Able To Work

(2 of 4)

The Marriott family has assumed a national role in the effort to provide the disabled with good jobs. In 1989 it started the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities, which has placed about 3,000 disabled people ages 18 to 22 in paid private-sector internships lasting as long as three or four months. The foundation has worked with 1,150 employers in various parts of the country, says foundation executive director Mark Donovan. Almost 90% of these people received job offers after their internships ended.

"This program has helped me enter the work force, and it's helped me build up my self-esteem and character," says Carlos Pennix, 25, a clerical aide assistant with the Potomac Power Electric Co. in Washington. Pennix, who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, started with the power company as an intern in 1992 when he was in high school.

Smaller corporations have followed the Marriott example. Terry Neese, who owns a personnel agency with a staff of 14 in Oklahoma City, makes an effort to work with local training institutes in her area to help place people with disabilities in jobs. Neese's personal motivation: her granddaughter Emily, 4, does not have a fully developed left arm. "I know my granddaughter will grow up to have a brilliant mind and a willing spirit," Neese says. "But what kinds of opportunities will she find available out there? I want to set an example in my own company." For example, Neese has placed people who use wheelchairs in computer-data-entry positions. When working with potential employers, Neese will find out ahead of time if they can accommodate these people; if they can't, then she won't work with these employers at all.

High-tech firms and computer companies, with their easier access to and knowledge of new technology, are often in the vanguard of efforts to work with the disabled. Hewlett-Packard Co., for one, has educated its managers about devices that can be used to assist employees who are blind or deaf, says Maricella Gallegos, who manages the Palo Alto, Calif., firm's disabilities employment program. Workers with emotional problems who have trouble dealing with the workplace are offered the option of telecommuting.

Hewlett-Packard provides, among other things, Braille books, interpreters and text telephone (TTY) service--phone conversations in which an operator transcribes a hearing person's response that is transmitted and read by a deaf person on a text telephone screen. Patty O'Sullivan, 39, H-P's diversity project administrator, who has been with the company for 13 years, is an avid user of the technology. O'Sullivan, who is deaf, conducted her interview with TIME via TTY. Her employer also has an interpreter available if she is meeting with people in a large group and would have a hard time reading lips. "The company I work for values people and focuses on their abilities and strengths," O'Sullivan says. "This is why I have been here for 13 years."

H-P estimates that the cost of accommodation is $500 a person on average, Gallegos says. The payoff? "The benefit to the company of accommodating people is that we have a much richer pool of employees to choose from," says Emily Duncan, director of diversity and work life. "The investment we make in our people allows them to be more productive in the workplace. After all, talent comes in all kinds of packages."

Kansas city-based sprint is another activist firm that has reached out to local organizations and identified qualified people with disabilities for a host of jobs, says Margaret Hastings, the company's human-resources manager. According to the communications giant, an estimated 385 employees out of a total of 51,000 have designated themselves as having a disability. The company tries to work with people where and when they need it, Hastings adds. "The company gave me an opportunity when I felt I didn't have any options," says Deanne Dirksen, 24, a department assistant based in Louisville, Ky., who is legally blind from multiple sclerosis. To enable her to do her job, Sprint supplied Dirksen with a computer-software program called ZoomText that magnifies the print on her computer screen, and she also uses a closed-circuit TV for written material.

One reason why high-tech firms are more open to the disabled--humane considerations aside--is that the price of accommodating them, at least in some areas, is rapidly falling. Henter-Joyce Inc., a St. Petersburg, Fla., software company, manufactures a program for blind and visually impaired people that has come down in price by almost half--from $1,500 to $795--since its 1988 introduction, notes president Ted Henter, who is himself blind. Called JAWS, an acronym for Job Access with Speech, the Windows-based program reads back in a synthesized voice whatever is typed into a computer. This voice also reads back e-mail and any information obtained over the Internet. Annual sales have jumped from $100,000 in 1988 to $7 million a decade later. "With less use of paper and a greater reliance on computers and e-mail these days, there are more opportunities for blind and visually impaired people to move ahead in their careers with the help of new software," says Henter. Almost half of his 45 employees are blind or visually impaired.