Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, March 4, 1999 pK1319
Man bucks tendency among agencies to discourage self-employment for
disabled. Jan Norman.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1999 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service

SANTA ANA, Calif. _ Rafael Rojas discovered he was going blind when he
awoke to a blurred world on Dec. 19, 1996.

The previous week, he couldn't read small print _ the result, he thought,
of stress and fatigue.

Instead, it was an irreversible vision loss of unknown cause that left
Rojas, 40, peeking at the world around blotches of blackness. He hopes to
halt further loss by staying fit and healthy. And he hopes medical and
technological advances will one day restore full sight.

But Rojas is preparing in case the darkness wins. He's training for the
fullest possible life either way.

In a world where unemployment among the blind is 75 percent, that
preparation has required Rojas to convert a side business into a full-time
trucking and consulting company: Transportation 2000 in Garden Grove. He is
bucking the long-standing tendency among government rehabilitation agencies
to discourage self-employment for the disabled.

Although Rojas was the only physically disabled business owner in a recent
state-funded entrepreneurial training program, he was far more
knowledgeable about business and his company than the other students,
observed instructor Linda Harasin.

``The class is 100 hours over 14 weeks, and Rafael was the only student
never to miss a class,'' she said.

Rojas had a great deal of motivation to make the most of the training.

``The reality was, I didn't want to live on disability the rest of my
life,'' said Rojas, whose dark brown eyes appear so normal that friends
accuse him of seeing more than he lets on.

As with most people who lose their sight, Rojas started in fright, then
sank into discouragement. ``What was I going to do? I had been in trucking
as long as I could remember. I was a good diesel mechanic, and I couldn't
do the job anymore.''

Ironically, work pulled Rojas out of his funk. Peterson Brothers
Construction in Brea offered Rojas a consulting assignment to set up the
mechanic shop for the company's 148 trucks.

``When I first called him about the job, he was feeling pretty down,''
General Manager Peter McNabb recalled. ``He'd just found out about his
sight. I said, `You have the brains; we'll provide the eyes and get this
done.' He did a good job for us.''

Once Rojas promised himself that he wouldn't give up his active life, from
sailing to rebuilding the diesel engine in his Peterbilt truck, he quickly
found resources to aid that transition.

He enrolled in six of the more than 200 courses in independent living
taught at the Braille Institute in Anaheim, said regional director Sheila
Daily.

``They teach you to cook and test the temperature by sticking your finger
in your food, but I really don't like that,'' Rojas grimaced as he
microwaved a cup of tea.

He also went through a live-in program in Los Angeles taught by the
Foundation for the Junior Blind, where he taught karate to his fellow
students.

The Department of Rehabilitation wanted Rojas to get his teaching degree in
special education. But he decided Transportation 2000 would make better use
of his mechanical gifts and college degree in industrial psychology.

The agency determined that Rojas had a viable plan and provided him a
closed circuit TV and computer to magnify and manage his business work. He
even designed his own logo using software that enlarges the toolbar on
software as well as the text.

Not all of the 82,000 enrollees in the Department of Rehabilitation would
qualify for adaptive equipment, said spokeswoman Erin Treadwell. Federal
law requires the agency to work first with the most severely disabled.

``We work with the individual to find a career they can do, then determine
what training or equipment they need to do that. But it's not an
entitlement program, and we don't have enough money to help everyone who
needs it.''

Less than half the people who get assistance find permanent employment, she
said.

Rojas also qualified for the Employment Development Department's training
program for small-business owners because Transportation 2000 must have a
driver for its rock and gravel hauling contract with Harrison Nichols in
Irwindale, and a sighted assistant to help Rojas rebuild the diesel engine.

His attitude was impressive.

``Rafael was never, ever depressed,'' said instructor Harasin, even though
``he had to take the bus from Garden Grove to Santa Ana at 6 o'clock at
night.''

Ah, the bus, Rojas sighed. ``The hardest part of business is getting
around. And here I am with a trucking company. I really miss driving.''

The lack of transportation was the most difficult part of handling the
Peterson Brothers Construction contract. Work started at 5 a.m., too early
to take the bus. McNabb picked Rojas up, and another employee took him
home, for eight months.

``He knew how to run fleet mechanics shops. He brought the big picture to
our project,'' McNabb said.

That contract enabled Transportation 2000 to buy its first diesel hauling
truck. Within five years, Rojas envisions having 200 trucks and a division
to repair diesels for other companies.

Although rehabilitation agencies classify blindness as a catastrophic
disability, it's really no barrier to running a successful business, said
Urban Miyares, founder of the Disabled Business-person's Association in San
Diego.

Miyares, who is blind and paraplegic, has owned dozens of companies,
including a construction company and manufacturing plant.

``The only difference (from being sighted) is you have to rely on other
people to get around,'' Miyares said. ``In my last manufacturing company, I
had four personal assistants. If I were sighted, I would only have had one.''

However, blind business owners tend to get more done because they're less
likely to be distracted by things around them, Miyares added.

``One of the largest trucking companies in the United States, England
Trucking in Salt Lake City, is owned by a blind man,'' he said. Rojas
considers blindness inconvenient, not heroic. The native Colombian, whose
family immigrated to New Jersey in 1963, is more likely to describe himself
as an immigrant success story than a victor over physical disability.

``I'm the first in my family to graduate college, the first to own my own
business,'' Rojas says. ``The irony is that I've lost my sight, but my
vision is better.''<<


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