Welcome, Jeff. Your website (www.hireds.com) is a great resource that serves a variety of audiences.  Please tell me about your organization and how it got started.

Quite simply, I was diagnosed with a disability and I went to my boss of a Fortune 500 company – told him I needed a couple of weeks to figure out how to handle my diabetes – and the next thing you know, my promotion was given to someone else.  We realized, in hearing from a few people, that we needed to create a company that helped companies understand the world of men and women with disabilities.  Our job is to find talent amongst the veterans of the disability community, and that’s what we do and we do it quite well.

The term “disabilities” is a broad.  For those who may not be familiar with it, how inclusive is the term?

It is extremely inclusive term and we work with lots of people -- even those that might not have a disability, but are affected by disability.  For example, if you are a parent with a child that has a profound disability, you might need support finding employment.  Likewise, if you are a person coming back from the war, you might need help finding a job -- even if you don’t have an apparent disability. Regardless, we want to help.  We understand that finding a job is a job in itself.  We help a lot of people. We also work with corporations to find talent among people with disabilities.  

As we go from company to company, we see many employees that have a disability or have a child with a disability.  Either way, the ADA says that you are protected if you are a person assumed to have a disability, or associated with a person with a disability.  So, if you are a parent and your child is diagnosed with a disability, you are automatically grandfathered under the ADA -- you’re protected! 

We know there are many parents out there that have issues at home with their children and so we work with employees to make sure that they know what resources are out there that are available to them.

A growing number of baby boomer generation are now faced with parents who need care.  Would an individual who has a parent who needs extensive care qualify for assistance under this broad definition of disability?

Well, they would not be considered a person with a disability; but let me say this about us getting older, sooner or later we’re going to become people with disabilities (whether we have disabilities directly or loved ones with disabilities).  So, we are going to have to deal with this reality in our workplace.  Whenever you are deal with a parent with a disability – whether it be Alzheimer’s or some other disability – it puts a lot of pressure on a person and it becomes a mental health issue.  I just did a press conference regarding “presentee-ism” where an employee sits there and looks out the window all day because they don’t know what to do tomorrow.  These issues are performance issues in the work place.  They cost the workplace billions of dollars each year and that’s where we work with corporations to help solve those problems.

No, not really.  When you are a multi-national corporation with tens of thousands of employees, obviously it’s going to affect you, more than less; but even companies with 15 employees have to address disability issues because everybody has home-life issues.  We are there for the small employer, mid-sized or large-sized employer.

Earlier you had mentioned men and women coming back from military service.  Can you talk about the services you provide them?

One of our first clients to come to us early on had his face blown off in Iraq.   The only job he could get - as a very skilled individual - was painting stripes on stairs in a staircase, which is not a family-sustaining career.  He went on to be trained as a buyer-safety officer, and then went to work for a federal office building in Washington, DC.  He now has a great career and is able to afford his mortgage and his bills and can give his family the life that he promised them.  When our service men and women come back, they deserve opportunity.  That is what we are here to do: work with corporations to recruit service personnel with disabilities and to help service men and women transfer their skills from the military to civilian life.

Absolutely, and we would find you the best person available for the job.  We provide great support for employers around the country.  At the end of the day, the employer makes the decision as to who gets hired; but we are hoping that many more people will support a person’s right to work despite disability. 

We don’t discuss the issue of disability, we discuss the issue of ability. We look at the job description and recruit candidates based on the skills that are necessary.  If there is a deaf candidate or a blind candidate or a wheelchair user - we look at the job description to make sure that with an accessible, or an accommodation device, they can do the job.  We’re not looking to eliminate anybody. We are looking to open the doors much wider.

How is the government promoting opportunities for people with disability?

I was hoping you would ask that question!  The last eight years have been terrible.  The former Administration did not include - across the board - individuals with disabilities.  The Obama Administration is doing everything within its power to eliminate the wrongs of the past.  Government agencies now have a mandate to increase their hiring percentages -- to make sure that people with disabilities, and veterans, are employed in much greater numbers. So, thank you President Obama.

Well, the trickle-down theory truly applies.  The Federal government is reaching the states across the country to make sure agencies increase their disability hiring.  What really matters is what the Department of Labor and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) are saying to their federal contractors – small, medium and large.  The feds want to see how the community is affected by their employment, and they want to see how they are reaching groups of people that they reach out to.  I have to say, I have never seen it working so well.  Companies are truly starting to get it.  Diversity to us means everybody.  We're no longer excluding certain groups because we don’t understand them.  We are hoping that the “d” in diversity now stands for disability.

Are the efforts also extending to businesses that are owned by people with disabilities?

Well, you know my concern over the last couple of years is there has never been a minority set-aside category for disabled-owned businesses.  They have to fit into a category of economically disadvantaged.  I have never seen a business owner able to start a business broke.

I’ve seen government contracts that stipulate utilization of veteran-owned businesses, including veterans with disability.

Yes, and that’s a veteran’s status.  Clearly on the disabled note, there was no check-off box for disabled-owned businesses – until now.  The United States Business Leadership Network, made up of over 350 companies across the country, has started a minority certification program for disabled-owned businesses.  I have the pleasure of saying that we are one of the first nine in the United States to receive a certification as a disabled-owned business, as I am a disabled individual.

Are you monitoring how well corporations are doing in terms of engaging and employing people with disabilities?

We do.  We just received a call yesterday from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and they are hoping that companies will turn to us to resolve past ills and to make sure they are successful in their future efforts to include people with disabilities.  We track lawsuits and we track OFCCP cases.  We want to make sure that people are doing the right thing.  The bottom line is that this isn’t a black issue or white issue or a disability issue; this is, as we all know, a green issue.  When you add up all the mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and friends and neighbors of people with disabilities, this issue affects over 150 million people.  So, if they don’t want to buy toothpaste from Company A, they can buy it from Company B, and that will put a hurting on Company A.   So, we are talking about the economics of inclusion - we all know what it means.

It would be interesting to have a ranking for companies based on their support of people with disabilities, and to share that information with the public.

Well, as we discussed briefly, Hire Disability Solutions is going to be coming out, in March 2011, with its Top 25 Corporations for Disabilities and Employment and it’s not going to just look at the organizations that hired cashiers or service workers cleaning rooms in hotels.  We are also looking at the professional level.  We are looking at promotions, advancements in the workplace, accommodations.  There will be 25 different categories that will have to be surveyed to make sure those companies fit into the Top 25.

Other organizations have lists, but as with everything else, it’s about money and how much advertising an organization does with another.  This one can’t be bought.  We are sending out those surveys over the next few months to corporations and we are going to have serious analysis of their positioning in terms of inclusion of people with disabilities.  The ranking will be a true ranking.  They won’t be able to buy into that ranking.

Given the standards that you are setting, we will be very interested in talking with you further once that study comes out. Before we go, is there anything else we ought to know about your company or employing people with disabilities?

Well, I think what is important is that everyone understands that people with disabilities comprise the only minority group that everyone has the opportunity to join.  Just stop and think about the possibility of becoming a person with a disability and what would happen if you no longer had employment or a job.  When you go to a party, the very first thing person asks is, What do you do for a living?  We don’t want to say, Nothing!  I sit home all day and watch television.  Or, I get $632 a month in social security.  Those are not the answers people want to hear and you will be shunned with those answers.  So, I urge people to think about giving an opportunity to a person with a disability.  It changes our workplace for the better and it gives a person a paycheck.  We do good stuff and there isn’t any group out there that does not have people with disabilities as part of their diversity mosaic.

I don't mean to challenge your closing point, but in a market place with so much unemployment and so many qualified people looking for work and unable to find it – is there evidence that people with disabilities equal, or can perhaps exceed, the norm in terms of bringing value to a company as opposed to being a cost for a company?

I’ll give you a quick anecdotal story.  A national retailer created a distribution center in South Carolina with 100-percent accessible operations.  When they did their analysis, they found that the distribution center was 40-percent more efficient than any other distribution center in their chain.  The facility’s turn-over ratio was zero, saving the company millions of dollars.  They decided to replicate the facility in another region.  We’ve been getting lots of calls from retailers asking how they can have a facility as efficient as the one in South Carolina.  We know there is a business case for inclusion here and we are trying to teach companies how to do that.

Jeff, thank you for taking the time to share what your company is doing.  We’ll look forward to talking to you when your survey comes out next year.