, right. So am accessibility maturity model. But a maturity model is, is really just a model by which an organization can mature the maturity part of it, a capability, a capability could be anything in this case, the capability that you and I think about is accessibility. So typically you can build your own model from scratch or you can take existing models. And that's what the is going on over under the watch of the W3C. Is that there by consensus, trying to create one that's sort of a good general model for anyone that wants to improve accessibility. So typically when an organization learns about this thing, accessibility figures out the need to conform to a guideline. You know, it could be for a lot of reasons, you know, that they enter into it. The first thing they do is they get an audit and they fix, let's just say it's a website, right? Your website could be an application, but they fix it. And when I say fix it, I mean they make it accessible. So audit tells them what's wrong. It tells them how to address things. They go in and for this moment in time, and that efforts complete. They have they're holding on to something that's accessible.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Gotcha.

Mark Miller: But websites move. So the accessibility doesn't doesn't stick around if you don't intentionally put processes in place in your within the organization, within the software development lifecycle that keep it accessible. So a maturity model is how do we step by step over time continue to improve and mature a practice like including accessibility in our development process. That's what the model is. And if you look at when we went to responsive design, nobody was doing responsive design. They had to bake building websites with responsive design into their policies, procedures, processes, all that kind of stuff. So it's the same type of type of effort that you think that makes sense for the.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Mark Miller: Yeah. Great.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Shift left shift.

Mark Miller: Left shift left.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I know I may say that phrase, I don't know, six, seven times a week. And I talk to people and I say, you know, I just even a newsletter I get there's, you know, tons of unlabeled graphics and you see the Jaws screen reader software is reading me the formatting detail saying, you know, shape rounded corner. I don't I don't need to hear that stuff. So, you know, I just I organizations I care about are involved with. I say, you know, whoever you're paying to do this require that they comply with the accessibility standards. And sometimes I'll say, you know, we call that shifting. It left. You don't have to do it. But whoever you're paying you know, you should require them to do it. Is that is that a fair summation of what shift left means, or is there more nuance?

Mark Miller: Yeah, there's probably a little bit more nuance, but I think I think, you know, to sum it up, that's it. The the term comes from, it's really a term that fits into the software development life cycle.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So okay.

Mark Miller: Really like real quick, you know, the software development lifecycle looks something like you create requirements, you make a design, the developers then develop the software according to that design QA, then test the software to make sure it works. Maybe there may be cycles and cycles and cycles here. But then once everybody, you know, once the thumbs up happen, then it goes into what's called production. And production is what you see. If it's if it's a website, when you go to the website, you're seeing the production version of the website. So when that's graphically represented, it's represented with that. With that, the requirements phase all the way to the left and then that final production phase all the way to the right. So when I, when somebody says, oh, we need to all of a sudden make our website accessible, what happens is on that all the way to the right on the production, that's where they do all the work. What's wrong? What do we fix? And that's the most expensive place to fix stuff.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right?

Mark Miller: Because it's already out there. Right? It's like it's much easier to build something into the house while you're building it versus to retrofit it. Right. Cut the wall to add a window instead of adding it along the way. So shifting left is each step towards the left, away from that production or earlier earlier than production that you can make the less expensive. It is to include something like accessibility, the less likely you are to have things like accessibility issues enter into production, because once they enter into production, that's where risk occurs. The risk of Doctor Kirk Adams trying to look, trying to consume your website with his screen reader and having it not work because of the, you know, the things that you mentioned or having parts of it not work or having there be a barrier not allowing you to go further, that's a risk. And then, of course, there's legal implications as well when when those things don't work. So that's the genesis of it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Got it. So so as far as inclusion impact accessibility goes are are you started last summer. Are you are you turning over? Are you sitting up? Are you crawling? Walking? Yes, running. Where are you at?

Mark Miller: Yes. No. So we're we're pretty new. We've got a lot of a lot of things on the table. Iron in the fire, you know, as as the as the as the founder and CEO, of course, I want I want to be running a lot faster than I am, but but realistically I know that that's that's that would be a, you know, unusual. So right now, I'm about where I expected to be at this period of time. We've got, you know, we've got clients we're working with and we're we're seeing that vision of really being something more to the client. And we're also we've got some software and development, you know, some. And this, this is the exciting stuff that I can run with that I was never able to run with before. But I've got a platform around being able to track your progress and create actionable plans. To improve your capabilities. According to the that accessibility maturity model. So we're that's not ready for prime time yet, but those are the things that we're working on in the background and just having a great time. So it's probably a casual walk and I'm not gonna stay in the park because it's not in the park. There's a lot of it's a casual walk, but there's a lot of obstacles, you know, trash cans tipped over on the sidewalk.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, right. Right.

Mark Miller: Icy. It's icy here. So, you know, we've got.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Ice.

Mark Miller: On a slip.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So the first time when I moved to New York to move into the honour of leading the American Foundation for the blind, they put us in corporate housing on 43rd, between eighth and ninth, which, you know, the city, it's very near Times Square. It's Hell's Kitchen, a block from the Port Authority.

Mark Miller: I'm familiar with it.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And I had an orientation and mobility instructor to help me learned my route to the office, which was at two Penn Plaza. So on seventh between 31st and 33rd escalator coming up from Penn Station, right, right next to the building. And ONM instructor said, you know, what's your experience in navigating heavily trafficked areas? I said, pretty good. And then we turned onto Seventh Avenue in about a block. I said. I said I need to tell you that I never experienced anything like this. Yeah. So I think it's that kind of a walk. Yeah. That that that came to mind. Yeah. And the one thing she said was don't don't trust the pedestrians. Don't cross when they cross because they will cross against the light all the time. So yeah.

Mark Miller: That's a good analogy, I think.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But yeah.

Mark Miller: Any businesses like that and you know, it's it creates a lot of excitement. I mean, it's.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, it does.

Mark Miller: That's what.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Keeps. Keeps the keeps the adrenaline level high.

Mark Miller: It does. Yeah. And I need I need that. We talked about the ad and the dyslexia. Right. So the that that adrenaline boost helps both of those things. Indeed.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So, so ideal. Ideal clients. Size of business, any particular industries, any characteristics of clients that, that. Yeah, tend to be a good fit with what you're doing.

Mark Miller: So the, the interesting thing is about that, you know, with the with 13 years in this industry, I was able to really put something robust together pretty quickly. So large clients are great. But also I was very careful to make sure that the model was would work with smaller clients, and that was more of a A choice on my part, because one of the things I think that the industry struggles with is offering robust but cost effective and overall effective solutions for the smaller business. It's a little bit harder to make money, you know, in the smaller businesses, to be honest, because it's the same amount of effort but for a smaller effort. However it's not impossible and I think that it's needed. So I really wanted to, you know, part of what we're doing is we're making sure that we can run those kind of things in, in a way that makes sense on both sides. And then, you know, I've worked with some of the largest logos in the world in my, in my history of, of accessibility here. And I'm poised to do that again. So I'm a big believer, if any, if any business entrepreneur people or or listening out there, I'm a big believer in a diverse portfolio. I think that that really helps businesses become accessible, accessible, successful. If you're relying on a few large clients, that's difficult if you're just, you know, spinning away at a bunch of small clients, that can be difficult as well. So a nice balance there. So that's what I'm really looking for is a nice balance. And I think that the ideal customer is one who wants somebody, wants an organization that's truly going to be there as a partner for them. If you just need services, we can do that. But I think our success is going to be in that true partnership.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I know, I know, you have a great disposition toward toward partnering. And you know, we're both in the persons with Disabilities Media Co-op that Aaron Douglas and mine Vault Solutions.

Mark Miller: Yeah it's a great.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Co managing we like to grow that. So I will put in a little plug for that. If you are interested in disability inclusion and want to get your messaging out and want to share your platforms with, with others so we can amplify each other's messaging certainly let me know. And I'm Kirk Adams at Dr. Kirk Adams. Com is my email address, and I'm on LinkedIn every day. So Kirk Adams, PhD on LinkedIn. So put it put it in a little plug for the PWD Media Co-op. And Mark, as you look for as you look forward down the road, you're less than a year in as founder and CEO of your company. What what what do you envision? You know, create creating the vision is the primary function of a leader, I think, and creating and holding that vision. So where do you see things going?

Mark Miller: Yeah. First of all, I just want to echo what you said about the co-op. I had a blog post go out on it this morning. It's an as a new business needing effective and cost effective ways to get the word out. It has been a real gem for me in my part of my vision is to use it more and more and more than I have. But it's I'm glad you said something, because it's great, but, yeah, the vision for the business is you know, there's a couple different directions I can see it going into, you know I could see it sort of staying very small and really doing a great job for a handful of clients, and I definitely. The one thing I know that I really, really want it to do is rapidly keep pace with changes in the industry. We're at a super interesting time. And in technology. Right. With, with artificial intelligence and the large language models out there. And a lot of people look at, you know, a lot of people look at that and they say, okay, well, how is artificial intelligence going to make it so that we don't need to do manual audits? You know, so these automated audits can can catch and that's, you know, a fine thing to think about. And we haven't seen that happen yet. At least I haven't been able to get my hands on something that really moves the needle that way yet. But for me, it's the other things that are interesting when it comes to a change like AI. Like, how is that going to change the screen reader that you use? How is that? And how is that changing the way that we develop software? Right.

Mark Miller: That's why these maturity models and stuff are so important. Because what a person needs to do to include accessibility in the development process is changing rapidly with video coding, with AI assisted coding. But what needs to be done? The shift left part of it, right? Having it included in that development process doesn't change. It's how you do it, right? So how do you effectively make sure that when you're coding with AI that you have in in this moment in time, it would be called a skill that you've developed a skill so that as that thing codes, it's thinking about accessibility. And I'm going to tell you right now, you can put all the skills in the world. It's just like any other situation. It doesn't it makes something better but not fully accessible. So you still need to test. You still need to come back around and remediate. You know, you need cycles in there when you find out it didn't quite do something right. And so now the way that we work with organizations and we talk about how to, how to do this thing called accessibility that shifts. So my vision is to keep, you know, is to have a company that is flexible and nimble enough to where it's sort of staying in front of those or not in front of, but closer to at pace with those, those kind of things. But to do that in a very human way, you know, so that we're, we're doing it for the people that it impacts and we're trying to help those organizations do it in a way that is, is is successful, is efficient, and is sustainable as possible. That's the vision.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I like to ask you to talk a few more minutes about AI. I'm not a technical person. I have a Perkins Brailler here and a slate and stylus in my bag. And you know, I use technology probably at about a three out of ten level of sophistication. But I went to Consumer Electronics Show, CES January in my role as an advisor to an, a shareholder in AI. And the last time I went was five years ago. And you had to have a positive Covid test before you get your registration badge. And it was all it was all robotics robots to do, the robots to cook, robots to mix your drinks, robots to deliver mail. This time everything was AI and a lot of stuff was seemed bolted on. And I, you know, my my layperson's understanding was a lot of things that I would call automation were being labeled as AI. So in the world of accessibility where do you see AI being helpful and where do you see pitfalls in the AI landscape vis a vis accessibility?

Mark Miller: Yeah. Well, the first thing I'll I'll say is that that changes every day. Ask me this question tomorrow. I might have a different answer for you. Right. Because of how rapidly this is changing. But I think the pitfalls are in overtrusting AI to be able to do what human beings are doing right now when it comes to the testing. Type thing. I think the really exciting areas are and you can, you can speak to this if this is your experience. But I've heard from a lot of my friends who are blind that they really rely on AI, that the traditional searching for information on the web is sort of cumbersome compared to you know, using an AI. So things like that are exciting. And I think that, you know, we're in an exciting place when it comes to coding. If you if you rewind a year or two, I think that most people were like this AI coding thing, and it's just making things worse, and it's coding fast but bad. You know, I think we're starting to approach today a period where people are going. Actually, I figured out how to make this thing right. Pretty good code. I'm not a developer, so take that with a grain of salt. You know I'm just kind of kind of reading the tea leaves, you know, a little bit from from what I hear my developer friends say. Yeah. So you know, so the exciting areas are. Well, if that's the case and with the ability for that coding to operate on right now, I think skills is the hot way to do it. Right. But it's basically you can tell the AI coder, hey, when you code you know, this is your skill, follow this group of things. And this is where we're looking. This is where my company is looking at this a lot as we're looking at how do you prompt AI and what do you feed AI to make sure it's as informed as possible on how code should be written to be accessible. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Mark Miller: And and I'm not I'm not alone in doing that. A lot of people are doing that. But that's exciting, right? If we can if we can develop a way to say, hey, you know, code this thing, but you're always coding. And once you plug that in, it's like, this is how you always do it. You always do it accessibly. Yeah. And then how can we make this faster? How can we make the humans faster? So there's, you know, people are still going to need to test manually, but how can we make it faster when they when they take the issue that they find and they need to put it into a report. You know, that process between those two things, how can that be faster. You know, so there's a lot of really, really smart and and creative people out there that are looking at AI that way. And then I'll tell you one more thing that I find really interesting. And I've mentioned this a couple of times, but I have dyslexia, and I read early on, early on, midway through kind of our AI journey here, that it was going to bring back people with dyslexia. So we've had a hard time in business because we we look foolish, right? We would write an email and there would be misspellings in it, and we would take longer or miss things when we read stuff. And, you know, all these all these things that you can imagine that come with, with dyslexia. In fact, part of the way I accommodated this person with dyslexia is I use a screen reader, and I listen back to a lot of stuff that I write because I can hear mistakes and not see them.

Mark Miller: And but people with dyslexia put together seemingly unrelated concepts, thoughts, ideas really well. Right. So a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of innovators, a lot of your authors and rice are, are they're very narrative too. Right? So storytellers are dyslexic. And so it comes with these advantages because the brain works differently and the AI is kind of the perfect tool for that, right? It doesn't require that technical perfection. It is really quick to grab disparate data. Right. Different things and say let's mush these things together. Things together. Let's mush this together. So. And it you know, we're we're we have you know, short term memories, difficult and traditional learning scenarios. It gives us multimodal ways to consume content, which helps in learning. And then it it kind of doesn't require that. Same. So it's really interesting to, I think in how I'm sorry, this is a long winded, but my point here is how AI is going to impact and improve. And I'm talking about from the standpoint of dyslexia. But on the opposite end of that is, is is autism. How is it going to impact and improve the lives, the work lives, the productivity, the creativity, all those things for this neurodivergent group of people? You know, that's that's interesting to me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So you're the first person I've talked to who's really talked about AI and dyslexia specifically. So that's super interesting to me. And I'd love to talk with you more about that next time we get together on a podcast interview. But how how would you how would you like people listening to engage? How would how would you like people to connect?

Mark Miller: Yeah. So my website is https://InclusionImpact.co. And the way you spell CO, is you spell it COM backspace.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Very good I'll remember that.

Mark Miller: Yeah that's that's how I type to this day I cannot my fingers want to type com but it's not com. It's Co. So you need that backspace in there to fix it. So you're welcome to reach out to me there. You can you can hit that contact form there and it'll I'll see it. Also just [email protected] gets to me. And here's what I want to say to people. I'd love to have conversations this moment in my day right now with you, Kirk is probably going to be the highlight of it because we're having a cool conversation and being an interview with me. It's I get to talk a lot, which is also exciting, but the so don't feel like you've got to be showing up to do business with me. If you need help, if you have thoughts, if you're just wondering, I am consultative by nature and I want to talk to you. And I want to if, if, if it just ends up being a great conversation, that's more than enough for me. But reach out.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wonderful. And same here. If you want to talk about disability inclusion and creating environments and opportunities where people are blind or have other significant disabilities can thrive in their lives according to their own definition of thriving. I'm up for that. I had a conversation today with a young lady who's just finishing her undergrad in neuroscience and is applying to PhD programs, and she's legally blind. And, you know, I had that PhD journey, so I was able to give her some encouragement and a couple tips, and direct her to a couple resources. There's a Facebook group for blind PhDs and PhD candidates she wasn't aware of. So it doesn't have to be a big thing, right? It can be a medium sized thing or a small thing. I know that's true for you, Marc. Yeah. And if people want to reach me again, it's [email protected] or @KirkAdamsPhD, on LinkedIn. And thanks for listening to another episode of a podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams, and we'll see you next time. Thanks so much, Mark.

Mark Miller: Thank you so much. Kirk, I really appreciate it. And thanks to everyone who listens to this podcast. I hope to you know, run into you all someday.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yep. And we'll we'll check in in about six months and have you back again in celebrate your progress. Thank you so much. And we'll catch you all later next time.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor 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 Sheryl Green, Author, Speaker, Boundary Expert https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-02-05-2026/

In this thought-provoking episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams sits down with author, speaker, and boundary expert Sheryl Green for a wide-ranging and deeply human conversation about why boundaries matter, and why so many of us struggle to set them. Green shares her personal journey from forensic psychology and years of animal rescue work to a moment of burnout that became a turning point in her life. That experience led her to study, teach, and ultimately write about boundaries as a practical, compassionate tool for protecting our time, energy, relationships, and sense of self. Together, they unpack concepts like "yes-vomiting," people-pleasing, and the hidden costs of failing to say no, especially when it comes to emotional and time boundaries.

The conversation takes on added depth as Dr. Adams connects Green's boundary framework to the lived experience of disability. Drawing from his own life as a blind leader, he explores how people with disabilities routinely face boundary violations, ranging from intrusive questions to unwanted physical "help", and how understanding boundaries can be empowering rather than isolating. Green reflects on the difference between impairment and disability, acknowledges the role of "aggressive helpfulness," and emphasizes that setting boundaries is not about shutting people out, but about creating healthier, more respectful interactions. The episode closes with a shared call to action: building a more inclusive, empathetic world, one boundary at a time.

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: This podcast brought to you by Pneuma Solutions.

Podcast Commentator: I can't see it.

Podcast Commentator: ADA Title II has a real compliance deadline. April 2026. Public entities are required to make their digital content accessible, including websites, PDFs, reports, applications, and public records. If a document cannot be read with a screen reader, it is not compliant and if it is not compliant, blind people are still being denied equal access. For a clear explanation of what the rule requires, visit www.title2.info. It's one of the leading resources explaining what agencies must do and when. This message is brought to you by Pneuma Solutions, we have remediated hundreds of thousands of pages in days, not months or years, aligned with WCAG 2 AA guidelines at a fraction of traditional costs. Accessibility isn't a privilege, it's a right. Now that you know, ask your agencies a simple question, are your documents actually accessible?

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. And I am that Doctor Kirk Adams speaking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have a guest on. I'm really excited to to engage in some deep conversation. Author, speaker and boundary expert Sheryl Greene is with us today. Hi, Sheryl.

Sheryl Green: Hi. Thank you so much for having me on here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, absolutely. And my first experience with Sheryl was being interviewed by her for a book she's writing. She's written a series of books, and I've signed up for her newsletter. And just very interesting food for thought. And her area of interest and focus is, is boundaries. And she is not necessarily as immersed in disability world and lived or learned experience around disability as most of my guests have been. So I'm, I'm super interested in talking with you about boundaries. What led you to focus, what your interest is, how how you think about boundaries, how you assist people in living better lives by knowing how to set boundaries. And then I'd really like to talk to you a little bit about some of my thoughts around disability and boundaries and get your take on that. So I love it. Before we get into that, for anyone who doesn't know me, I am a Kirk Adams. I'm a blind person, am I? That's that's that's my primary identity. I am also a a father, a scholar, a grandfather, now, a husband for 40 years. My retina is detached. When I was five years old became totally blind overnight. Went to a school for blind kids for second, third grade. Learned my braille, my cane, travel my typing in the public school, on on up through college.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Corporate America, Banking and Finance for ten years, then into the nonprofit sector led the American Foundation for the blind, most recently Helen Keller's organization prior to that same leadership roles at the Lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle. And now I have a consulting practice called Innovative Impact, LLC. I do whatever I want that I think will be fun and innovative and high impact and will make a difference and make the world a more inclusive place for people with disabilities. I primarily focus on employment, creating career pathways for people with disabilities. I also advise a handful of disability tech startups. I work with some nonprofits to help them scale past the founder stage and increase their impact. And I have a podcast and do some writing and living the life here in here in Seattle. So, Sheryl Want to hand the microphone to you. And I'm always curious how people come to their avocation or their passion or their purpose. And your purpose is to help people understand boundaries and understand what boundaries the dynamics of boundaries in people's lives and how people can live better lives by understanding setting. And, you know, I've been reading your newsletter with great interest. So would love, love, love to hear your story for sure.

Sheryl Green: So yeah, I like to say my mission is to make the world a better place. One boundary at a time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheryl Green: So my story is a little circuitous, if you will. I actually went to a graduate school for forensic psychology. I was goth back in the day, and I wanted to hunt down serial killers for a living. Thankfully, that didn't pan out. But it kind of led to an interesting decade and a half, almost two of really searching for my purpose and my reason for my reason for being here.

Sheryl Green: I think the the closest that I came before this was animal rescue. I'm a huge, huge animal advocate. And when I was going through my divorce, animals are pretty much what saved me. Between my own dog and volunteering and getting involved, it just completely set my life on a different path. And I did animal rescue for 12 years. I worked in multiple capacities. I was a volunteer. I was a board member. I worked part time at one point, and then during Covid I went full time. I had been running my own content writing business for a little while, and when when Covid hit and the world shut down like many businesses, mine evaporated overnight. People were not so worried about getting blogs out there when they didn't know if they were going to live to see the next week. So I, you know, pivoted and I went full time at the rescue and threw myself into you know, into taking care of the animals. But I was I was on the, the marketing and the communications side of it. So I called myself the director of communication and cuddling which is a very important job. Thank you very much. So so I did that for you know, probably about a year that I was full time. And if you've ever worked in nonprofit, I know you have. You know, full time is not eight hours a day. It's you know, ten, 12, sometimes 14 hours a day. And it's, you know, no one really goes into nonprofit to get rich. So each, each month, I saw my savings account going down, and I wasn't necessarily making enough money to to keep a roof over my head and. And kibble in the dog's bowl.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheryl Green: So when my clients started coming back, I. I wanted to take them, of course, but more importantly, I had to. And And it was, you know, it was okay for a little while, I would work my ten, 12 hour days, and then I would come home and and work on client projects in the evening. And then, of course, we have, you know, life is life is still lifing. So my parents were getting older and they were needing more and more of my help. My stepmom had been sick for about 20 years at that point. And I'm still volunteering for everything because I never met a board I said no to. Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And we share that weakness.

Sheryl Green: Yeah.

Sheryl Green: I have a good book for you to read.

Sheryl Green: So, you know, it got to the.

Sheryl Green: Point where I was overwhelmed. I was having having trouble sleeping, but having trouble staying awake. I was really short with people. My normally pretty positive and pleasant demeanor turned into me snapping at people. And I'm not proud of the amount of times that I said I just can't effing do this anymore. So things were getting rough, and what really, really hit me the most was this feeling of resentment that was building up. I felt like every request was this unreasonable demands on my time, and I was starting to resent the people that I loved, and even to some degree, the animals. And it it all kind of hit hit rock bottom, I guess. It's probably about October of that year, and I was running an errand.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Is this the first year of the pandemic or.

Sheryl Green: This is 2022, I think.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheryl Green: Yeah. Somewhere. Somewhere around there.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Gotcha.

Sheryl Green: And I had or 2021.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Excuse me. Okay.

Sheryl Green: And I was, you know, I'm out running an errand for the rescue. It's it's probably about 6:00 at night. And lights, you know, headlights are starting to come on, and I had just been crying nonstop for weeks at that point, and I had this split second thought of, you know, if I just crossed over the median, this could all be over in a second.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheryl Green: And it was just this huge wake up call, obviously. I mean, I, I didn't want to hurt anybody else for sure. And I didn't want to leave my, my dogs or my parents without anyone to take care of them. So I managed to pull myself over onto the side of the road, and I just sat there crying for a good ten minutes, trying to calm myself down and realizing that if something major didn't change in my life very quickly, I wasn't going to be around to help anybody.

Sheryl Green: Took a month off from the rescue and ended up not going back. And over the next six months I cleared off my plate and then watched it all build back up again.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Different things, different things, different things. Okay.

Sheryl Green: Different. The same. It just, you know, all the all the. I say all the tasks came back and they brought friends.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheryl Green: And it took about about six months before a friend of mine sent me an article about boundaries. I remember looking at it and just going like, oh, this sounds like something I should have.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheryl Green: And, you know, I, I learned through reading.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Why why did that why did you send you that article?

Sheryl Green: Because she probably knew something I didn't.

Sheryl Green: You know, I was at that point where I couldn't even, I couldn't see what was right in front of me. And the problem at hand so yeah, it, I think she just knew something I didn't and knew I was struggling.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, that's a good friend.

Sheryl Green: That is a good friend. And yeah, I ended up, I figured, hey, if I have this problem, I'm probably not the only one who does.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right?

Sheryl Green: So I started writing a book, and I did my research, you know, in an in an effort to write this book and to learn to learn my way, but also to help other people along their path. And I've been teaching boundaries and writing about them ever since, and I finally found my purpose. Really? Long story.

Dr. Kirk Adams: No, no, I'm. I'm just thinking. So is there Gosh, how do you go about learning about boundaries? You said you spent time learning, learning about and understanding boundaries.

Sheryl Green: I did I well, I read everything I could get my hands on. I've. I've been an avid reader since I was eight years old, and you know, was failing social studies and my parents told me I couldn't watch TV anymore. So.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheryl Green: The Baby-Sitters club was my gateway drug.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Hey.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I have a daughter named Rachel. Who?

Dr. Kirk Adams: There you go.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It was in California because she read a Baby-Sitters club book with a girl from California. In it. She was 12. Said I'm moving to California.

Sheryl Green: I love that. It really I mean, it had a profound impact on so many. But yeah, I just I read everything I could. I started reaching out to you.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Studied psychology, right? I did talk about forensic psychology. So? So I'm imagining there are scholars and people who study boundaries from that lens. Right?

Sheryl Green: From the forensic lens I.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Have from.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The just looking at boundaries from a psych. Oh, yeah.

Sheryl Green: Yes. Yeah. For sure. And I think, you know, that was part of I'm very clear in my book. Look, I'm not a therapist. I'm not. And I did give it to a therapist before I published it because I wanted to be responsible and say, like, hey, I don't want to hurt anyone.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You know? So let's be more specific. The book tell, tell. Oh, sorry about sorry. That's okay.

Sheryl Green: Everyone knows.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, well, a lot more people are about to know.

Sheryl Green: So. Yeah, while I was going through this, I wrote a book called You Had Me at know how setting healthy boundaries helps banish burnout, repair relationships, and save your sanity.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You had me at. No.

Sheryl Green: You had me at no.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I, Sheryl with an S.

Sheryl Green: Yes, yes. Sheryl with an S. And you know, I haven't done an audiobook yet. There is an e-book. I haven't done an audiobook yet, but I always tell people if they want to hire me, I'll drive around in the car with them and read.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, there you go.

Sheryl Green: So?

Dr. Kirk Adams: So tell tell us, tell us about the book. Give it. Give us the the CliffsNotes version of. Of what? What you teach.

Sheryl Green: Yeah. So I, I talk about first why we don't set boundaries.

Sheryl Green: And so yes, I'm coming from a psychology with a, you know, a spice of forensics in there. But I also majored in anthropology in college, and I wanted to look at not only the individual but also the the group dynamic that goes into boundaries or a lack thereof. And I think, you know, look, I can teach people to set boundaries all day long, but if they don't actually believe that they have the right to set boundaries which many, many of us don't or didn't. Okay. All the tools and tricks in the world aren't going to help.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And why don't we set boundaries? Or why don't we think we have the right to set boundaries?

Sheryl Green: So the really quick and the really silly answer is we're afraid of getting eaten.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheryl Green: So if you look at this from a biological you know, anthropological standpoint.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheryl Green: We've got that lizard brain that's still kind of ruling many of our decisions when we're in a fear state. And we, you know, when we're a part of the group and a part of the tribe and, and we're all working together, there's somebody that's watching our back so we can go to sleep. And, you know, we're not going to get eaten by a passing tiger, right? But if we if we do something that displeases the tribe, then, you know, we're not we're not pulling our own weight or we feel like we are taking advantage or whatever that may be. We're afraid of being cast out. And if we get cast out, then a tiger can get us. So it sounds silly, and I promise you, no one in the moment is going if I say no to, you know, picking up my, you know, sister's kids or something. I'm gonna be eaten. However, that's what our brain is actually doing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Gotcha. So I had studied immunity to change. There's a book. Immunity to change. Interesting. Kagan, Lahey. And and the premise is to understand what bad thing will happen if I change. So it's, you know, they talk about weight loss and people smoking, and we know it's good. We know it's good for us. We know we want to do it. We know we should do it. Why don't we do it? Because deep down, somewhere, we think something really bad will happen if we do that change. So that's that's that's what you just reminded me of when you talked about that. We know we should set boundaries. We know we should do what's best for us. We know we should guard our time and our energy. Yeah, but we don't because we're afraid something bad will happen. Yeah.

Sheryl Green: Yeah. And I mean to your point with, you know if you stop smoking yeah you're going to be healthier. But hey you probably hang around with a lot of other smokers right. And if you stop smoking well there you go. You're out of the tribe.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yep. Yep. Gotcha. So so then how do we go about changing? Yeah.

Sheryl Green: So realizing it is the first step, honestly knowing knowing that you not only have the right, but you also actually have the responsibility to set boundaries. And that that sounds a little bit, you know, a little bit weird. But boundaries are not just something we do for ourselves. They're actually something that improves our relationships, that protects the people around us, that help us serve our clients better. They help us, you know, take care of our children better. Whatever. Whatever your deal is. So we actually cause more problems when we don't set boundaries. And I just I just wrote a blog about this, and I don't. I think it might have gone live today, but you know, people pleasing we we think of that as, you know, I'm thinking about everybody else right now, and I'm just going to do whatever they want just to make them happy. But it's actually really selfish because we're doing it to protect ourselves from the immediate discomfort of letting someone down. So it's kind of a little flip on it. So.

Dr. Kirk Adams: What what what what what types of things. I don't, I don't know, the language probably is but I'll, I'll fumble my way through this. But what, what types of things do we need to set boundaries around or against or what what what what types of things that can be negative impacts in our lives. Do we need to build boundaries? I don't know what words you set boundaries around. Set boundaries against. You're good. What are the types of things you know? I can think of the obvious things like, you know, I just did it today. Will you join our board? I said sure. Can you can you watch our kids Friday night? Can you loan me money? Can you can we build a can? Can we build a fence between our yards? And will you pay? Half that just happened to me. Yeah.

Sheryl Green: Oh my God. So the answer, the quick answer. Is everything okay? The longer answer is. So there's actually six inter internationally six recognized boundary categories. And then I added a seventh.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheryl Green: But you're you're looking.

Dr. Kirk Adams: See, that's what I should have said. I should have said Sheryl, what are the seven boundary categories?

Sheryl Green: You're good. I trust me, I don't know a lot of the words for your world. So we're we're we're even. It's okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So what are the seven boundary?

Sheryl Green: So they are time materials, which includes money, physical, sexual, emotional. I don't know how many I just said, but and then I think that was all of them. And then I added one which is relational, which is pretty much how you allow the people and the animals in your life to be treated. So if you are a leader, you know, are you letting your employees are you letting your customers you know, scream at your employees? And the reason I came up with this is because I had someone at my house who didn't want my dog putting his cute little face on their leg, and they kicked him.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, boy.

Sheryl Green: Yes. So he that that man is no longer welcome in my house or my world. But you know, when you think when we think about boundaries, I my very basic definition is how you allow yourself, and by extension, your stuff, to be treated. Okay, that's the really un un unofficial definition there. But you know, when you think about it, I'm going to go out and say absolutely everything in our life comes down to a boundary.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. So let's I'd like I'd like to think through a couple things with you together so people with disabilities. So first let's talk about the difference between an impairment and disability. And I think you and I talked about that.

Sheryl Green: Yes. It blew.

Dr. Kirk Adams: My mind. For your for your book. So I have a visual impairment. I cannot see. So my sense of sight is impaired. But that doesn't mean I am always in a disabling situation. So I think the little example I used with you, which I use a lot, is if I'm running that board meeting and I have my agenda in Braille and my committee reports and my finance reports I am my vision. My visual impairment does not put me in a disabling situation because I'm a Braille reader. I can manage that meeting just as well as a sighted person could with print. But if I walk in, sit down at the conference table and you slide me a stack of print, then I am in a disabling situation because my impairment does not allow me to interact effectively with the built environment of the print. And there's the three environments the built, the digital and the social. So, so given that there's there's a lot of misunderstanding about disability and impairment and whether a person's in a disabling situation or not, there's a lot of fluidity around that that the general population hasn't either lived with a disability or known someone deeply who has a disability. They don't understand that weight, that impairment with a disability. And then there's these tropes. There's the heroic trope where you're so inspirational. And I've had people, I've had people say, you do so well, as I sit down in an airplane seat and buckle my seat belt.

Sheryl Green: Did they pat you on the head? That would be. That would be.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice. And then there's the helpless. The assumption that that you're you're not capable. So assumed incompetence. But I got it. Our our boundaries are invaded. I thought, you know, sexual terribly. People with disabilities are sexually abused more than the general population. But then there's physical and emotional. So staring you know, studies show that people with disabilities are stared at in a way that a person without a disability never would be. Questions people ask. Right? How you know. I've had people writing a city bus. I just need to ask how. How did you know? How do you get dressed? How? You know how do you know what clothes to put on? Right. Taking the metro bus, reading Braille for many years, going downtown to Seattle for work. I had people dozens of times ask me, what are you reading? And I don't hear them asking anyone else on the bus who's reading? What they're reading. You know, grab invading, invading our space and and our bodies. You know how how many times have a blind person listening to this? You've been standing at a curb waiting for the light to change. You're using your techniques. You're listening for the traffic to to move. So, so, you know, to cross with the flow of the traffic and have someone grab you, you know, physically grab you and propel, start propelling you across the street. Right? Things that people would never do to someone who, who didn't have a, an apparent impairment. So just from your level of expertise just any thoughts on on on what what I just said or.

Sheryl Green: Yes. So, I mean, so many I, you know, the first thing I would say is, and I actually, I'm about to write the chapter where I'm going to talk about our conversation. Awesome. So this this came at a really good time. I stopped this morning right before it, just so we could have this conversation. Okay. I bet it's going to be more helpful. So, you know, I think I think one thing to realize is that most people. I'm not saying not I'm not saying everyone there are some true asshats out there. But most people are not coming from a bad place. Does not make it easier on you. I'm just saying most people are not going like, hahaha, there's a blind guy I'm gonna, like, scare him and drag him across the street, right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: I would agree with you.

Sheryl Green: You know, I think, I think for the most part people are like, hey, they're making an assumption which is not appropriate, but they're making an assumption that this person needs help. And I can help them and, you know, or asking questions. Again, I don't think it's most of the time coming from a bad place. I think it's probably coming from a, hey, I'm I'm curious. You know, I want to learn more, like an inquisitive place. All that to say, not that you should just put up with it. But I think I think switching, switching the mindset over from, you know, it's it's kind of like a an attack to it's it it's aggravated helping.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. That's good.

Sheryl Green: So and I will say, you know, I have a, I have a good friend that I've, I've done rescue with for years. She is a quadriplegic and, you know, has the use of basically one hand, she's in a motorized wheelchair. And of course, there are questions you know, when we when I've been out and about with her especially, you know, we we used to go to schools and talk to them about how to, how to care for, for dogs and cats. But, you know, she, I think kind of really mastered the art of, you know, if somebody was staring at her, she just said, hey, I notice you're looking at me. Did you have any questions? Because usually, usually they're coming from a good place. I think the the the cross that that you have to bear. Not that I've ever used that explanation or that wording, but is to to set boundaries in situations that other people wouldn't have to is to be able to say you know, I'm actually not comfortable talking about what happened or I don't, I don't share that with strangers. Thank you for asking. You know, if you want to continue the conversation, tell me something about you. I like that, you know if somebody does does grab you, and it does feel like they're, you know, about to propel you across the street. Just saying. Whoa. Hey, you know what? I actually appreciate your concern. However, it's appropriate to ask before touching someone.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right?

Sheryl Green: You know, it's it's that it's those. How do I put that? It's it's the human decencies that we were supposed to be taught as children, and we've definitely lost. In a lot of circumstances. But I think I think it's aggressive helpfulness in a lot of a lot of situations. And I think it's about setting those boundaries, educating people. And I'll be honest, you educated me. When I set out to write this book, I had absolutely no idea that disability or impairment or accommodations were going to be a part of this. It was not that was not on my radar. It is, you know, thankfully, something I've never really had to deal with. And I didn't know it existed, you know, I didn't know that world was out there. So would I personally ever grab someone at a, you know, a stoplight? Dear God, no. But I'm sure I have probably, you know, glanced at somebody for a little bit longer than is comfortable for them. Because I did notice that they had something different.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Sheryl Green: And I certainly didn't mean anything by it, but I especially where I am right now, if someone said to me, hey, did you have a question, I would have been like, oh, man, I'm sorry.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And and how about in Internal Boundaries? And I'm thinking about you said educate people. And oftentimes we feel like we're being asked to educate people all day long. Yeah. And you know, I think about, you know, picking your battles, you know, when I'm my wife and I are heading out to on vacation, we're in the airport all happy, ready to go to Maui. And you know, the TSA person says, can I see his ID? And I say, oh, you need my ID? Here it is. Yeah. Am I going to pause and educate that person? I'm probably going to make a decision, you know, not not not to do that. Right. If I'm in a restaurant and the way, you know, the server comes up and ask my wife, what would he like? Yeah. You know, I'll probably say, well I'm, I'm visually impaired, but I, I can hear and I can speak.

Sheryl Green: I'd like to be spoken to directly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And she she she I love her so much. We've been married 40 years. She often says very brightly. Doctor Adams can would like to would prefer to speak for himself. So but you know, microaggressions.

Sheryl Green: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: We have a there's a wonderful blind woman named Chancey Fleet. She works at the Andrew Heiskell Talking Book and Braille Library in New York City. And she once posted on Facebook some something that had happened to her during the day and she said, if I want microaggressions, I'll go to the airport. That's how I was stuck. Stuck with me. But So. Boundaries aren't always set. Again, just thinking out loud. They're not always set through interactions with other people. So there are boundaries that you set for yourself internally, I imagine. Yes. That, that that need to be considered like just you're like, I just said my decision. No, I'm not going to. I'm not going to. There's a thing called spoon theory that comes from chronic illness.

Sheryl Green: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Like you wake up in the morning with eight spoons of energy and I've got four left, and I'm not going to spend one spoon on educating this, this TSA person. Yes, I choose, I choose to keep that spoon in reserve. So just any thoughts around that kind of.

Sheryl Green: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That kind of dynamic.

Sheryl Green: There is very much internal boundaries. And there I really think every person whether you've got an impairment or not, needs to make that decision of what am I going to allow to bother me?

Sheryl Green: And I actually I just finished reading let them by Mel Robbins and I, it's, it's so simple. It's infuriating kind of thing.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheryl Green: And you know, I when we put it in that situation, it's I'm going to mildly curse here. Let the TSA agent be a dumbass.

Sheryl Green: And let you not allow that to ruin your day.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Sheryl Green: You know, I it's it's easier said than done. But you know, we each make a decision whether or not we want to walk around angry our entire lives. And that is, that falls under emotional boundaries. Right. We don't. We don't have the power to make anybody angry or sad or happy or whatever, and vice versa. They don't have that power over us. They can trigger us for sure, but ultimately it's up to us to decide, hey, what's what's the emotion that I want to sit in right now? And you, I mean, you have every, every right to let that TSA agent ruin your flight and your entire vacation. Or you can just go, dumbass. And, you know, well, don't call them that, because you'll get thrown out of the airport. But, you know, you you have that option to say it and then just let it go.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So I'm imagining of the seven categories, the emotional boundary may be the most challenging.

Sheryl Green: You know, I find emotional and time. Right. Time is, I think, usually the one that most people are aware of having a problem with. And just today, as you said, you agreed to be on a board. Yeah. So, you know, what's what's the time commitment that you just made? And I, you know, I'm not going to ask, like, whether, you know, you thought through that or whatever, but we we too often, I think I call it. Yes, vomiting, which is disgusting. Sorry.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Tell me more.

Sheryl Green: But for for anybody who's ever been asked something and you're like, hey, would you mind? And you're like, yeah, sure, I can do that. And do you want me to do this other thing as well? You know, like that that. Yes, I'll do it comes flying out of our mouths before before we we can think about it. And I think for the most part, that applies to the time boundaries.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Sheryl Green: Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well this time flew by. I I love getting your newsletter, I always pause, it's always helps me to center my thinking around, and I'm thinking about energy and using my energy wisely and the myriad pathways before me and the myriad demands on time and energy and emotion. And you, you've really been helpful to me in that. So for for others who are listening, how how can they access your wisdom? What's a good way to connect to get the book to sign up for the newsletter?

Sheryl Green: Oh, I love that. Access my wisdom. I'm going to be using that later and it's going to piss my husband off. They're just accessing my wisdom. So kind of my hub is https://SherylGreenSpeaks.com. It's S H E R Y L Green Speaks.com. And you can get a I've got two things to download on there, both of which will put you on my newsletter. One is for leaders, for a professional setting, and the other one is just a how to say no cheat sheet. It's just to.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Have.

Sheryl Green: That those words. And I've, I've heard good things. People have it laminated and on their, on their wall.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Yeah.

Sheryl Green: And then my book is available on Amazon. Again, it's, "You Had Me At No". And I do speaking engagements. I do consulting for for businesses. And I would just, like I said, I'd love to help make the world a better place. One boundary at a time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice. And you've you've taught me a lot. I continue to learn from you. I appreciate it. I like to I love the fact that you said you've learned some things from me. So that's that's that's how we all work together.

Sheryl Green: Yes.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And have collective action on making the world a better place. So for me, if you'd like to get in touch on LinkedIn every day I'm @KirkAdamsPhD, on LinkedIn. I have a website, https://drkirkadams.com. I have a newsletter and I would love to connect with any anyone out there who wants to talk about making the world more inclusive and empathetic place. So thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We'll see you next time. Thank you Sheryl.

Sheryl Green: Thank you.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor 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 Samuel Levine, Professor of Law & Director, Jewish Law Institute, Touro Law Center https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-02-03-2026/

In this thought-provoking episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk sits down with Professor Samuel J. Levine, law professor at Touro Law Center, Director of the Jewish Law Institute, and founder of Touro's Disability Rights and Inclusion Project, to explore why advancing disability inclusion requires more than "laws on the books." Levine shares how his work blends legal analysis with broader cultural and human elements, compassion, storytelling, religion, the arts, and lived experience, because, as he and Kirk discuss, you can't "legislate compassion." Levine also describes the personal and scholarly path that led him to write Was Yosef on the Spectrum, viewing the biblical Joseph story through the lens of autism, and explains how community connections and shared purpose have helped the conference grow organically through relationships and advocacy.

The conversation then turns to Levine's third annual Disability Rights and Inclusion Conference, happening March 12-13 at Touro Law Center in Central Islip (Long Island), with both in-person and free online options. Levine previews major highlights, including keynote speakers John Elder Robison (Look Me in the Eye) and Justice Richard Bernstein of the Michigan Supreme Court, and he emphasizes the conference's welcoming, solutions-focused tone. Kirk and Levine also dig into practical advocacy, especially in education, underscoring that families should know their rights (like IEP/FAPE protections) and seek experienced support when schools or employers try to "avoid" their legal obligations. Levine closes by inviting listeners to register through the Touro conference page (search "Touro Disability Rights and Inclusion") and to connect with him via email or LinkedIn, while Kirk shares his plan to participate virtually.

TRANSCRIPT:

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Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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, doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Hello again, everybody, and welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have a guest that I connected with via LinkedIn as Professor Samuel Levine, a professor of law and a director of the Jewish Law Institute at the Touro Law Center, and he is founder of the Disability Rights and Inclusion Conference, the third annual conference coming up March 12th and 13th. We're going to be talking a lot about that. Welcome, Samuel.

Samuel J. Levine: Thank you so much, Kirk. It's great to be here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: For those of you tuning in for the first time, just very briefly Doctor Kirk Adams, as I said immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the blind AFB, which was Helen Keller's organization prior to that, privileged to have the same leadership roles at the lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle. I am a blind person. My retina is detached. When I was five years old in kindergarten, went to Oregon State School for the blind and got my my braille skills and my strong internal locus of control, and then on to public school and fourth grade on through into some banking and finance experience and then into the nonprofit sector. Currently my consulting practice, Innovative Impact LLC, focuses on fun, innovative, high impact projects that will accelerate inclusion of people with disabilities with a particular focus on employment. So I'm happy to welcome Professor Levine today. Disability rights and inclusion, near and dear to my heart. And from the aspects of of the law, the legal aspects of super interesting and something I don't know enough about. So we'd love to hear from you, Professor Levine, about the genesis of the A conference and your your background and what what motivates you and energizes you around disability rights and inclusion. Then, of course, we'd love to hear what's coming up on March 12th and 13th.

Samuel J. Levine: Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you for that question. Thank you for the opportunity for me to share this information. And as importantly, Kirk, thank you. It's an honor for me to be able to contribute to your work, your important work, and your leadership in this area. So my day job, as I sometimes call it, is I'm a law professor, as you mentioned, at Touro Law Center. T o r o that's the law school of Touro University. The New York the law center is actually located in or on Long Island. And I teach criminal law, I teach ethics, I teach Jewish law as part of my work as director of the Jewish Law Institute, which compares Jewish law and American law now a number of years ago, based on and drawing from my own personal interests, my own personal connections, experiences in the areas of disability, personal and professional work I've done in the area. I wrote a book called Was Yosef on the Spectrum Viewing the biblical story of Joseph in Genesis, son of Jacob through the lens of autism. And with that, I also launched the Disability Rights and Inclusion Project at Touro at the law school. And the project is dedicated to promoting disability rights awareness, acceptance and inclusion. Over the first few years of the program, we had webinars we had in-person events, we had workshops, we produced some scholarly publications. And just a couple of years ago, we decided to host our first conference on this topic.

Samuel J. Levine: The first conference, which we referred to as Disability rights and inclusion. Colon, a multidisciplinary conference. And the reason it's so important to me to emphasize that multidisciplinary nature of our work. Goes to your point about the law. Because the law. I'm a law professor. I was a prosecutor. I know the importance of the law. I know the potential of the law. But as lawyers, we are particularly sensitive to the limits of the law. And it's my philosophy that if we're truly going to promote disability rights and inclusion, that topic near and dear to your heart and your leadership, your groundbreaking work in this area as you know, we have to go beyond the law because there's only so much our legal system can accomplish. You can have laws on the books, you can have the Ada you can have when it comes to education idea, All kinds of statutes, all kinds of rules. But the reality is that in order to implement the law beyond what's on the books, you have to advocate. You have to bring the lawsuits, you have to pass legislation, but you also have to affect those changes in society. And so the multidisciplinary nature of our project and of our conferences incorporates a variety of disciplines, a variety of perspectives, speakers who tell their own stories, which are so important to get out there to help our audience understand what we're talking about in terms of disability rights and inclusion. Last year.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I've done a lot of public policy work in my day, and the a phrase just rang into my mind that I heard somewhere, somewhere in the hall, those marble halls of the congressional buildings is you can't legislate compassion. So I'm just curious and you can get to it whenever, whenever it fits, but that you, you talked about your role in examining aspects of American law and Jewish law, and I'm just wondering about things like compassion and care. And when you talk about the multidisciplinary aspect of the conference and the different perspectives and voices, in addition to thoughts and scholars looking at things from a legal standpoint, what are some of the other viewpoints and voices that you bring into the conference?

Samuel J. Levine: Great question and great point. Great quotation, by the way. I don't know if that was something you coined or you heard around.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, I heard it somewhere. I borrowed it.

Samuel J. Levine: So. So I'd like to borrow it from you or from me either. I think it's I think it is so important. And that's something that to me speaks to the importance of bringing in, whether it's humanities, whether it's religion. We have speakers talking about society, cultural concepts and those do all go to this broader societal attitude and the compassion that the law, you know, it requires that people do things. But unfortunately, I think this is just, I guess, human nature. Sometimes the law imposes duties, for example, not to discriminate, which should be an obvious reality to us. But the way people are, it's not so obvious. And if people follow the law, sometimes they resent it. They'll do it if need be or if they're forced to do so. And it sounds very much along the lines of that quote that you took from from DC that you can't force people to really care. You can force them to do something, but if they resent it, and we all know this from our different areas of life. If you're a parent, if you're a teacher, whatever area you've experienced, you know that if someone resents the rules that you impose on them, it might actually backfire to some degree, and they'll do everything they can to get around it.

Samuel J. Levine: And I think we see this when it comes to civil rights, one of which is disability rights. We see employers. We see schools trying their best to avoid the question, trying their best to avoid not they won't defy the law, but they'll just avoid the law because they'll find a way out. So I think you're exactly right. And that's why it is so important to have speakers. We have some speakers who come from the arts. We have speakers who are musicians, speakers who are involved in Filmmaking. And some of those speakers are just as effective and just as important, if not more important for our audience because their story really speaks to people's hearts, even more so than the legal analysis, which again, I don't want to in any way belittle the necessity of the law. But we do have to continue incorporating these different voices. And that's why.

Dr. Kirk Adams: How did you how did you identify those other voices to bring into the mix, I assume as a law professor and a lawyer and a former prosecutor, you know, lots of people who can bring the legal thinking to the mix. But how did how did how did you identify artists and musicians and filmmakers that care about these, that care about disability rights and inclusion?

Samuel J. Levine: That's another great question. And what I have found and you've been doing this much longer than I have, so I imagine you're familiar with this. I hope you've had the same experience. I have found that over the years since I launched this Disability rights and inclusion project, and the years before that, when I was personally involved advocating for disability rights and inclusion. The disability community, if we would call it that, is very cohesive community. I mean, every community has got its infighting and it's, you know, bickering and disagreements. But I have found it to be a community where people want to share, where people want to make connections, help you make connections. And it kind of grew organically for me, where I met one person and they said, you've really got to speak to this other people. I think you and I kind of connected in that way. It was maybe through LinkedIn directly, but it was really a result of my meeting people, often on LinkedIn or other forms of social media, or in person or email. And over the years I had connected with so many really impressive and I mean impressive in every way, their personal accomplishments, but more importantly to me, impressive in terms of what you described, their compassion, their kindness, their dedication. So those are the type of speakers I really look for for my conference.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I'm curious, you mentioned before the Disability Rights Inclusion Project. I think you just said said something along the lines of your, your disability advocacy work prior to that. And then what what led you to consider whether Joseph was on the spectrum or not? What what led you to think about that and to be curious about that as a scholar? And what what what came first? The the the interest in Joseph or the interest in disability? Or were they simultaneous?

Samuel J. Levine: I'm so.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Curious.

Samuel J. Levine: What was first, I think, was the curiosity about the story. I do have a rabbinic background as well. And and prior to that, even growing up, I had heard the story, like many of us.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah. Thrown into the pit.

Samuel J. Levine: Right to the pit.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Coat of many colors.

Samuel J. Levine: Yeah, exactly. And it's the Broadway play. It's, you know, since they've had the Dreamworks animation. Yeah. Famous book by Thomas Mann. It's just it's a story that does jump out at you. And from a scholarly perspective, it's a story that I always found fascinating and puzzling, because this figure of Joseph has so many talents, has so many skills, and yet seems to have so many challenges, or other people have challenges with him on an interpersonal kind of social level. He gets thrown into the pit. It's the wrong thing to do. But we see what it was that bothered his brothers. Not that it justified it by any means what they did, but we could see that disconnect between him and his brothers and him and his father, who loved him, gave him that coat, and that was also a problem. So. And he eventually he goes to Egypt after being taken out of the pit. And he has all those experiences there, the highs and the lows, the success and the challenges. And I had so many questions. I've studied in great detail the commentators, the midrashim, thousands of years of discussions of what's going on in this story. And at one point during my focus on disabilities, and particularly my focus on autism, an area of particular interest to me, I had that moment where the light bulb went off and I said, oh, I think I get it. I think I see because I know people who have this interesting combination, sometimes called a spiky profile, where they have these particular skills, these particular talents, and at the same time intermingled with that and almost inextricably linked. They have these challenges when it comes to socially getting along with others or other people, understanding what they're getting at. And then I read the story again, and it really fits very well the text. It fits many of the commentators over the years, many of the midrashim that are glosses on the story. And I decided to write the book.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. I'm going to for myself and people not familiar with the Jewish faith, the midrashim is what.

Samuel J. Levine: So a midrash is the oral traditions that kind of flesh out the story. Because the biblical text is often very terse. It'll tell a whole story with a few verses. So the question is, what was going on? Sort of behind the scenes or in between the lines. And the Midrash will often fill in some of those details.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So those are written texts.

Samuel J. Levine: So those are texts in of themselves initially. Oral traditions. And ultimately they were compiled as texts.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. And and what what brought you to your interest in autism?

Samuel J. Levine: So that comes from both personal and professional experiences, knowing a lot of people and working with people on the autism spectrum.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay, so let's turn toward March 12th and 13th a little bit. So if a person is intrigued and motivated and wants to spend time with a group of wonderful people who care about disability rights and inclusion and bring a lot of different perspectives first of all, how how do people access the conference. How do people register, sign up, learn more. And once they do what what, what can people expect?

Samuel J. Levine: Absolutely. So we have a conference page on our website. Toro is the name of the school, Touro Law Center. There's a page. If you Google Touro Disability Rights and Inclusion, you'll probably reach either the project and or the conference page, and the conference page has the registration link as well as the schedule for the speakers. The conference itself, there's a modest fee for in-person participation. So for the full two days, well, full Thursday and Friday until the 13th is until 230. That includes meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner on Thursday, breakfast and lunch on Friday in person at Touro Law School in Central Islip, Long Island. It also includes for lawyers out there up to a total of 13.5 CE credits. And if you're not a lawyer, you probably don't know what that means. If you are a lawyer, you might be really interested because CLE is continuing legal education and lawyers have obligations if they want to keep their license to practice, which we all do to engage in continuing legal education beyond our graduating law school. So 13.5 credits is a big chunk, at least of what's required. So to me, it's a great way to get those CLE credits. You can imagine different ways of doing it. You can go online and watch programs and sit there and click ahead, or you can do something very meaningful. And to me, this is of course, a very meaningful there is also an online registration option, online viewing. And there's no fee for that. So if you're not able to make it out to Central Islip and this is, open to anyone, anywhere. We have viewers throughout the world who are going to be participating. And you can just log on and sign up for free.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Why don't you just give us maybe 3 or 4 of the speakers just who they are and briefly, a little bit about them, just to whet the appetite, people.

Samuel J. Levine: Absolutely. Thank you. It's hard to pick any because, as you mentioned, they are also wonderful. We have a couple of keynote addresses, so maybe I'll start with them. Sure. Lunch keynote on Thursday, March 12th is going to be John Elder Robison. And John Elder Robison is a wonderful and remarkable individual. He wrote a book called Look Me in the eye. It was a New York Times best seller. And a couple of decades ago by now it was one of the first really a groundbreaking book describing from a first person perspective his experiences growing up on the autism spectrum, growing up and the challenges he faced and the successes that he was able to accomplish, among others. And he accomplished. He continues to accomplish so much. One of the most interesting, I think, to most readers is that he ended up he's a musician. He's a technician. He ended up working with the band kiss. Oh, and he was the one who designed the pyrotechnics for Ace Frehley's guitar. Wow. The late, recently, you know, late Ace Frehley. So John was the one who designed that. He ended up working with on nuclear submarines.

Samuel J. Levine: All kinds of. Wow. Fascinating. He does autism policy. And his book to me was such an important event because to this day, I think a lot of people are not familiar with autism. And if you're not familiar with the disability, then unfortunately again, this might be human nature or an unfortunate side of human nature. If there's something we're not familiar with, we are sometimes scared of it. We sometimes Or worse. So by writing the New York Times bestseller, An Entertaining book, a fascinating book, it did allow a lot of people to understand and look me in the eye. That title, drawn from the instruction or reprimand that many individuals on the autism spectrum receive, that they're not looking in the eyes of the speaker. You know, look at me. If you and you know what a rude thing to say to someone, I'm sure you've heard all kinds of rude comments, unfortunately. Yeah. Yourself And I think he he was it was a well chosen title for that reason. So he's going to give the keynote speech and he's always.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm, I'm downloading the braille ready file from Bookshare onto Braille sense right now. So I will be reading it soon.

Samuel J. Levine: Yeah, I hope you. I imagine you want to. I expect you will. He's always entertaining, always has something creative to say. And, you know, true to his talents and being on the autism spectrum often has a different way of seeing things that many of us haven't thought of yet and an intriguing way of seeing things. Our Friday lunch keynote speaker is going to be Justice Richard Bernstein. And I wonder if you might be familiar with Justice Bernstein. He is blind by reputation.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. I don't know him personally, but certainly.

Samuel J. Levine: He and he's on the Michigan Supreme Court. Another just wonderful and fascinating individual. He runs marathons. You know, he speaks all around the country. And.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I gotta ask you, what's what's with all these blind people running marathons? Another blind person I know is running marathons.

Samuel J. Levine: And that doesn't include you, I think.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It does not. Now, I did run cross country in high school. That was long ago.

Samuel J. Levine: That's pretty good. Yeah. I'm not sure what to tell you, but I'm not a marathon runner. So I'm with you on that one. So, you know, as I mentioned, accomplished people and kind wonderful, interesting people. And we try to have our keynotes be along those lines of both substantive and entertaining and the conference as a whole, you know, the speakers are all of the above. We really it's an experience. And you're asking about what our audience will experience if they are able. Anyone who's able to attend in person. It is a special experience to be there in person. One of my.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I can imagine you'll if you're able to go in person, you're going to meet a lot of heart centered compassionate, proactive people committed to what it says disability rights and inclusion. So a lot of advocacy. So sounds sounds like a lot of people we would all like to know.

Samuel J. Levine: And just on that note, you know, one of my colleagues at the law school after our first conference that initial multidisciplinary conference, by the way, the second conference, we had the subtitle of Expanding the Conversation, because we really did that was last year's conference. We did expand both the scope and the breadth of the discussions. And then this year we just calling it third annual. But after that first conference, one of my colleagues said to me, you know, that's the most positive law school conference I ever attended. You know, and on the one hand, Yale Law School conferences can be a bit on the cantankerous side, you know. Officers aren't always.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Right. Right.

Samuel J. Levine: But and but I think what's important for him to recognize. And I made this point to him. It's not that everyone agrees because, you know, we referred before to the infighting and there's without calling it infighting, there are disagreements. That's that's the way it is. And that's great. We can have different points of view, but everyone there is dedicated to moving things forward, and no one is there to pick on someone else or to belittle someone else's perspective. They may disagree, they may ask challenging questions. And that constructive criticism is great. But it's never intended as negative criticism. And I think that that's a really important aspect. And I think that helps create that atmosphere that we all walk away. And at this point, there's we've developed this sense of community. At the conference, some of the speakers return, some of the audience returns, and you really do get to know each other. The online experience is not quite the same, but by so many of our online audience that they've also appreciated. We do try as best as we can. We take questions from the online audience that they can send in. And as we're doing the Q&A, we start with some of the people in the room. But we always check the questions online and if we're able to, we read those out to the speakers as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. So if I could ask you to put your law professor hat on for the few few minutes. So for those of us who are passionate about disability rights and inclusion and advocacy, but we're not immersed in the details of the law, the court system, the the policies that frame legal activities around disability. What? What should we be aware of? What are there things we should be really cognizant of paying close attention to in these times? Are there areas that we should be putting on our advocate advocacy list is what what what's what in the landscape should we be thinking about?

Samuel J. Levine: I think the first thing to know is that there are rights out there. And unfortunately, tragically it's not uncommon that it's the people who are responsible for recognizing those rights who I alluded to before try to avoid it. And that happens very often at the school level, the education level. That's actually the area of advocacy that I've been myself personally most involved in. And as it turns out, Turoe actually has a special education advocacy clinic where our students are trained to work in that area. And it's an area that, for better or for worse, it's kind of unfortunate, but it's a growing field because there are so many schools that don't live up to their obligations under the law to provide a free and appropriate public education. No more, no less. That's the law. That's the statute. That's federal law. Every school has to comply with it. And yet we just have so many endless stories of students who aren't being provided those rights. And the reason that schools get away with it is typically because the parents don't know their rights. Kids aren't going to know their rights. How would they? But the parents don't even know their rights. And if they do, if they try to assert those rights, the school is not too strong a word to say that the school lies to them. And this isn't every school, this isn't all the time.

Samuel J. Levine: But it's a that's a story that we hear over and over and over again, where the school just denies that this is something that they're required to do. So what's a parent to do when they're in that situation? And my answer is and my advice is my strong advice is that there are lawyers out there. There are special ed attorneys out there who are experts in this field. And it doesn't mean you're going to win. Lawyers can never guarantee that to you. But it does mean that they're familiar with how it works. And I can tell you this is true of any area of law. If you have a lawyer on your side, then it changes the entire playing field. Now, the adversary, whoever that may be, whether it's a school in this situation. But, you know, anytime if you're asserting your own rights, they might think they can take advantage of you. They might have their own lawyers try to take advantage. If you've got a lawyer on your side who can counter what they're saying and point to the statute and point to the provision that they're not following. That changes everything. All of a sudden they take you much more seriously. Yeah, they're often going to settle instead of intimidating you into not going any further.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I'd like to dig into that maybe a little bit. So the you know, the IEP, the individual education plan that students with disabilities are entitled to, which lays out the responsibilities of the educational institution, the school, the school district to to provide that student with with what they're entitled to. So important. It's a key, key element. And, you know, the the school may not outright deny, but they certainly may, you know, brails the thing for me. So I was totally blind as a first grader. There was no question I needed to learn how to read Braille. But there are kids who have some usable vision. And oftentimes schools dissuade parents from asking that Braille instruction be included because it's, you know, it's expensive, it's complicated, and it takes time and effort and individual instruction. And they may be told, well, you know, they can use magnification, they can use audio. But as one example, you know, a parent, my parents when I my retinas. Yeah. They had never met a blind person before. They were in their mid 20s. You know, I was a kindergarten student at a public school. They were told, you can't you can't come back here just to go to the state school for the blind children, which which, you know, pros and cons, but that that's what happened. But parents don't necessarily know what's available. What's best for their child? Not every family has the wherewithal to research and advocate and get prepared for that type of thing. Are there resources prior to contacting attorney that that you would recommend?

Samuel J. Levine: Well, nowadays, you know, some of the benefits of our online universe is there are all kinds of resources out there. So yeah, you can find IEP. We actually have on our website, we have a wonderful presentation. It was directed toward the private school system, but we did record the presentation. About IEP advice. And obviously ours is not by any means the only resource out there. So I do recommend for parents to check online first so you can get what's out there. But to your point, you're exactly right about the challenges to having an IEP a designed properly. And then we're going through the same procedure that we talked about with the law. You can have a law on the books. You can even have an IEP that's designed very well. It can even say okay, this student will receive instruction in Braille five days a week. What happens when the school doesn't comply with the IEP that you've agreed to, that they've agreed to that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Samuel J. Levine: Worked out with them. And it has to be agreed to, by the way, from both parents and school. You sign off of it on a as a parent. So it's not as if it's the school designed it and then you're stuck with whatever they say. You have to come to an agreement and it's your right to say, I disagree with your conclusion, and I'm going to take you to due process, and you have to prove to me that this plan is actually meeting your legal obligation to provide fape the free and appropriate public education with all that entails. And if you can't, and as you mentioned, there's pros and cons, but if you can't, then you have to find a setting that can provide it. The ideal that our system promotes and this is complicated. But we do have a general approach to educate a student in what's called the least restrictive environment.

Samuel J. Levine: So if a student can be mainstreamed, if a student can remain within the general student population and receive the appropriate services, that's usually considered the best outcome, the better policy, because that way the student does find a way to integrate into as they should be included into the general society. If the students challenges cannot be met, if the school is unable and it it you mentioned the money and that's not an acceptable reason not to provide fape. It's not an acceptable reason to not follow the law. You know, we don't have the resources. We don't have the money. And you're exactly right there to that. Well, you know, this type of instruction is kind of expensive. So how about if we just do it another way? Well, if that other way is not meeting the students needs, the answer is no. We're going to do it the right way because you're going to educate the student the way they are supposed to be educated under your legal obligations. And I just want to emphasize, for parents out there, for individuals, you know, the other setting, which I'm not as experienced in directly in my Involvement in advocacy, but I'm very, very familiar with more generally is the employment setting. And there are, of course, anti-discrimination laws under the Ada when it comes to employment. It's important for parents who are helping their children. It's important for individuals who are helping other individuals and for individuals themselves. If you like the term self-advocate or not, some people do, some people don't. But if you're advocating for yourself, it's important to understand your mindset as not asking for favors, not asking for the school to do something that they shouldn't have to do to bend over backwards for you.

Samuel J. Levine: And that's something else that school officials are unfortunately often very good at and making it sound like, well, we're already doing this. So are you really asking us to do that too? And the answer has to be, that's exactly what I'm asking. And that's exactly what I'm telling you to do, because that's what you have to do. I mean, just imagine anyone else doing their job and saying, oh, come on. You want me to submit this report? And you also want me to do the other report? I did one of them. Isn't that enough for you? So I think it's important to have that mindset that this is something that these schools and the employers and society as a whole. I just had a long talk about accessibility with someone who works in the field, and they're just stunned by how often they go into a setting and they see what's allegedly the accessibility plan. And they look at it, and they've been through this enough times to take one look and say, this is nowhere near what you need to do under the law. And the response is often, oh, come on, do you really think we have to go that far? The bathroom's pretty good. You know, the schools are kind of, you know, they're pretty much work. This ramp is, you know, you didn't have the bar where you thought, and you know, she's stunned by that response. But on the other hand, she's also used to it by now. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So we've we've we've come a long way and we've got a long way to go collective actions, the way to get things done. So Disability Rights and Inclusion Conference, March 12th 13th at Touro University in Central Islip. Do I have that right?

Samuel J. Levine: That's exactly right. The law school is Central Islip. The main university actually is set in in Times Square. Three times square is this wonderful, pretty new building.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That's a that's a pastoral setting. So yeah. Tell people one more time how to get in touch with the conference and with you.

Samuel J. Levine: So feel free to reach out to me directly. The best way to reach me is my email. That's SLevine8, S L E V as in Victor I N E, followed by the number eight. All one word. I guess there are seven other SLevines at Touro. @. And then it's just the Touro.edu. T O U R O . EDU. [email protected]. You can feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I find that to be a very convenient way to reach out to people. So Samuel Levine Touro law professor, you can find me there pretty easily. Facebook as well. And on the Touro Law Center website, if you Google Touro Law Center disability you'll find the conference page pretty quickly.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Wonderful. And if people want to get in touch with me to talk about any or all topics related to disability rights and inclusion, happy to talk with you. LinkedIn is great for me. Also, KirkAdamsPhD on LinkedIn. I also have a website, https://DrKirkAdams.com, have a newsletter you can sign up for. My email address is there, and I'll be taking advantage of the virtual option to participate in the Disability Rights and Inclusion Conference March 12th and 13th. Thank you so much, Professor Levine. I learned a lot. I took a lot of notes. I downloaded a new book. And I just really appreciate your time and your your wisdom. And for those of you listening, we'll catch you next time on podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor 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 John B. Grimes, Survivor Inspiring Resilience, Author, Destiny is Debatable https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-01-29-2026/

In this candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams talks with John B. Grimes about the life-altering night in 1998 when, as a 19-year-old Texas Tech student, Grimes contracted meningococcal disease and woke up in the hospital days later blind, disoriented, and relearning basic functions, walking, talking, swallowing, while also navigating lasting neurological impacts. Grimes explains why he once called himself "ambiguously blind," describes the role the Texas Commission for the Blind played in reopening his world (from accessible coursework to practical support), and reflects on the fear and grief he initially resisted, until later counseling helped him begin processing the change.

The conversation also centers on Grimes' forthcoming memoir, Destiny Is Debatable, releasing February 7, 2026, chosen to mark the anniversary of the day he entered the hospital, and the core message behind the title: that life's trajectory isn't fixed, and waiting rarely makes hard things easier. He shares how he built a career in the family insurance business (and how remote work became a major accessibility advantage), sprinkles in a few "college-kid" stories, and looks ahead to deeper work in meningitis advocacy, including the foundation he helped launch, Shots for Meningitis. Dr. Adams closes by encouraging listeners to connect, follow Grimes online, and pick up the book.

TRANSCRIPT:

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Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have the pleasure of talking with a person I've gotten to know fairly well from a distance and very very inspired by by what he's doing with, with his life. And I'd like to welcome John B Grimes. He is the author of the forthcoming memoir Destiny Is debatable. Coming out soon and available. Available to all of you very soon. And, John, welcome.

John B. Grimes: Howdy. Kirk. Great to be here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Is that the Texas? The howdy.

John B. Grimes: That's it. You got it. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Good, good. Well

John B. Grimes: Well, my wife's an Aggie, so that kind of. Oh, yeah, I guess it. That's what they say. Whether right or wrong, I just kind of adopted it as my own. I'm not an Aggie myself, so. Well, you can hold all the jokes back, but.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, well, we talked about that because my wife grew up in a tiny town named Caldwell, Texas, that if you're driving from Austin to College Station drive through it. And we were there for Thanksgiving and we stayed at we stayed in College Station. So we got a lot a lot of Aggie vibe there around Thanksgiving time.

John B. Grimes: Oh boy. There's a lot of Aggie vibe down there. Yeah. It's strong, it's strong.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It is. So for those of you who don't know me, just very briefly again, I'm Kirk Adams. I'm the immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the blind AFB, which was Helen Keller's organization. And I did get to go sit at her desk whenever I needed inspiration. When we moved to New York and worked in those offices. And prior to that, I was the president and CEO of the Lighthouse for the blind, Inc. here in Seattle, which employs many hundreds of blind and deaf blind people in businesses, including aerospace manufacturing for all the Boeing Boeing aircraft. So very interesting organization for the last three and a half years, I have been operating under Innovative Impact LLC as Managing Director. It's a consulting practice that focuses on disability inclusion, primarily in employment and helping nonprofits serving people who are blind to scale. And in advising start up companies in the disability inclusion space. So I get to do whatever I want to do, whatever I think will will be interesting and impactful and help people. And through the course of the last three and a half years, I was connected with John. He mentioned that he was thinking about writing a book. And then he told me he had begun writing the book.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And he said he's planning to launch the book. So destiny is debatable. It's the title. And John would just love to hear about your journey as a as a person person with a visual impairment. And what? What? What year? Everyone. All of our all of our pathways are different. You know, my my retina is detached. When I was five years old in kindergarten, and I became totally blind overnight. And, you know, there was no question I needed to learn Braille and learn to use a cane and type on a typewriter so I could go into public school when I was ready, which I did it and did it in fourth grade. And you know, some of us are totally blind. Some of us have different visual conditions. Some many of us have changing visual conditions. So I'd love to hear about that journey. And what led you, what inspired you to put in the time and effort to write the book? And then, of course, we'd love to hear about the book and then any thoughts you have on, on on a future state for John B Grimes. Where are you headed? So microphone is yours.

John B. Grimes: Wow. Those are all great questions. So we did. Our paths crossed several years ago. And you were on my podcast, actually, which which at the time was called Ambiguously Blind, which I thought of as you were. You were talking there because you say all of our paths are different, and sight can be so different for so many people. And that's why I call myself ambiguously blind, because it's really unclear. And just even the name is kind of confusing, which is intentional because sight can be confusing, particularly sight loss. You know, in my experience, I'm sure you well, you have more experience than I do. But in my my experience personally, I just thought, you know, if you're blind, you're Stevie Wonder. If you're not, then you get glasses. And there really wasn't anything in between. But I found myself in between. Kirk. So the my my path to sight loss was overnight as well. Basically.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

John B. Grimes: In 1998, I was a 19 year old sophomore student. I went to Texas Tech University. Actually, just a little north and west of Texas A&M. And I was, like most 19 year olds, felt like I was ten feet tall and bulletproof. You know, nothing could stop me. I was living my best life, and I felt like I was getting the flu or something. And so I took some medicine and went to bed. Eight days later, I woke up in the hospital.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh.

John B. Grimes: Blind disoriented and more than lucky to be alive. Miraculously my fraternity brother found me unconscious on the floor in my bedroom. Now, I'm definitely not the only guy that's got a story about being found unconscious by their fraternity brother during college. Right. But in my case, it was due to a nasty bout with what is known as meningococcal disease. Which is more commonly known as meningitis or bacterial meningitis. Yeah. And so it's been it's now been 28 years since. And in addition to sight loss. So I have I've lost all the sight in my right eye, so totally blind. And I have about 2300 in my left eye. Okay. Which it's not straight on. It's not, it's not a, there's not a it's not it's not stargardt's where it's out and in or in or out. Mine is again, hard to explain at all. So it's not straight on. It's not. It's hard to explain. It's not good.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I don't want to get into medical detail too much, but I, I don't know that I've talked to anyone other than yourself who has become visually impaired because of meningitis. And so it is a bacteria. So did it impact your retinas or your optic nerves or optic nerves? What was the optic nerves?

John B. Grimes: Okay, so meningitis is the inflammation. Start over so we can sure cut that part out. Meningitis is the inflammation of the meninges and the meninges the lining of the brain cavity and spinal cavity. So our our spines and brains have a lining in them. And it gets infected. And there's more than one way it can become infected. In my case, it was bacterial. And not to get too much in the weeds of medicine here either. But there's five types of bacteria that can cause it. And I got one of those five. And it's an airborne thing where anybody really, at any time could be carrying the bacteria in the back of your throat or in your nasal passage, and it just happens. You're at the right place at the right time for that, that to seep into your into the spinal cavity. And it does some pretty serious things. And so obviously, the brain is where all the control center is for your, you know, what your brain tells your body everything you need to do. And then your spine is all the wiring, essentially, for the nerves that fire the signals your brain gives your body. Right. So in addition to the sight loss. So my optic nerves were damaged and their brain cells that don't regenerate themselves. Okay. As a result of the swelling in my body, essentially, the blood flow was cut off to the optic nerves. And so apparently the right side of my brain had more swelling or than my left, I guess, is kind of the way to say it, which is why my left eye was not as impacted.

John B. Grimes: But throughout my body I have neurological dysfunction as well. Okay, so probably the. Easiest way to describe that as kind of as I said a minute ago, you're my my brain sends my body signals to do things, and my body doesn't respond to all of them because it the connection between my brain and what it's trying to do is disconnected. And so the my, my disabilities are all pretty much invisible. I don't use a cane. I don't use a guide dog. I can see just enough to be dangerous. Curt. Okay. I don't drive, right. But another example of the invisibility of my disabilities is a intermittent catheter. This is not a very fun conversation to talk to other parties, right? But the connection between my bladder and my brain is been disconnected as well. So the number 2190 is a number that I know. Because that's how many times I, I go potty at each year. Number one if you will. Because that's how many catheters I buy each year, so that's how I know that number. So things like that in my body have been disrupted. And meningitis is very fast acting. It does look like the flu quite often. So it's something that you got to be very aware of. And I had never heard of it until I woke up and they said.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So, so you you wake up 19 year old kid, college kid, fraternity brother student at Texas Tech. And so what do you do?

John B. Grimes: Boy, that's a great question. So you said, what's the book about?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

John B. Grimes: The book's pretty much about what I did. Okay. And there I mean, there's a lot of things I did, and one of the really cool things about writing the book was I was I went through a lot of those, you know, memories and things that have happened. Again, it was 28 years ago. The book does come out on February 7th, and the reason for the February 7th date is that's the date that I went to the hospital, actually. So February 7th, 1998 was the day I went to the hospital. So February 7th, 2026 will be the date that the book is released. And you know, it took me it took me a long. I'm still adapting. Just.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Sure.

John B. Grimes: Yeah, but there's a lot more adjustment.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Going on, right? The environment is always changing, so we all have to continue adapting, right?

John B. Grimes: But I one of the things I learned about myself in the writing process was just how unprepared for all of this I was.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Well. Well, why would you have been? Right.

John B. Grimes: Yeah. Right. Yeah, I was again, I was 19, I was 19, I was, you know, 19 is not the age of reason.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right.

John B. Grimes: I was invincible. And stubborn as all get out too. So you just add all that together and.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So did you. Leave school and go back. Did you just figure out a way to keep on keeping on? Love I know you said it's all in the book, but if you could give us a little taste.

John B. Grimes: Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did go back to school. So this happened in February when I went to the hospital and I left the hospital on February 28th. So I was there for 21 days. Yeah. And this was all in Lubbock, Texas, which is where Texas Tech is. And I'm from the Dallas area. I'm from Plano, Texas. And so I went back home to Plano with mom and dad, and from March through July of that year, that's when all of the super intense hard work happened for recovery. So lots of again, tons of things happened in there, which I write about. But it was the learning to walk. I mean, I didn't. Some of the other things that happened was I couldn't, I couldn't stand, I couldn't sit, I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, I couldn't swallow, I couldn't see all these neurological things that had gotten damaged from the meningitis. About 80% of them were able to come back with therapy. Okay. And that's what I did for those 5 to 6 months there. And then I did return to school in August. I was determined to go back.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Good for.

John B. Grimes: You. So I went back in August and I dipped my toes in. Of course, I as I say, I didn't have any friends that were blind. You know, the only person I knew that was blind was Stevie Wonder. Right? I mentioned him already. I didn't really know him that well, but I liked his music. Yeah I didn't have any friends that used a catheter. You know I mentioned I was in a fraternity, so these were all things that didn't really jive with my Prior lifestyle that I was in, you know? So there was just a lot of adaptation. I, I started with a couple classes. For some reason, the first class I decided to take was English literature. When I went back.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I.

John B. Grimes: I say mercifully Paradise Lost wasn't available in Braille. Or audiobooks were really not that big of a thing back in 19. They're called audiotapes back then.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Did you did you use. I think it was still called recording for the Blind and Dyslexic back then. Did you?

John B. Grimes: No, I don't know that that was available. If it was, I didn't. So I what I did, though, was I, I became acquainted with the Texas Commission for the blind.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Sure, sure.

John B. Grimes: And so that's where that's where everything started to get good. They it turns out they were they had an office right in the campus. In the library. So my counselor's name was Margaret Little. She was amazing. So I got to know Margaret really well. And so we did. I don't know about the recordings for the blind because maybe it was available, maybe it wasn't, but I didn't use it. They had stuff there locally on campus.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

John B. Grimes: And I had students like my friends or they had volunteers would do all that stuff and and put them on cassette tapes and things.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

John B. Grimes: So, yeah, I, I opened up a whole new world of things that I had no idea even existed.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And ultimately.

John B. Grimes: Finished in I was on the it turns out I was on the five year plan. Sure. Ultimately, I didn't quite make the PhD like you did, but I did get my bachelor's degree, and eventually made it out, but I, I learned a lot of things in college. You know.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I started my PhD in 2010 and finished in 2019, so.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I yeah, there was there was a little, a few, few leaving the lighthouse, going to work at AFB. Moving to New York, moving to D.C., all that happened. So I was on the nine year plan.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, don't don't feel bad about wrapping up a bachelor's degree in five. It's pretty, pretty impressive. So, you know, personally, psychologically, socially, I mean, I, you know, I became blind when I was five and things were pretty much cooking along until I became a teenager. And then you know, the normal angst of, of those years. And then I lived in little towns where when people turn 16, they all got driver's licenses and all and all got some sort of sort of job. So I didn't get either of those things. So I had a lot of isolation. I, I think that's really when the grief cycle grabbed me in those teen years. But I'm just wondering if for you, I, I didn't, didn't, wasn't offered any. Counseling or therapy. Psychological professional support. Sort that much, much later in life to deal with some things. But I mean, how how how did you feel about all this stuff?

John B. Grimes: Probably the best word to say is scared.

John B. Grimes: But you have to remember that I'm 19.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

John B. Grimes: And that's not really something I understood at the time. Nor would I have let anybody know that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Sure.

John B. Grimes: And I fooled myself into, you know, not thinking I was scared, and I threw the commission. So it's a Texas commission for the blind. It's. It's been renamed, like, a dozen times since then. So I'm not even sure what the current name for it is, but it's the same. Same group.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, but.

John B. Grimes: They did offer me some counseling, and I don't know if they required it. Maybe they did. I mean, I went, but I just I didn't want to go, so.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I was.

John B. Grimes: Just wasting everybody's time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: All right.

John B. Grimes: So I went a few times and I just wasn't ready. And I, I, you know, I swept it under the rug and I put my head down and plowed through it as best I could.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

John B. Grimes: And I don't recommend that course of action.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

John B. Grimes: I think kind of like you was later. So again, that was 1920. I did go to counseling, probably in my mid 20s, my late, probably like 27, 28, I would say probably almost ten years later.

John B. Grimes: And that helped. That helped a lot. But I wasn't ready to do it until then. Right. And one of the other themes that kind of pokes through in my book is kind of a theme of don't wait. I feel like there are things I mentioned that there are some a lot of things I wasn't ready for and prepared for. And as you said, I would. I have been, but I think if I go back and look at some things, I think I was like, I probably should have admitted that I was scared or I should have asked for some more help, or I should have made some different choices. And I don't even know if I went back and told myself at age 20 to do that. I still wouldn't listen to myself. But you know, because everybody goes through the grieving process at their own pace. It's not a linear path.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

John B. Grimes: And I just part part of what I, I hope the book does and some other writing that I'm trying to do is encourage people just in general life, don't wait for things to change the way you think they will or won't, because oftentimes it doesn't. And now, like, if you're gonna pull a pizza right out of the oven, you should wait for that to cool down.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Because.

John B. Grimes: You know, your mouth's gonna not be happy with you. So it doesn't mean just make knee jerk decisions all the time. But it does mean that there are things where many things in life where waiting doesn't help. And those are some of the lessons that I've taken out of the some of the crazy stories and things that happened with me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, let's talk.

Dr. Kirk Adams: About the title. So destiny is debatable. What are what message are you conveying or what question are you asking? What what are what are you telling us with the title?

John B. Grimes: Well, I think it's kind of up for interpretation, really. I, I think that people tend and at least my experience is that I tend to believe that there's just this inertia in life that once you start moving, you just kind of go that direction. And that would be, you know, equivalent to destiny. You're destined to do this or you're not destined to do that. And so I do think that plays out in some cases in life. And maybe for some people, nothing ever changes in their life. And that's maybe great for them. Does sound kind of boring to me.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But.

John B. Grimes: Certainly not as bumpy as somebody who changes things. So I just think, and I don't like, you know, like, you watch a football game or some sort of sports game and you get towards the end of the year. Their destiny is they control their own destiny. You know, that thing, I just, I mean, I in that regard, everybody controls their own destiny because that just means whatever choices you make is what controls your destiny. And so if the team just keeps winning, well, then of course they control their destiny because, you know. But who just keeps winning, right?

Dr. Kirk Adams: This doesn't.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Happen. Only only a couple.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, right. It's rare.

John B. Grimes: It's more rare than it is the exception rather than the rule. Right. So I just think that that's not the way it's supposed to work. And I think people get sucked into believing that this inertia, this path I'm on or whatever I'm doing is what it's going to be. And I'm here to challenge the notion that especially if it's something you don't like if you're in a job or you're in a situation where you've lost your sight or you're in a hospital bed and this just doesn't look good, then there are options, right? And I hope people understand that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: The I don't know why the term course. Course correction I'm talking.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So you've been a you're a, you're a successful, thriving person. In conversations we've had about your business career and, and acumen and, Family. Et-cetera. So after after graduating in a mere five years, Texas Tech. What what happened next for you?

John B. Grimes: I went into the family business, which is insurance from my my dad. I'm the. I have a younger brother. And when I got out of school that my dad was in the insurance and the insurance business property and casualty, which is home and auto insurance, life insurance, that kind of stuff. Yeah. And he worked on the corporate side of things. So he worked for you're in Liberty Mutual, right? You know, Liberty Mutual in your area up there.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, yeah.

John B. Grimes: So he worked for the corporate side of that thing, but we, we went into the agency world, which is your brokers, your independent agents for companies like Liberty Mutual and others. And so we did that, and we did that for my and my brother joined us when he got out of school a couple years later for about 18 years and things were going good. There were some major changes in the industry in 2018, and we had a decision whether we were going to basically whether we were going to sell or buy. And we sold.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

John B. Grimes: And since then I've, I've been working for the group that that purchased us, and my dad retired, and my brother has spun off and done something in the insurance space as well.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. So that's what I'm doing. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: How's the how's the workplace for you? How's accessibility accommodations? That operating and operating that way?

John B. Grimes: Luckily for me, it's always been pretty good. Because I've mostly been self-employed, essentially. So I can you know, call my own shots, so to speak. I don't know if I need it as well. I do, of course need lots of stuff, but I don't have to go through a HR department or, you know, don't have to advocate for myself in that regard because.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I just yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: We talk about, you know, we talk about creating a good fit between the person and the workplace. So you have the opportunity to craft your own good fit with your workplace, which is great.

John B. Grimes: It's great for me. I know it's not great for people that are not in that situation. So yeah, I certainly understand the other side of that. But I, I've, I've been very fortunate to be in that position and continue to be in that position.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

John B. Grimes: And the probably the biggest thing for me is not being somebody that that drives legally. I have to throw that in there. I, I, I did drive from the age of 16 to 19, so for almost 14 years. So I do know that. And it's nice.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

John B. Grimes: But as somebody that's not driving, probably one of the greatest things that happened to me was Covid, because since Covid, I've been working from home. I just never I never went back. So.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, it has.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It has it has normalized remote work. And that's a silver lining for people who are blind and visually impaired. Because it it doesn't seem like such a big deal now, when we prefer to work remotely and you know, whenever you do research around the biggest barriers to successful employment for people who are blind, there's always a competition for the number one reason and the number two reason. The number one reason is employer attitudes. The number two reason is transportation. So since you're working in your family business, the employer attitude, things was taken care of.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Was taken.

John B. Grimes: Care of, but I still commuted. I still had to work the work. And now again, I'm in the family business.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It was.

John B. Grimes: It was. It was easier, but still. And the whole time I was actually trying to work remote.

Dr. Kirk Adams: But I.

John B. Grimes: Just couldn't. And I had the ability to make it happen. I just in the line of business we were in, it just wasn't really possible for me to write.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It wasn't part of the norm. Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Had to be meeting people.

John B. Grimes: And until Covid happened and then it became the norm and it it I've. Yeah, luckily I've never, never moved back. So my, my transportation is like about 40ft each day.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Nice.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah too.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So and.

John B. Grimes: Maybe maybe 60 if I have too much coffee.

Dr. Kirk Adams: There you go. And then you you mentioned crazy stories in the book. So give us, give us one.

John B. Grimes: Gosh. Well, I said legally driving. So you know, I kid about that, sort of because I, I I'm not licensed to drive anymore.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

John B. Grimes: But my roommate in college had a was a big time. Or one of my roommates was a big time car guy, which was great for me because he loved to drive. You know, it's fun for me being around people that love to drive.

Dr. Kirk Adams: It's like, yeah.

John B. Grimes: That's a great match for me. So we would go anywhere and everywhere. I was like, hey, about this. He's like, let's do it. And so one day he had a I think it's called a Firehawk. It's a it's like a it was a 90s year model.

John B. Grimes: It's like a almost like a Corvette, and it was all souped up, and he had all kinds of stuff on it. And there was a old Air Force base called Reese Air Force Base out in near our college. And they had these long runways out there. Yeah. So we took the car out there and I got behind the wheel and hit it up over a hundred miles an hour in the driver's seat.

Dr. Kirk Adams: That sounds great. So when you talk, when you talk about being around people who love to drive, I'll tell you that both of my children, as soon as they turn 16, they were told, go get your driver's license. Your your mom's tired of being the only person who can drive around here. Yes. Yeah. So what's next for you? You're going to launch the book. You're going to be sharing a lot of information, inspiration, food for thought with a lot of people. So what what what did what do you envision the next year looking like after the book launch?

John B. Grimes: Well, yeah. So February 7th is the launch, and I think I've really kind of gotten into a writing groove. I've been writing this for so long, it took me a long time to actually get it done. And I've really learned a lot about writing. And in addition to just mechanics, the ability to craft the story, keep it on track, where to cut things, where to add things. And I think, I think I've developed a pretty good knack for it and realized that I, I think I have at least 1 or 2 more of these in me. Not the same type of thing. This is more of a memoir. This is a timeline, historical timeline of what happened with.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Me.

John B. Grimes: Between about 1998 and 2017. So about 20 or so years time timeline. But a lot of the lessons and things that I've learned from those, I think I've got some spin off things that I'm going to attempt to do. And I also do work. When the meningitis advocacy world we started the foundation in 2025 called shots for meningitis, okay. And it raises awareness and helps people that have survived Meningitis and their accommodations. And so over the next year, I plan to be very much more involved in writing and getting and the meningitis advocacy advocacy space. And it's certainly something that I'm very passionate about, and I can see it becoming a very bigger, very much a bigger part of my my future.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Good. Well, I'd love to have you come back in the fall after the book's been out in the world, and you've been able to sink your teeth into your next project and to think more much more seriously about your potential as an advocate. So I'd love to catch up with you then, but for now, Mr. John B Grimes, author of the forthcoming memoir Destiny, is debatable. How can people get in touch? How can people find the book? I know, I know, I get lovely emails from you. How can people be connected?

John B. Grimes: Yes. Well, probably three main areas. Destiny is debatable. Comm is the book, but there's a lot of words in there. And, you know, how do you spell all that stuff? It's almost as bad as meningitis. So John B Grimes dot com is probably the fastest way. There's links to all of those places. And I'm also pretty prolific on LinkedIn and do a lot of posting there. So LinkedIn, I'm John B Grimes there. You'll find all of my posts about the book and other things I'm writing about for https://JohnBGrimes.com.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. And for me, Kirk Adams on LinkedIn, I'm on there every day and my website is Doctor Adams Comm. So I would love to connect with anyone who's listening who would like to talk about disability Inclusion, empowerment, accessibility, employment for disabled individuals, advocacy, social justice, any of that good stuff that you can see on my LinkedIn page, please feel free to get in touch and please go to https://JohnBGrimes.com and buy this book and buy another one and share it with a friend. And until next time, thank you so much. We'll catch you later on Podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams.

Podcast Commentator: Thank you for listening to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Don't forget to subscribe, share or leave a review at https://www.DrKirkkAdams.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 Jerred Mace, Founder & CEO, OnceCourt https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-01-21-2025/

In this inspiring episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams talks with Jerred Mace of OneCourt about how haptic technology can make live sports dramatically more accessible for blind and low-vision fans. Adams shares his own "hands-on" encounters with the OneCourt device, feeling the raised layout of a basketball court and the vibrations of a synced, fast-moving play, and later experiencing baseball through touch by sensing pitch location, ball flight, and baserunners in real time alongside the radio broadcast.

Jerred traces OneCourt's origin to his University of Washington days, inspired by a video of a blind fan following a soccer match through touch and shaped by his personal experience growing up in a family where disability was "the norm." He describes early prototyping, building a multidisciplinary team, and the company's momentum jump after receiving a Microsoft AI for Accessibility grant in June 2023. The conversation also looks ahead: OneCourt is expanding team and league partnerships while designing a direct-to-consumer version, built to be more affordable and paired with sport "packages" like a streaming model, and invites listeners to join the newsletter and waitlist via OneCourt's website (onecourt dot io).

TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor 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, Doctor Kirk Adams.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington, which is sunny Seattle this afternoon. And I have a guest with me today who is also from the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Jerred Mace, one of the principals of the fabulous company. OneCourt and say. Say hey, Jerred.

Jerred Mace: Hey, everybody. Super excited to be here.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. So I would like to to give a little bit of my history with one court. I first encountered one court over on the Microsoft Redmond campus in the reactor building at a gathering called Seattle Disability Connect. And there are about 120, 140 people there interested in disability inclusion, assistive technology accessibility. And there were a couple of startups demonstrating their products. And Jerred was there with the one court team, and I had no idea what it was. And I put my hands on a flat surface, probably about the size of an iPad with kind of a rubbery surface. And I was exploring it. And on it were the was the raised outlines of a basketball court, and I was born when my parents were in college at Western Washington University, and my dad was a basketball player there. He held the the single game rebound record for many years at 29. And he became a high school basketball coach. And I spent many, many hours in the gym and went to many hundreds of high school basketball games. And as I got older and went to work and had some disposable income, I always had a season ticket package to see the Seattle SuperSonics. So I've spent a lot of time around basketball, so I was pretty excited to see the outlines of a basketball court through my hands.

Dr. Kirk Adams: My palms flat. And then what happened was there was a play synchronized with a radio broadcast. Kevin Durant of the Phoenix Suns getting a rebound, the ball moving down the court rapidly side to side passing and Kevin Durant scoring, and I could feel that happening with vibrations under my hands. So I was very excited and have kept in touch with with Jerred as one court has progressed in the spring of 2024, I went out to the University of Washington, home of the Huskies, and sat with one court and team and some other blind people from the community and put my hands on the one court tablet again. And this time it was a baseball diamond, and there was a grid of small squares in a rectangle shape and that line of the baseball diamond and turned the radio on. It was the Seattle Mariners against the Tampa Rays playing in Tampa. And when the first pitch was thrown, I could feel where the pitch entered the strike zone. It was low and away. I could tell that. And the next one was high. And inside I can tell that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then the ball was struck and I could follow the path of the ball out into the outfield where it was caught. And then later on, when there are runners on base, there was vibrating indicators at the base to show me where the base runners were. So I didn't have to memorize that and keep that in my mind like I usually did when I listen to a game. So I'm a big fan, big fan of one caught and privileged to be involved with the company. And pleased to have Jerred here today and just would really love Jerred to hear the origin story. How how did you get started? You're you're you're young folks strong affiliation with the University of Washington. Making the world of sports more accessible for us who are blind and low vision. And like I said, like I like I said before we started recording, I'd love to hear where you've been, where you are now, where you're planning to go. What's working well, for you any challenges you you may be having and how can people get involved? And I'll I'll I'll hand you the talking stick, and I'll reserve the right as the host to pop in with a question now and then.

Jerred Mace: Yes. Please do. Well, thank you, Doctor Kirk, for that introduction to our work and of course, your close relationship with us. It's pretty special to see, man, how long you've been involved and how much has happened since then. So yeah, thank you for for going through that. I was I was amazed to hear you remembered some of those those match ups in particular. So that's awesome. I also didn't know that story about your dad. That's very cool. At Western. So you're happy to give a little bit of a background on one court and who I am and what our company is set out to do. Basically it was 2021 when we got started. And of course, that was, you know, well into the Covid years. And I was a junior at the University of Washington. So I was studying industrial design there. And I came across this video of a blind person at a soccer match, and they were sitting in the stands with a woman who was watching the game, and at the same time moving his hands across a game board to represent the action. And that really stood out to me, you know, as a designer who was interested in user experience and fan experience, but also as someone who grew up in a household where disability was very much the norm, you know? So both of my parents have disabilities, and my vision experience has changed quite a bit over time. You know, when I was a kid, for example, with surgeries and other things, like I had to find a way to adapt to sports and of course everything else is, as I think many listeners will appreciate, like adaptation is kind of the name of the game and you know, that translated to the world of sports for me.

Jerred Mace: So it was gravitating towards sports like wrestling where touch was primary or, you know, sitting really close to the TV to kind of pick out player positions and details like that. So I think I've always had an understanding of of what it meant to experience the world a little bit differently than some of my peers. And I think this light bulb moment of, wow, here is someone truly experiencing and accessing the game in a new way that that I had not thought about. And I just started considering, like, how can we bring that experience to everybody? You know, because it's one thing to rely on a friend or family member to describe the game or to, in this case, manually, you know, move their hands across a board. It's another to experience the game independently and to form your own Own interpretations. And, and I think there's a lot of power that comes with that and a lot of joy as well. So it's been an amazing journey so far. But but our original hypothesis was simply, how can we create sports that are accessible through touch? And it's where we got started. So yeah. Any anything come to mind off of that?

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, yeah. So you had the concept of making sports more accessible through through touch. But then what what happens. Do you design a prototype? Do you make it a school project? How does it go from a thought to a thing?

Jerred Mace: Yeah, it's a great question. We started, I should say I started I worked for about six months by myself, and that was kind of a mistake. But I was researching. I was learning about this looking at other work that had been done. There were some, like, really interesting off hand projects and also work that was similarly situated that I thought could inform this concept. But I it was about six months into it that I presented it publicly at school for the first time. It was at the UW Science and Technology Showcase. And I remember going into that event, it was it was kind of a research poster style event where, you know, you you put together a poster and present it to a group and different people, you know, ask you questions and whatnot. And I didn't expect much of it, but I was really excited to be there and just kind of share this with the world. And to my surprise, it went really well. People were really excited.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And so this was a concept. You hadn't built anything?

Jerred Mace: Yeah. No, I had done some like basically rough sort of behind the curtain prototyping of, you know, taking existing vibration motors, for example, and just trying to understand, like vibration a little bit more deeply than I had at that time. So they're very minor exploration.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And do you use the term haptics?

Jerred Mace: Yeah we do.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Jerred Mace: Yeah. Haptics is probably the main term we use. But you know, vibration can sometimes get across more easily. But we definitely mix it up. But it was at that, it was at that event that I, I sort of recognized that this concept was likely to have value outside of just my brain. And it was amazing to see my peers and my mentors kind of come around it. And we I actually ended up we got a grand prize at that event, which was unbelievable. So that not only gave me the encouragement and the confidence to pursue it, but also a little bit of funding, right, to to go out and start prototyping and things like that. But the I remember I mean, the immediate afterthought after that, I closed that event was, okay, it's time to form a team because I think six months in, I had just hit a wall and realized my limitations as a designer, right? Like, I'm I'm not going to do everything that's required to accomplish this mission. And that's a good thing, right? Like, you don't want you're too slow otherwise, right. So you need a team of people who bring our diverse perspectives and, and technical experiences to, to really solve a big problem like this. So that's what we did. We we found a team at UW, mostly students in and around the entrepreneurship program, but really across the university. So and that team is still together today. You know, we've got we're a team of nine now, but, gosh, what is it? It's it's six. Six of that nine have been there really from the beginning. And we've got such a strong team of, of co-founders as well. So Yeah. Brought on another through Nick Durand and Andrew Buckingham, all of which represent different areas of our business. So, you know, hardware, software, business development, really foundational areas. So that's where we really got cooking.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And then you have the team together. You're still all in school.

Jerred Mace: Yeah. This was so this would be 2022 by that point. And we were in the beginning. It was kind of large round table meetings. You know we'd we all had outside obligations. But we were interested in this and we'd meet every week to discuss it. And we were planning, you know, some of our initial goals were just to like, let's explore this, let's participate in some of those student competitions. So we did a lot of those early on. And yeah, let's explore the concept further and and see if there really is anything there. And on on the product side, what that looked like was exploring the idea of vibration as a means to communicate motion because, you know, it's it's kind of an abstract idea. And we didn't know if vibration or haptics was going to be that the solution that we we needed. We just knew it was one potential avenue, and we had identified maybe two. There were two major approaches, but haptics was kind of the leading hypothesis. And the initial testing was really, can we, can we animate this in a way that's intuitive and, you know, really that's it.

Jerred Mace: Can you can you understand what it means for a vibration to move and how do you actually execute that? So yeah, our earliest prototype was it was sort of a tennis concept of experiencing motion back and forth. And it wasn't two dimensional at all. It was very basic. I mean, it was built over a weekend and mounted to a piece of plywood. Okay. So it was like it was a very, very rough proof of concept, but I think each prototype along the way we just answered or asked another question. And I think we pretty quickly realized, okay, we're on to something here. You know, haptics can be used to experience sports through touch, and I think that gave us a lot of confidence in the technical approach. And of course, working closely with users in our community getting out there, doing customer discovery with sports teams and broadcasters and just understanding sports as a landscape to was was a big initial hurdle. And we can definitely dive more into, you know, the data and understanding how that came into the fold because it's a it's a big part of what we do.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So I guess my next question is at what point did it go from a, a roundtable discussion and the simple tactile pong game on a piece of plywood to a company.

Jerred Mace: Yeah. I think, you know, that transition happened pretty closely timed with our transition out of university. Okay. I think, you know, there was a lot of anxiety, I think personally and across the team of like, okay, what's next? You know, like are we there's clearly something here. You know, we had had some competition wins under our belt. We we participated and won an award at the Dempsey Startup Competition and the Holloman Health Challenge and the the Social Venture competition. So we had some some funding, a little bit of funding at this point, but.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, some social proofing.

Jerred Mace: Yeah, exactly. And the product was getting there as a proof of concept, but it was really as we were graduating, there was definitely a moment of like, is this a viable next step for our early careers? And I think those those doubts were squashed really quickly and perfectly timed. In June of 2023. So as we were graduating in that month, it was the same month that we were awarded a grant from Microsoft. So we participated in the AI for accessibility grant program.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh yeah.

Jerred Mace: Yeah. And that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Thank you Microsoft.

Jerred Mace: Yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Funded some really great projects. I know of a couple.

Jerred Mace: Yeah. They're incredible. The team over there. Jenny you wanna I mean, they're an amazing group of people that have really, you know, uplifted our work. And I mean, without that grant, I would I do question, like, would one corp be in the same position, like it would have been a much different road, I think, if we hadn't had that support early on. So that enabled us to transition to full time. So we took it on right after graduating. And that's really, you know, we started to obviously accelerate our progress from there. Given that that was what we were focused on just about every single day.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And that's probably I guess that's probably about the time I encountered you over at the Microsoft campus or some some somewhere in that time frame, fairly fairly new in your journey as a company. And then really interested in the input. You mentioned getting input from sports franchises and sportscasters and you know, I know as I've subscribed to your newsletters, you certainly have involved the blind and visually impaired people in the journey. So would would love to hear about how you engage the various stakeholder groups.

Jerred Mace: Yeah. I mean, let's talk about the data first. I mentioned that earlier, like one of the really big bets that we took as a company early on. And full credit to my co-founder, COO Bellini, he made this, he made he had this insight. And really it was a question of how are how are we going to power this experience. You know, like you could imagine someone drawing on an iPad and having that be the input. But or and we also imagined, well, we could build data infrastructure ourselves, right. We could try to set up cameras and try to pull out the, the ball location of the player location from that computer vision. But I think we realized pretty quickly that, wow, the the teams and leagues are already investing in data infrastructure. And maybe we can divert a technical risk into a business opportunity. So it was more so about working and partnering with the leagues to access their data, which by no means was easy to do, but it has proven that that was the definitely the right decision one, because of course they're the rights holder. So they actually have the right to they own it. They distribute it. But also because those relationships have.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So how do you go about that? I know for instance, I know saw a wonderful write up of blind individuals enjoying a Portland Trailblazers game with one court. So how do you go about that ring? Ring? Portland trailblazers, it's Jerred. I've got this idea to. Yeah, to make your games accessible for blind people. And you know, how how do you approach that?

Jerred Mace: Yeah, I know our sales team led by enthused like they they did a lot of cold outreach, you know, LinkedIn and and going to events. And I think just building a presence and meeting people and you know really just basic customer discovery and building relationships. And I think we we in the beginning, we tried to make it as easy as possible for a team to give us a chance, you know, like you know, so we were pursuing a pilot, right? In which case.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Jerred Mace: If it's unsuccessful, we never have to talk about it again. You know, put this in the in the history books and you never have to look at it and you never have to announce it, etc.. So I think by, by de-risking that it gave the teams because of course sports properties are risk averse as any business should be. Right. Like you, when you have a strong reputation, you don't want to put that on the line by working with some. Yeah. Unproven technologies and startup. So I think that was certainly an understandable position. And I think we were able to get ourselves in the room and prove that, yeah, this was a little bit more than just a hypothesis. Like there was something here. And we demonstrated that value in a pilot and converted that into, you know, full season deals. And that's where we're kind of getting today on the B2B side has been tremendous growth and adoption and seeing sports teams across different leagues. So we've had, you know, interest from many, many different leagues, but were presently supporting four different sports football, basketball, baseball, soccer across different leagues. So most present within the NBA we've got ten teams this year okay. So that's up from.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So so so rattle them off. So I know the trailblazers and and Major League Baseball the Diamondbacks. So who are who are the franchises.

Jerred Mace: Yeah I'll do my best. Yeah okay.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So if you miss any we'll forgive you. It's probably on the website.

Jerred Mace: Please forgive me. So okay Portland Trail Blazers Sacramento Kings, LA Clippers, Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets, Atlanta Hawks, Orlando Magic Brooklyn Nets Oh boy. Let's see Milwaukee Bucks and then the last one I actually cannot announce yet okay. But that one's.

Dr. Kirk Adams: We'll have you we'll have you back.

Jerred Mace: Yes. So that one.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So so if anyone if anyone's blind and visually impaired listening. And you live in those cities. You can go and enjoy one court.

Jerred Mace: Yeah. And it's free for fans that are attending. So you've got a ticket to the game. You simply go to guest services and ask, hey, I want to check out a one court device. You can use it for the duration of the game. I think it's a fantastic opportunity to try the technology and and also, you know, spend some time in with friends and family at a really fun event like nothing better than that.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So and and in addition to I mentioned the Diamondbacks, do you have other Major League Baseball franchises at this point?

Jerred Mace: So the Diamondbacks were the they were the first and only last season. So working on for next season. And then we we did some work for the Club World Cup. That was more of a pilot. And then we we did for NFL pilots this year. Okay. So there's yeah, there's definitely more to come in each of those leagues.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So I mentioned before we started recording, I just got off the phone with Anthony Ferraro, who I had not met before and I read about him in your one court newsletter, reached out to him on LinkedIn. He is a a a younger blind man, fairly new father, lives in new Jersey. He was a high school blind wrestler, as was I. He will be a Paralympic team judo team member in 2028. He's a musician, a motivational speaker, a multi, multi passionate person. It was great meeting him and I met him because of the one court newsletter, but he mentioned that he'd been in Seattle recently to do some work around FIFA, so I. You started out the concept started out because you saw a video of a deaf blind person enjoying soccer. And here in Seattle, for those who don't live in the area, soccer is pretty big here, the Seattle Sounders, it's quite an experience to go to Sounders game. And so I think there's probably a lot of excitement around the World Cup. And just wondering what your thoughts are around one court in the World Cup?

Jerred Mace: Yeah, it's a big question and we unfortunately don't have any news yet. We're still working on things. Yeah. But I, I was very encouraged by the pilot that we did with with in Seattle and we did two we did in Seattle and Atlanta. And Anthony was able to join us for that. He joined us in Seattle. So I'm really glad you connected him and honestly honored that you found him through us. He's a he's an incredible guy and we have so much respect and love for him, not only as a company, but just personally too. Like he's a he's a really great person. So definitely check out his Instagram ASF vision. Yeah. Or on TikTok. But I follow him on Instagram. But yeah, incredible guy. And he was he joined he's joined us for a few events actually. And Yeah, big, big friend of the company.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So then you You have the one quart devices available? More than a dozen sports franchises, it sounds like. And you're looking to add more and more. And then I know one of our recent conversations, you're thinking about making the technology available to individuals. So we'd love to hear kind of what what future plans are. What's next for one quart?

Jerred Mace: Yeah, you're exactly right. We are excited to be launching a direct to consumer product, and it's really been driven by the community. You know, since the beginning, fans have been asking, when can I use this at home? And I think that's a natural. Of course, like that makes sense because most sports are watched at home. So we're really excited about that opportunity and basically what it looks like for our team is a new design challenge, and it's one that we're in the middle of right now. Because, you know, when we look at there's different needs and priorities between our B2B business and this direct to consumer opportunity. One of the big ones is cost, right? Like as you look at you know, like sports teams and like an early technology, I think those customers have the ability to invest in larger scale technologies. Technologies that are more expensive. And that's just not possible at the consumer level. Right? So what we're looking at is flipping those development priorities and optimizing for cost while maintaining course quality and versatility. The kind of the other main objectives and it's yeah, we're like I said, we're in the middle of that design process right now. So we've.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay.

Jerred Mace: We have some awesome prototypes that are demonstrating the value of this. We know we're on the right track, and there's really a handful of remaining challenges to to solve. But yeah, we're expecting to launch a pre-order very soon. I don't have a launch date yet, but people should join our newsletter because that's or even better, our waitlist. If you want to be one of the first to have a device at home that's where you'll learn about it. So we're getting ready to launch it. It's kind of like the business model is kind of like buying a TV and a streaming service. Okay, of course you're, you know, you're buying a piece of hardware as you described it. It's kind of like an iPad. You, you know, it's very versatile in that way. And you can watch any sport you want. We're likely going to have three sports to begin with, the big three here in the US. So football, basketball and baseball, although nothing is, as I said, confirmed yet. Right, right. Yeah. And then there will also be the streaming. So you know, whichever sport package you are interested in, they can simply stream that through the device and it's not.

Dr. Kirk Adams: I spend a lot of time on my couch, I'll admit it. Listening to sports on television. Yeah. And imagining what's going on. And listening to. I love to sit on my front porch. We can see Lumen Field where the Seahawks play from our front porch.

Jerred Mace: Oh, no kidding.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Love to sit there and listen to Mariners games on the radio. Yeah, love, love to have a one caught in my lap.

Jerred Mace: It's a great point. You know you mentioned audio. It's you know sometimes fans ask us like are you guys replacing audio. And that's definitely not the case. You know we view one cord and audio is like perfect pairs. You know in the same way that sighted fans are both watching and listening to the game. We want to be feeling and listening to the game and it just adds a whole nother layer. So it also what we've seen is that it reduces learning curve quite a bit. Right. Like.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah. So I can imagine trying to a fully blind person who's never seen a game trying to, trying to explain it. Yeah. Being a challenge.

Jerred Mace: Yeah. So it's, it's beautiful because you're listening. You know, you might be hearing the announcer say, oh, and there's a fumble by number 27 in the backfield. And you're also feeling that at the same time.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah.

Jerred Mace: Your brain is able to just very quickly understand and interpret what's happening. And I think that's a really powerful experience. So we are working on like audio integrations.

Dr. Kirk Adams: And I mean it was a it was a visceral experience for me. Listening to the Mariners on the radio, which I've done probably thousands of times, and to have the experience of, you know, feeling where the ball crossed the plate at the same time it was actually happening and at the same time. You know, the radio announcer was saying, you know, ball one. And I could tell, like I said, it was low in away.

Jerred Mace: Yeah, it gives you it's kind of that interpretive lens, right? Like, you're able to understand what's happening as it's happening and not waiting for someone to have to say anything oftentimes. Right.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Right.

Jerred Mace: So I do I totally resonate with that point.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, I applaud you for what you're doing. You are enhancing lives and experience and bringing joy and the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat to people's hands, which is awesome. And how can people connect? You mentioned the newsletter. You mentioned a wait list. How to how to people subscribe to the newsletter. How do people get on the wait list?

Jerred Mace: Yeah. So if anyone wants to get in touch, please go to our website. It's one quarter dot I o. That's o n e c o u r I o. And on that home page you can sign up for the newsletter. You can sign up for the wait list. You can sign up for both. I definitely recommend both, especially if you're interested in either buying the product for yourself or gifting it to someone else.

Dr. Kirk Adams: So nice. Now that would be a heck of a gift. If you have a blind sports fan in your life for sure. That that'd be a nice gift to open.

Jerred Mace: I think so, yeah.

Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. For me you can find me on LinkedIn. Kirk Adams, PhD. I do have a website as well, and I have a newsletter you can subscribe to. It's Doctor Kirk Adams. Com doctor Kirk Adams comm. And been a pleasure. Jerred. The time flew by. Looking forward to the next step in the one quart journey to success. And we'll have you back when the, the B2C program is up and running and check in on how that's going. And you and you and team continue to push forward. Really appreciate you having here today.

Jerred Mace: Hey, thank you, Doctor Kirk. Likewise. Can't thank you enough for all your support. And. Yeah, thanks so much.

Dr. Kirk Adams: You bet. We'll see you all next time on podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams.

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