The Man Who Left Wall Street Behind

Feel Good Friday and this is a great way to start your day.

Ben Wright began seeing the world differently when his two youngest children were born with Down syndrome.
He realized educational and career opportunities would be much tougher to come by for kids that are deemed less able to succeed in the eyes of society, so he decided to leave his job at a Wall Street firm and ensure a future for children like his own.

Disability Should Not Be a Deterrent to Job Market

Recently, entertainment personality Jack Osbourne said he lost a job on a reality show because he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).

As a professional who knows the value that people with disabilities in the workplace can bring, the news was stunning, sad and alarming. It also was proof that too many employers today underestimate the potential effectiveness of an employee with a disability.

The Wrong Way to Help Workers with Disabilities

From today's edition of The Wall Street Journal an op-ed piece by James Bovard, the author of "Attention Deficit Democracy" (Palgrave, 2006),  who is working on a memoir.

 The Obama administration is on the verge of compelling most of the largest corporations and universities, as well as many smaller businesses, to adopt a 7% hiring quota for disabled job applicants — lest they be debarred from doing business with the federal government. This radical personnel policy could raise costs and slash the productivity of almost 200,000 companies with U.S. government contracts.
Announcing the proposed regulations for the quota last Dec. 8, Patricia Shiu, director of the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), declared: "For nearly 40 years, the rules have said that contractors simply need to make a 'good faith' effort to recruit and hire people with disabilities. Clearly, that's not working."
The evidence? Primarily that the percentage of disabled with jobs is lower now than it was in the 1980s. Yet as HR Policy, an association of chief human-resource officers, notes, the federal government itself has only 5% disabled on its payrolls—and the Labor Department's percentage of disabled employees has decreased every year since President Obama took office, despite a sharp increase in the number of department employees.

Prepping Students with Disabilities for Jobs

BROWNSVILLE, Texas -- A five-year pilot program will help Hidalgo County students with developmental disabilities advance their education and find future employment by filling in the gaps they need to succeed in college and the workforce.
Project HIRE, or "Helping Individuals Reach Employment," will assist 50 area high school seniors with developmental disabilities in attending South Texas College and later securing employment. Funded by a $1.25 million grant from the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities, the new program provides those students with "wrap-around services" such as on-campus counselors that help with college success, intensive summer training programs focused on independent living and life skills, and job placement services through the University of Texas-Pan American’s placement office.

When Workers with Autism Are Perfect Fit

NAPERVILLE, Ill. -- Finding steady work in this economy isn’t easy. The challenge is magnified for individuals with disabilities such as autism, who often have difficulty with social interaction.
Experts and parents are trying to change that by helping employers understand what this population has to offer.
“There’s an untapped pool of potential workers available in the special needs community that can really do a great job for many employers,” said Naperville resident Karen Thomas, whose 19-year-old son, Eric, is autistic.

Adults with Autism Testing Software

We've covered this story before, but this TV report just brings it to life. Just a great company doing great things.

Aspiritech is a non-profit organization based out of the Chicago area that specialized in finding software bugs. It's made up of a unique team of workers -- young adults with autism.