Month: September 2019

ABC Interview: Actor Danny Woodburn Advocates for People with Disabilities

Posted on by Amber Cecil

Woodburn ABC still

September 27, 2019 | ABC 7 WJLA — Actor and disability advocate Danny Woodburn joined “Let’s Talk Live,” a Washington, D.C.-based morning show on the ABC Network, to tell share how the National Organization on Disability is recognizing 59 organizations for their outstanding hiring and employment practices for people with disabilities.

“It was phenomenal!” Danny Woodburn, who hosted NOD’s Leading Disability Employers Dinner said. “The purpose of the dinner was to acknowledge, recognize those companies—59 to be exact—with outstanding records for the hiring and the employment of people with disabilities.”


Learn more:

NOD Announces the 2019 ‘Leading Disability Employers’

Posted on by Amber Cecil

Arlington, VA (September 26, 2019) – The National Organization on Disability (NOD) today announced fifty-nine organizations that have been named 2019 NOD Leading Disability Employers™. Now in its fourth year, the NOD Leading Disability Employer seal recognizes companies that demonstrate exemplary employment practices for people with disabilities. This annual recognition is designed to commend those organizations that are leading the way in disability hiring and to encourage additional companies to tap into the many benefits of hiring talent with disabilities, including strong consumer preference for companies that employ individuals with disabilities and greater employee engagement across the workforce.

The winning organizations were announced at NOD’s Corporate Leadership Council Annual Forum, Shifting the Talent Paradigm: Inclusive Culture for a Modern Workforce, hosted by lead sponsors PwC and Spectrum.

“These winning organizations understand that by harnessing the talents of people with disabilities, they reap the benefits of a more diverse and more productive workforce,” said NOD Chairman Governor Tom Ridge.  “The preeminent challenge before us is to ensure that people with disabilities enjoy full opportunity for employment, enterprise and earnings, and that employers know how to put their talents to work. These 59 organizations certainly have demonstrated they are doing just that, and we applaud their leadership and thank them for their commitment to hiring people with disabilities.”

The 2019 NOD Leading Disability Employers are:

Accenture

Aetna

Anthem, Inc.

AT&T

Barclays

Beckley Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

The Boeing Company

Capital One Financial

Colorado Springs Utilities

Comcast NBCUniversal

Cox Communications

The Walt Disney Company

The Dow Chemical

DTE Energy

DXC Technology

Eli Lilly and Company

Ernst & Young, LLP

FirstEnergy

General Motors

The Hershey Company

Hilton Worldwide

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey

Humana Inc.

Idaho National Laboratory

Kaiser Permanente

KeyBank

KPMG LLP

Lockheed Martin Corporation

L’Oréal USA

Marriott International, Inc.

Mayo Clinic

Merck

MGM Resorts International

Moffitt Cancer Center National Grid

National Grid

National Security Agency

Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division, Keyport

New Editions Consulting, Inc.

Northrop Grumman

Old National Bank

Procter & Gamble

Project HIRED

Prudential Financial

PwC

Randstad

Rangam Consultants Inc.

Reed Smith LLP

SEI Investments Company

Sempra Energy

Skookum Contract Services

TD Bank

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

TIAA

T-Mobile

U.S. Bancorp

The Viscardi Center

The Wehrman Collaborative (WeCo)

Wells Fargo & Company

The NOD Leading Disability Employer seal is awarded based on data furnished by companies in response to the NOD Disability Employment Tracker™, a free and confidential assessment that benchmarks companies’ disability inclusion programs in the following areas:

  • Climate & Culture
  • People Practices
  • Talent Sourcing
  • Workplace & Technology
  • Strategy & Metrics

While the Tracker is confidential, organizations may opt to be considered for the NOD Leading Disability Employer seal. Responses are scored, taking into account both disability employment practices and performance. Scoring prioritizes practices that are associated with increased disability employment outcomes over time, and companies receive additional points based on the percentage of people with disabilities in their workforce.

To be considered for the 2020 NOD Leading Disability Employer seal, companies must complete the Disability Employment Tracker during the qualifying window.

Sign up to be notified when the 2019 Disability Employment Tracker opens this October. 

Steering the Winds of Change: A Summit on Leadership in Business, Academia, the Military, and Government

Posted on by Amber Cecil

59 Companies Leading the Way in Hiring Talent with Disabilities Are Honored

National Organization on Disability Event also Featured Actors and Disability Advocates Danny Woodburn (Seinfeld) and Robert David Hall (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)

NEW YORK (September 26, 2019) – More than 200 diversity and inclusion leaders from companies around the country gathered at the National Organization on Disability’s (NOD) Annual Forum and Dinner, entitled Shifting the Talent Paradigm: Inclusive Culture for a Modern Workforce.  Sponsored by Lead Partners PwC and Spectrum, the all-day forum explored the best change management tactics that corporate leaders can deploy to create a more diverse and inclusive culture. Senior managers heard from executives and experts on the most effect tools and tactics to create an inclusive culture, as well as the leadership skills and personal attributes needed to lead a culture change.

Later in the evening, an awards dinner was held featuring actors and disability advocates Danny Woodburn (Seinfeld) and Robert David Hall (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation). Civic and business leaders also joined in the celebration, including Gov. Tom Ridge, first Secretary of Homeland Security and NOD Chairman, and DiversityInc’s Chairman and Founder Luke Visconti, who serves as the NOD Vice Chairman.

“Events such as this one hosted by the National Organization on Disability are critical because the subject of diversity and inclusion is often exclusive of people with disabilities,” said Woodburn, who serves as co-vice chair of the SAG-AFTRA People with Disabilities Committee. “This is particularly personal for me and my colleagues in Hollywood, because although people with disabilities make up more than 20 percent of our population, they are still significantly under-represented on television and film. Compounding the problem is the fact that even when characters with disabilities are featured on the small screen, they are far more too often played by actors without disabilities. This creates a 98% unemployment rate in my business, well above the national average of 67% for people with disabilities.”

“Danny and I have worked together for years to support opportunities for actors with disabilities, like us,” said Hall, a longtime NOD board member. “So we are privileged to attend events like this one that recognizes employers who not only embrace hiring people with disabilities, they see it as fundamental to their success. It’s a message we need to amplify in Hollywood.”

Starting a new tradition, NOD honored two individuals with special awards. The Kaitlin A. Geraghty Memorial Prize was given to Deanna Ferrante, a rising student in the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Class of 2020. Named in honor of the late NOD intern who was much admired and missed, this award is bestowed to an up-and-coming disability advocate who shares Kaitlin’s passion for working towards the full inclusion of people with disabilities.

Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, was the inaugural honoree of the Alan A. Reich Award, for enshrining disability inclusion into all of the organization’s operations—from its building accessibility to its grant making. Given to an established leader who is advancing disability rights, this award is named in honor of NOD’s founder, who helped spark a movement to ensure people with disabilities were represented equally in all aspects of life.

Then, 59 organizations were honored as the 2019 NOD Leading Disability Employers™ for their exemplary hiring and employment practices for people with disabilities. Now in its fifth year, the NOD Leading Disability Employer Seal is awarded to the top performers on NOD’s Disability Employment Tracker™, a free and confidential assessment that benchmarks companies’ disability inclusion programs.

“These winning organizations understand that by harnessing the talents of people with disabilities, they reap the benefits of a more diverse and more productive workforce,” said NOD Chairman Governor Tom Ridge. “The preeminent challenge before us is to ensure that people with disabilities enjoy full opportunity for employment, enterprise and earnings, and that employers know how to put their talents to work. These 59 organizations certainly have demonstrated they are doing just that, and we applaud their leadership and thank them for their commitment to hiring people with disabilities.”

About the Leading Disability Employer Seal™ + Disability Employment Tracker

To see current and past winners of the NOD Leading Disability Employer seal, visit www.NOD.org/seal.

To be considered for the 2020 NOD Leading Disability Employer seal, companies must complete the free and confidential Disability Employment Tracker assessment during the qualifying window.

For more information and to sign up, visit www.NOD.org/tracker.

“Seinfeld” actor’s mission to raise awareness about disability rights

Posted on by Amber Cecil

Sept. 26, 2019 – Washington, D.C. – Danny Woodburn shared his mission to raise awareness for inclusion and understanding of people with disabilities.  Later in the day Woodburn will host NOD’s Annual Forum + Dinner, where the 2019 NOD Leading Disability Employers™ will be recognized for their exemplary hiring and employment practices for people with disabilities. On Good Day DC, Woodburn shared a few of the local employers that earned the title.

Remembering Marca Bristo (1953-2019)

Posted on by Jesse Fryburg

The National Organization on Disability joins the disability community in mourning the loss of Marca Bristo, a pioneer and passionate advocate for disability rights, who passed away last week after a battle with cancer. She was 66. Ms. Bristo is survived by her husband, Robert Kettlewell, their two children, and a grandchild.

Marca Bristo speaking at a White House event in 2010 marking the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act
Marca Bristo speaking at a White House event in 2010 | Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

Few individuals leave behind marks so indelible. From helping to craft and pass the Americans with Disabilities Act, to reshaping the city of Chicago’s disability policies and serving as an advisor to President Obama’s Administration, Ms. Bristo was truly a force for positive change. She traveled the world many times over in her motorized wheelchair promoting the independent living movement, which she helped found, advancing the rights and well-being of people with disabilities everywhere.

To a most ardent champion for persons with disabilities, the National Organization on Disability says, simply, thank you for your service—your legacy lives on. (June 23, 1953 – September 8, 2019)

 

Full Obituary via the New York Times

by Glenn Rifkin (photo courtesy of Charles Dharapak/Associated Press)

Marca Bristo, Influential Advocate for the Disabled, Dies at 66

Paralyzed in an accident at 23, she devoted her life to changing perceptions of the disabled and was a key player in passing the Americans With Disabilities Act.

When she was 23, Marca Bristo, a nurse in Chicago, was sitting with a friend on the shore of Lake Michigan. Her friend’s dog accidentally knocked a prized pair of Ms. Bristo’s shoes into the water and, without a second thought, she dived in to retrieve them.

Striking her head, she broke her neck and was paralyzed from the chest down. In that instant, Ms. Bristo’s life changed forever in ways she could never have anticipated. She lost her job, her health insurance, could no longer use public transportation and had no access to many public places.

But rather than dwell on her misfortune, she became a powerful advocate for people with disabilities, spending her life working to change perceptions and the rules in a world that had traditionally ignored the needs of the disabled. She was a key player in the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, which outlawed discrimination against the nearly 50 million Americans with disabilities.

After a long battle with cancer, Ms. Bristo died on Sunday at 66 in her home in Chicago. Her death was confirmed by her husband, J. Robert Kettlewell.

Her passion reflected her own life philosophy; she refused to allow her disability to constrain her. She was married for 32 years to Mr. Kettlewell and they had two children. She recently became a grandmother.

“She focused on her ability, not on her disability,” said Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, who met Ms. Bristo in Chicago in the mid-1990s and later made her an adviser to the Obama administration. “There wasn’t a policy decision we made over those eight years that would affect the lives of people with disabilities, without consulting Marca,” Ms. Jarrett said in an interview for this obituary on Saturday.

In 1980, Ms. Bristo founded Access Living in Chicago, a nonprofit that promoted independent living for the disabled.

Access Living reshaped Chicago’s landscape for the disabled and became a model for cities across the country, and from that, Ms. Bristo founded the National Council on Independent Living, which she led for many years.

“Marca Bristo’s trailblazing leadership and bold strategic vision secured historic progress for every American with a disability and their families,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “With Marca’s passing, our nation has lost an extraordinary champion for the rights of people with disabilities.”

Her signature achievement was helping to pass the A.D.A. She was a protégée of Justin Dart Jr., vice chair of the National Council on Disability, and someone Ms. Bristo referred to as the “Martin Luther King of the disability rights movement” in a 2015 blog celebrating the 25th anniversary of the A.D.A.’s passage. They worked closely and she made pointed suggestions for ways to improve the legislation.

“My husband spotted her to be a future leader,” Yoshiko Dart said of Mr. Dart, who died in 2002. “She had principle and passion and wasn’t afraid of saying things to people. She insisted on justice for all types of people.”

In the 1980s, as a member of United States Task Force on the Rights and Empowerment of Americans With Disabilities, she connected with then-Congressman Tony Coelho of California, who, along with Senator Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, introduced the original A.D.A. bill to the 100th Congress in 1988. In her role, Ms. Bristo helped draft and amend the bill that eventually made its way to the president’s desk two years later.

“She was one of the strongest advocates, from the grass-roots side,” Mr. Coelho said in an interview on Saturday. “To a great extent, without the grass-roots effort, we wouldn’t have gotten the A.D.A.” Not content with the passage of the bill, Ms. Bristo spent the rest of her life making sure it was consistently implemented.

Marcia Lynn Bristo was born on June 23, 1953, in Albany, N.Y., to Earl Clayton Bristo and Dorothy Madeline Bristo. She spent her childhood on a family farm, along with her older brother, Paul, and sister, Gail, in Castleton, N.Y. before the family moved to West Winfield, N.Y.

 

She spent her senior year of high school in the Philippines and went to Beloit College in Wisconsin in 1971. At freshman orientation, an upperclassman nicknamed her Marca and the name stuck. She got her nursing degree from the Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago in 1976, intending to be a midwife, and worked at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital in the labor and delivery unit.

She met Mr. Kettlewell in 1986 when he was chief of staff for the Illinois congresswoman Cardiss Collins, and the couple married in 1988. She gave birth to a son, Samuel, and a daughter, Madeline. Her granddaughter was born in July. They, and her sister, Gail Bristo Smith, survive her.

After her accident, Ms. Bristo became acutely aware of the impediments she would face. “People immediately treated me differently because of my wheelchair,” she wrote in a 2015 Chicago Tribune column. “In spite of my activist spirit and the historical civil rights context in which I was raised, I was on my own to cope with this new reality.”

When she later attended a conference on disability in Berkeley, Calif., she got a glimpse of an environment with a completely different attitude toward people with disabilities. The city, with a history of activism, had curb cuts, accessible buildings and bathrooms, and the buses had wheelchair lifts.

“No longer did I see curbs or stairs or inaccessible buses and bathrooms as a problem around which I needed to navigate,” she wrote. “Rather, I saw them as examples of societal discrimination — and felt a responsibility to get involved to help people with disabilities, in Illinois and beyond.”

She became part of a growing movement. “This ragtag army of people who couldn’t see, hear, walk and talk did what everyone said couldn’t be done,” she said. “We passed the most comprehensive civil rights law since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.”

Edward M. Kennedy Jr., son of the late Massachusetts senator and currently the chairman of the American Association of People With Disabilities, met Ms. Bristo in the mid-1980s and said “she had an immediate impact on me.”

 

Mr. Kennedy, a former state senator in Connecticut, lost a leg to cancer in 1973, when he was 12. “She reframed the disability experience as a civil rights issue, as opposed to a medical issue,” Mr. Kennedy said on Saturday. “She was one of the pioneers trying to change the way people with disabilities thought about our circumstances. She used to talk about what she called ‘the internalization of oppression’ that existed in other civil rights struggles.”

“She was a force of nature,” Mr. Kennedy added. “In both her personal life and political life, she was a role model for millions of people with disabilities in our country.”

Ever the advocate, in the days before her death, Ms. Bristo received a phone call from Ms. Pelosi. According to her husband, the Speaker wished her well and said “I wish there was something I could do,” to which Ms. Bristo quickly replied: “You can. Move the Disability Integration Act to committee and to a floor vote.”