Every morning, after Julie Wilkinson arrives at her Loop office at American National Bank, she logs onto her computer, reads her mail and starts fielding the dozens of calls she gets all day, using her computer constantly. She writes reports and attends meetings, frequently taking copious notes.
It all sounds routine for an up-and-coming 30-year-old computer analyst, except for one thing: Julie Wilkinson is blind.
”It`s important that employers realize the possibilities, that people with disabilities can fit in and do a good job,” Wilkinson says.
”We`re very happy to have her,” adds Ron Majka, American National`s vice president for human resources.
But without her specially adapted computer system, she acknowledges,
”I`d be out to lunch. For me, this technology is the key to having a job.”
Her computer has a Braille display and allows her to give it voice commands. She can scan her mail into the system, print out documents in Braille and even take notes on a portable Braille unit that she can later program into her computer.
The key to making this technology work for Julie Wilkinson and thousands like her is tall, soft-spoken Bill Salyers, director of computer assistive technologies services for the National Easter Seal Society, headquartered in Chicago. Salyers, who holds a doctorate in education, and his small staff help disabled Americans across the country get back into the work force by figuring out how they can adapt computer systems for their specific needs.
”One of the key barriers to work is access to appropriate technology,”
he explains. ”If you tell me the thing you can`t do, we`ll try to help you
(do it.)”
He has been at this the last three years, and in the last year he has advised almost 2,000 people. And now, thanks to the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, to go into effect this summer, the phone is ringing more than ever. Each day, Salyers fields at least 30 calls from individuals, employers, insurance companies, state rehabilitation agencies, school districts, all with the same goal: to get someone with a disability back to a more productive life.
The new law, the first major federal civil rights legislation in 26 years, prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities who are otherwise qualified for employment.
Potentially, that could be a huge labor pool. The Easter Seal Society says there are more than 13 million working-age people with disabilities. In 1990, more than 8 million of them were not working, costing taxpayers billions a year in welfare.
”Altogether there are 43 million Americans with disabilities,” says Salyers. ”And that includes the most underemployed sector of the entire population. They want to work. They just can`t get access.”
In fact, according to one national Louis Harris poll, more than 80 percent of disabled Americans polled who are underemployed or unemployed would rather be working. And another recent Harris poll suggested that the vast majority of Americans think we ought to spend the money it will take to get these disabled Americans into the mainstream and back to work.
Quietly, with no fanfare, Salyers is accomplishing just that, enabling many to have much fuller and happier lives. He`s rigged up one system for a Wisconsin judge who has a neurological disorder and no longer can write much. He`s done another for an accountant in Colorado who can only move an eyebrow. A blind minister in Georgia now is able to manage his family`s investment portfolio by using a voice-activated system. And Herb Hoffman, a meteorologist with the U.S. Weather Service here who has severe cerebral palsy, operates his with his toe. ”It`s great for me,” he says.
Salyers also works with families trying to help their children. The assistive technology is invaluable in helping children with disabilities to maximize their potential, especially now that many are being placed in regular classrooms. He`s also helped students to go on to college, designing one system, for example, for a Purdue University student who had severely injured his spinal chord.
”A lot of people call and say they`ve been calling all over the country, and we`re the first ones who know what they`re talking about,” says Salyers. Mike Marbkis, 39, a senior systems staffer for Allstate Insurance, looks like he is going places at Allstate, taking on ever more complex projects, talking about becoming a manager. He also happens to be a quadriplegic who has no use of his hands or legs since a car accident in 1974.
He used to work at home. With a system Salyers and his team rigged up-which Allstate paid for-Marbkis can work at his office. Thanks to a voice-activated system that allows him to answer his phone by giving the computer a voice command, he can do all he needs to do-from answering his mail (a secretary scans it into his computer every day) to working on team projects, earning more than $45,000 annually.
”I can do anything anyone can do on a computer,” says Marbkis, who is well respected by his colleagues and bosses at Allstate. ”This equipment enables me to be here on a daily basis as a full-fledged team member.”
”People are open to helping Mike with the things he can`t do,” said his boss, Karen Chamberlain. ”He does a real good job.”
She added that she never has worked with anyone who has a disability before.
”I`m amazed at what he can do because of this system,” she said.
In some cases, Salyers says, employers pay for at least part of the systems, which can range from a few thousand dollars to more than $25,000. In other instances, the costs are shared by government rehabilitation agencies, insurance companies, even school districts.
But if a person with a disability has no resources, Salyers and his staff can offer, through a federal grant, a loan set at 1 percent above the prime rate ”so they can get the equipment now and don`t have to wait until they have the money,” he explains.
They also are able to sell them IBM systems at a 40 percent discount. But Salyers and colleague Charles Singer stress that they are not ”product driven,” that they suggest the best system to meet the individual`s needs.
Sheri Johnsen, who lives in Woodstock, couldn`t be happier with her system. She just got hers recently, and suddenly her future appears full of potential again.
”I`m tired of doing nothing,” says Johnson, a quadriplegic who now is back in college. ”It feels real good to think of working again.”
For more information, contact Bill Salyers at the National Easter Seal Society, 70 E. Lake St., Chicago, IL 60601-5907, 312-726-6200
