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Employers Hire High-Tech Workers with Disabilities

October 18th, 2007 Posted by Amelia

A common complaint from employers is that they have trouble finding highly qualified workers with disabilities, especially in the high-tech field.

That’s exactly the problem that the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, or NTID, addresses. The career-focused degree programs at NTID prepare people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing for high-caliber careers in technical fields.

Nearly 92% of the Institutes graduates entering the workforce find employment. The work in a variety of fields including business, government, industry and education.

Some of NTID’s graduates include engineers working to reconstruct levees in New Orleans, Vice Presidents at telecommunications companies, financial analysts for Fortune 500 companies, Executive Directors of nonprofit organizations and intelligence experts at the Department of Homeland Security.

NTID is one of 8 colleges of the Rochester Institute of Technology, located in New York State. Rochester Institute of Technology was founded in 1829 as the Athenaeum by Colonel Nathaniel Rochester and other community leaders. In 1885, influential area businessmen established a Mechanics Institute to provide technical training for skilled workers in industry. Captain Henry Lomb was the first President of the Board of Trustees.

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill to create a National Technology Institute for the Deaf into law. The bill, sponsored by Senator Lister Hill of Alabama and Representative Hugh Carey of New York had passed unanimously in both the House and the Senate. The bill provided for a coeducational, postsecondary institute for technical education of persons who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

The Department of The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare invited colleges and universities from across the country to apply to host the NTID. The Rochester Institute of Technology won a hotly contested debate.

In 2006, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and the Office of Disability Employment Programs honored NTID with a New Freedom Initiative Award for excellence and innovation in employment for people with disabilities.

Under the leadership of its former director, Dr. Roy Grizzard, the Office of Disability Employment Programs (ODEP) made some huge strides. It partnered with employers and agencies at the state and local level to show the nation the still-untapped talents of disabled workers. It formed a key alliance with the Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM), the largest society of human resource managers, with 500 chapters worldwide.

Dr. Grizzard’s directorship of ODEP was just the final achievement in a career founded on battling the odds. In his 20’s, he was struck with a degenerative retinal disorder known as retinitis pigmentosa, which left him legally blind by age 40. Despite the odds he went on to get a PhD, then became a teacher and a school administrator. From there he went on to a state agency for the disabled, and finally joined ODEP.

Dr. Grizzard is an inspirational example. Yet ODEP itself acknowledges that there is still much to do. Disabled people still face chronic underemployment in this country.

October was proclaimed National Disability Awareness month by President George W. Bush. The month is a time to stress the need to improve employment prospects for those with disabilities, and to guarantee workplace diversity.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 was the turning point. The legislation made it against the law to discriminate against workers because of disabilities. It applies to hiring, promotion, and training. The ADA is designed to ensure that job sites themselves are accessible to disabled employees.

In 2001 the New Freedom Initiative was designed to urge full participation by the disabled in all areas, among them education and employment. The “Ticket to Work” program help assure access to job placement and training for the disabled.

Dave Dravecky, the former Giants pitcher, is the first recipient of the ODEP SPIRIT Award, honoring those who have fought the odds to achieve success despite disabilities. After Dravecky lost his pitching arm to bone cancer, he went on to become a best-selling writer and a motivational speaker.