the article below discusses to blind men in St. Petesberg Florida who are
receiving Microsoft Certification training and their future employment and
the employment prospects of others with disabilities.

kelly 




>From the St. Petersburg Florida Times:

Battling a 'fear of the unknown'

Technology is opening doors for the disabled in the job market. But old
concerns about hiring disabled workers still linger.

[Times photos: Andrea Bruce Woodall]
Mitch Green, who has been blind since birth, plays with 2-year-old Corey
while another of his children, 4-year-old Deanna, jumps on the trampoline in
the
backyard of their Clearwater house.

By MICHAEL BRAGA

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 6, 2000

Blind since birth, Mitch Green supports his pregnant wife and three young
children on about $1,000 a month in Social Security benefits. His rent for a
dingy,
sparsely furnished, two-bedroom house is $650. The rest is spent on food and
diapers.

Despite his problems, the 29-year-old Green is determined to rise from
poverty. Thanks to a grant from the Florida Division of Blind Services,
Green is
studying to become a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer beginning next
year. That would qualify him to install computer systems, a job that pays
about
$40,000 annually.

But just because Green will have a piece of paper to prove he can do the job
doesn't mean he will land one. "There are a lot of people that might get
pretty
nervous when they see a blind guy show up with a tool belt," Green said.

With the economy humming and Tampa Bay area unemployment below 3 percent,
employers are desperate to find workers to fill jobs. More are turning to
non-traditional
labor pools: senior citizens, teenagers and stay-at-home mothers. The
disabled also are increasingly getting the nod.

The Harris Survey of Americans with Disabilities estimates that 56 percent
of disabled people who want to work are currently working, an increase of 10
percentage points since 1986.

Developments in technology combined with the passage of the Americans with
Disabilities Act 10 years ago have increased opportunities. But many
disabled
workers still find themselves discriminated against because of a variety of
psychological and economic factors.

Confronted with a disabled job applicant, employers often see a potential
burden. They worry about the cost of buying special equipment and software
to
make the workplace more accessible. They fear that disabled workers will be
injured on the job and drive up insurance rates. And some imagine that
workers
who do not meet company standards will sue them for discrimination.

"There's a lot of fear of the unknown," said Rose Renedo, employment
specialist with the Tampa Lighthouse for the Blind.

There also are other constraints that keep disabled workers from entering
the work force. Many are simply too disabled to work. Some are forced to
take
part-time jobs out of concern they will lose government-provided health
benefits if they work full time. Some can't find transportation, while
others have
been crowded out of the labor market by the intense push in recent years to
get people off the welfare rolls.

"Lately there's been more political support behind getting welfare folks
hired," said Nancy Mashberg of the Florida Alliance for Assistive Services
and
Technology, which helps train disabled people to use technology. "The
disabled have been shifted to the bottom of the pile."

Historically, disabled workers have been relegated to low-wage, monotonous
jobs, such as stuffing Barbie dolls into boxes. But developments in
technology
over the past 15 years have opened doors. For instance, there are computers
that can be operated using Braille keyboards and Braille display terminals
to help blind people read by touch. There are computers that the physically
disabled can guide by using their tongues or by blowing into a tube.
Speech-recognition
software is available for people who can't type, and talking computers are
available for people who can't speak.

"Technology has put us in a position to qualify for more and more
opportunities," said Bryan Carver, who is blind and heads telephone sales
for the St.
Petersburg office of Freedom Scientific, a San Diego company that makes
hardware and software to assist the blind.

Many companies are finding that the disabled tend to be loyal workers, an
especially important asset in a tight labor market. Employers -- including
Delta
Air Lines, Continental Airlines, Bank of America, Hyatt Hotels, Marriott and
Teletech -- say disabled workers perform well on the job and aren't quick
to leave.

During a board meeting last spring, Michael Gaggi, a director at 800 Travel
Systems Inc., suggested that high employee turnover might be stemmed by
hiring
disabled workers.

The company's Internet representatives, who answer e-mail messages from
customers looking to book inexpensive airline tickets, do not need to answer
phones,
so the company figured that would be a perfect job for people with hearing
problems. The company has hired five deaf or hearing-impaired workers. Not
all
of them have worked out, but managers say most are doing as well as
non-disabled people with similar training.

"They are right where they need to be," said Terry Kelly, the company's
manager of Internet reservations. One employee in particular, Max Gaftman,
is especially
good at closing sales. "He takes a lot more time to help people get what
they want," Kelly said. "Perhaps that's because he knows what it's like to
need
help himself."

Companies also say that disabled workers often want to prove they are just
as good, if not better, than their non-disabled counterparts. In that way,
the
phenomenon of the disabled entering the work force is very similar to the
phenomenon of women entering the work force after World War II.

Mitch Green, left, shows off his Microsoft certification pin to Eric Kosten
before a class at Data Management Systems Inc. in Clearwater. Both men are
blind
and are studying to become Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers.

"I have to be better than a sighted person in terms of certain things," said
Eric Kosten, a blind student who is trying to get his Microsoft
certification.
"In the sighted world there are occasions when I am viewed a step lower.
That attitude has got to change."

At the same time, disabled workers say they don't want to be given special
advantages.

"Some blind people have always had things handed to them," said Green, the
blind man who is studying for his Microsoft certification. "So when they do
get
a job and they're asked to do something they don't like, they think they can
run to their parents to help them get out of it."

Experts in the field of disabled services say employers should not fear
firing workers who aren't meeting the grade.

"If they use the disability to get out of work, then they don't belong on
the job," said Evelyn Vazquez of the MacDonald Training Center in Tampa,
which
helps disabled people adapt to the workplace.

Executives who have hired disabled workers also say companies should not
sweat the potential cost of training disabled workers and investing in
office upgrades.
There are plenty of non-profit and government organizations that can help.

800 Travel Systems chief executive Peter Sontag, for instance, said the cost
of bringing disabled workers up to speed has been similar to the cost of
training
non-disabled workers. Representatives of MacDonald Training Center sent a
sign language interpreter to help with training classes at no cost to
Sontag's
company.

Technology costs also have been reasonable, Sontag said. The company
purchased a special telephone, called a TDD phone, so it can contact deaf
workers at
home. It cost $450.

Executives at Computer Generated Solutions, a New York company that operates
technology support centers across the country including two in Tampa, have
seen similar results.

"We just hired a gentleman who is legally blind," said Don Baker, the site
manager at one of the company's Tampa call centers. Tampa Lighthouse for the
Blind studied his work station and determined that he needed a larger
computer monitor and magnifying software. The cost: about $1,500, an expense
Baker
considers reasonable.

Baker acknowledged that it's a risk to hire disabled workers. It costs his
company about $6,000 to train each worker over a three-month period. But so
far
he says the risk has paid off.

"I don't hire people to fire them," Baker said. "If I have to replace
someone I look at it as a failure on my part."

Hiring disabled workers requires that changes be made and that attitudes be
adjusted.

Employees at 800 Travel Systems, for instance, initially were miffed at the
entrance of deaf workers because they were seen as taking more prestigious
jobs.
The Internet side of the business is viewed by many employees as a step up
from the call center, but deaf workers started there without prior
experience.

Communication between managers and deaf employees also has been challenging.
The two sides often have to write messages to each other on paper and there
has been some frustration about the pace of conversation.

"There's lots of things to learn," Sontag said. "It's like dealing with
people from another country."

But 800 Travel Systems managers maintain that the overall impact has been
positive. Six 800 Travel Systems employees are taking sign language classes
and
they say it gives them great satisfaction.

"We're doing something no one else is doing," said Kelly, the Internet
reservations manager.

Even with the technological developments and glowing testimonials, there are
plenty of desk jobs unavailable to disabled people.

At Computer Generated Solutions, Baker said there are certain requirements
employees must meet. They have to be able to hear because help desk
communication
with customers is via telephone. They must be able to speak clearly and they
need to have enough manual dexterity to type customer query reports.

"If I brought people in here that couldn't perform at a certain level, I
would handicap my business," Baker said.

But that doesn't mean Computer Generated Solutions has given up on hiring
disabled workers. In fact, the company has six disabled employees on its
230-person
payroll.

Across the bay area, attitudes are changing as employers scramble to find
workers, said Fred Moore, general manager for Data Management Systems, the
Clearwater
company that is providing Kosten and Green with Microsoft certification
training.

"These guys are going to get hired in a heartbeat," Moore said. "Some of the
biggest companies in the area have already expressed interest in them."


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