John Fahlstrom spent more than two years listening to excuses. He’d walk into an office where he wanted to work and hear about how the job he was after had been eliminated, or how the company wasn’t hiring until it evaluated its computer equipment.
What he didn’t hear, but what he knew was lurking behind those explanations, was the real reason why nobody would hire this college graduate: You scare us, John. You’re blind.
“Nothing else factored in once they saw that,” said Fahlstrom, 29.
Today, though, Fahlstrom has a job. He is among the 70 people who have found work through REACH, a program of Alternative Resources Corp. (ARC) that provides technical training and a place to work for people with disabilities.
A provider of technical consultants to companies in the United States and Canada, ARC launched REACH in a handful of its 54 offices a year ago. Now the Lincolnshire-based company is expanding REACH all over — including Chicago.
Fahlstrom was hired by ARC and sent to IBM’s office in Boulder, Colo., to work as a technical support customer service representative, assisting callers having problems with computers, telephones and fax machines.
With REACH, ARC hopes to meet the growing need for technical workers. One way REACH does that is by educating employers about equipment, like the speech synthesizer Fahlstrom uses, that enables workers to do technical jobs. The synthesizer reads written language on a computer screen and vocalizes it for blind users.
“The biggest thing is breaking down the poor perception, the myths about disabilities that have been portrayed,” said Sheridan Walker, REACH’s program manager. “There is a misperception that you’re getting a lower quality person when you hire someone with a disability.”
By hiring the employees itself, ARC pushes them through doors that might otherwise be closed to them. “Companies don’t have excuses not to hire them,” said Deborah Harvey, of Colorado’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, which has worked with ARC. “ARC takes all the risk.”
The result, said Walker, is that when companies see how the workers succeed, “They are no longer afraid to pursue more people with these disabilities.”
For her part, Beverley Barra, the manager of technical services at PPOM, a health-care organization in Southfield, Mich., admitted being concerned when ARC proposed filling a night computer operator position with Paul Black, who is deaf. “I had never had to communicate with somebody with hearing disabilities before,” she said. “ARC told me immediately that communication over the phone is not a problem.”
It wasn’t. Nor did it cost the company anything. The technology was already in place. It typically costs less than $500 to accommodate an employee with a disability, said Audrey McCrimon, chief of compliance and development for the Illinois Department of Human Services. ARC said those costs are closer to $50. Whatever the cost, companies don’t necessarily have to pay.
The equipment Fahlstrom needed cost $2,000, but the state of Colorado paid for it. In Illinois, “I have tax credits available to me for supporting whatever changes I need to make,” said McCrimon. Services such as sign language classes are offered on-site at no cost to companies, she said.
McCrimon said that while she has yet to work with ARC, “The premise of work experience and work exposure is a proven method for acclimating companies and the person with a disability to the work environment.” The success of such a program will be determined by how many people keep their jobs, she said.
So far, fewer than 10 of the REACH workers have left ARC. Some of those, though, left in order to take positions at the obviously impressed companies where they were assigned.
As for Fahlstrom, Eileen Foley, his supervisor at IBM, said the company had a number of concerns when he began working there last May. The first was just how much accommodating Fahlstrom would require, both in terms of staff time and equipment. “They had all the tools available for him,” she said. “They even had a coach that came out with him.” His training period took about as long as other employees, she said.
The second concern was whether he could not only do the job, but do it as proficiently as a sighted person. “He has excelled over employees that have full sight and full capabilities,” she said. He has done so well, she said, that IBM added the training of new employees to his duties.
He is doing so well, she said, “As of two days ago he works for IBM, not REACH.”
