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Thursday, October 17, 2002

By Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Robert Mike, a one-time coal miner, figures that if he can hold down a good job in the computer industry, so can a bright young man such as Tyler Smith.

	Tyler Smith, a high school senior from Natrona Heights, talks with Robert Mike, an analyst for Bender Consultants, while job-shadowing him yesterday as part of National Disability Mentoring Day. (Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette)

"I wasn't a whiz kid," Mike, 53, said yesterday as he made room in his small cubicle at Robinson-based Bayer Corp. for Smith, a high school senior from Natrona Heights interested in pursuing a career in computers. "What I can do he can do."

Mike and Smith both use wheelchairs to get around. Mike's disability is the result of a 1977 roof fall in a coal mine where he once worked. Smith, 18, has been using a chair since seventh grade because of muscular dystrophy.

The two spent the workday together as part of National Disability Mentoring Day, an annual chance for students and job seekers with disabilities to explore the job market by shadowing someone at work who has been through what they are facing.

"They can get over any barrier if they want to, especially if it's in the mind," said Mike, who lost function in his legs when a section of the old Renton Mine in Plum collapsed on him 25 years ago just as his shift was about to end, forcing him to eventually retrain.

Smith, a tenor sax player and section leader with the marching band at Highlands High School in Natrona Heights, is looking for a college that has both the academic programs he is interested in and a track record of accommodating special needs such as his.

"I have a lot of interests, but I like computers in general," said Smith, who is already familiar enough with technology to help construct a Web site for his band.

National Disability Mentoring Day, begun in 1999 by the Clinton administration, has expanded from a Washington, D.C.-based event for three dozen students to nearly a national event that reaches a few thousand participants.

This year's prime sponsor, the American Association of People with Disabilities, estimates that 3,000 students had the opportunity yesterday to spend a day with hundreds of private and public employers in 37 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico as well as Kosovo and New Zealand.

Nearly two dozen employers of various types and sizes, including Bayer, the University of Pittsburgh, Mitsubishi, Dynavox Systems and FedEx Ground, participated in Pittsburgh. Highmark, the insurance giant, will hold a similar open house tomorrow.

"It was good for all of our members to see people with disabilities at work," said Dawn Jackson, vice president of the Center for Creative Play, a Swissvale play area that sponsored two students.

Ollie Cantos, the project organizer and general counsel of the disability association, said the ultimate purpose of the day is to enhance the employment opportunities of people with disabilities. Congress has proclaimed October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

"For a person with a disability who is a student or job seeker, it expands horizons -- 'Hey, I can do this' -- and it enables them to really set their sights high and shoot for high goals for what they want to do," said Cantos, who is blind.

Unemployment among people with disabilities is extremely high. Nearly 70 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities are unemployed, according to a year 2000 survey conducted for the National Organization on Disability.

There are an estimated 54 million Americans with disabilities, well over half of whom are working age, 18 to 64, the survey found. Only 32 percent of them hold full- or even part-time jobs, compared with 81 percent of the rest of the population.

Of those people with disabilities who are not working, more than two out of three say they would like to work, the survey found. They see jobs as a ticket to greater freedom and independence.

"There is a labor pool of people out there who want to work but are not being used," said Joyce Bender, an employment recruiter and coordinator of yesterday's events in Pittsburgh.

Bender has made a personal mission out of finding employment for people with disabilities since her own brush with a life-threatening accident in 1994 when she collapsed in a movie house with a cerebral hemorrhage. It was later discovered she had epilepsy.

"My big cause is just one thing -- trying to change the way people think about employing people with disabilities," said Bender, who was honored by President Bill Clinton in 1999 for her work with the disabled.

Mike, the former coal miner at Bayer, is employed by Bender Consultants, which hires technical workers with disabilities and leases them to employers. A majority of Bender's recruits eventually are given full-time jobs by her clients, she said.

Gregory S. Babe, senior vice president and chief information officer for Bayer in North America, said his company's decision to utilize IT workers provided by Bender had positive economic consequences.

Principally because of low turnover among workers with disabilities, Babe said he was able to staff a centralized help desk in Pittsburgh at a cost lower than that of outside vendors who would like the business.

Turnover is below 4 percent a year, much lower than the industry average, and Babe said the employees with disabilities were dedicated and gave "very high" performance on the job.

"For me, it's a business proposition," he said. "This is all about a business model and a competitive advantage. This is a good business solution, a way to provide competitive employment for people with disabilities in the long term."

Bender said that all too frequently students with disabilities do not feel they have a future -- a condition that can be enforced by school guidance counselors and, sometimes, by their own family members.

"That leads to another thing -- hopelessness," Bender said. "They've got to see employment. They've got to see they're treated equally to everyone else."

Some employers are apparently unaware of technology that has helped make productive workers in all kinds of jobs -- from artists, doctors and lawyers to programmers, scientists, truck drivers and telephone operators.

"An employer's natural reaction is a reflex. 'This is going to be so much trouble. We're going to need grab bars everywhere and it's going to be horrible', and that's not always the case," said D.J. Stealer, clinical coordinator for the UPMC Center for Assistive Technology. "I think they think it's going to be more trouble than it's worth."

Assistive technology can be such simple things as automated light switches, telephone head sets or computer software that can, for example, make it easier to type or enlarge text for those who are visually impaired.

For those times when assistive technology is expensive, there are programs that may help defray the costs. Potential resources for employers include the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, the Pennsylvania Initiative on Assistive Technology and the Pennsylvania Assistive Technology Fund, Stemmler said.

In her experience, Bender said many employers were often reluctant to hire people with disabilities because they fear they will be less productive than other employees and may miss too much work -- a premise she calls unsubstantiated, a myth.

A majority of Bender's employees have disabilities -- some severe -- and they rarely miss work, she said. Some of them have never taken a sick day.

"You hire a person with a disability and this is freedom. Their whole life has changed," Bender said. "They'll be there. They are appreciative."

Bender leads by example.

Her companies typically employ 50 people with disabilities who are leased to other firms as temporary employees -- often a prelude to full-time employment. She does business in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Delaware, Canada and Washington, D.C.

"My motto is 'paychecks, not pity,'" she said.

Jim McKay can be reached at jmckay@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1322.