[il-talk] Jay Stiteley

[David Meyer]

Hello everyone,

 

I just learned of the passing of Jay Stiteley, an individual who held many
positions of varying types assisting people with disabilities, some of which
were in Illinois.

 

Though I did not know him well, I was very favorably impressed the few times
I saw him. It was Jay who sold me on the thought that a Braille N Speak
would be good for me. For a brief synopsis of his life and accomplishments,
please see below.

 

 

Remembering "Disability Champion" Jay Stiteley

Date Posted: 08/25/2016

 

While many friends and colleagues at the recent International Conference of
the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually

Impaired (AER) were recording audio greetings and well wishes for Jay H.
Stiteley, who was fighting an aggressive form of cancer, Mr. Stiteley died
during

the conference, on July 23, 2016. Described as a "disability champion," Mr.
Stiteley was most recently working as the manager of the Mayor's Office for

People with Disabilities (MOPD), Department of Neighborhoods, City of
Houston, Texas, a position he had held since 2014.

 

As manager of MOPD, Mr. Stiteley served as the primary advocate for the
disability community of Houston, and he worked closely with city officials,
the

Houston Commission on Disabilities, and partner agencies to ensure the
delivery of essential services, including legal clinics, financial
empowerment workshops,

tax-preparation assistance, and job and health fairs. He introduced
"disability etiquette" workshops for local professionals, partnered with the
Houston

Center for Independent Living on a voter-registration drive, and most
recently collaborated with community partners to present employment and
workforce

training workshops and a job fair for veterans and people with disabilities
in the spring of 2016.

 

Born September 15, 1954, in Plainfield, Illinois, Mr. Stiteley had more than
30 years of professional experience in the field of visual impairment. He

began his higher education at Rockford College (now Rockford University) in
Rockford, Illinois, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history. He went

on to earn a master's degree in rehabilitation teaching for visually
impaired adults from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, was certified
to teach

visually impaired children, and he continued his education with a second
master's degree in management from Thomas Edison State College (now Thomas
Edison

State University) in Trenton, New Jersey. Over the course of his career, Mr.
Stiteley worked for five years as a rehabilitation teacher in both
residential

and itinerant programs, he worked with children and adults as an assistive
technology specialist for 13 years. His experience in management includes
work

as director of the former Chicago, Illinois-based National Technology
Program of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB; now AFB Tech, based
in Huntington,

West Virginia), dean of students for the Tennessee School for the Blind in
Nashville, and director of Rehabilitation Services for World Services for
the

Blind in Little Rock, Arkansas. In addition, he held several positions over
the course of many years at The Seeing Eye, a dog guide school in
Morristown,

New Jersey, including as its associate manager. A dog guide user himself, at
the time of his death, he was handling his seventh dog guide, Nelson, with

whom he trained at The Seeing Eye. A man of many talents, a little-known
fact about Mr. Stiteley is that he participated in the 1980 games of the
Olympics

for the Disabled (now called Paralympics) in Arnhem, Holland, as a member of
the U.S. swimming and track team.

 

A passionate advocate for assistive technology, Mr. Stiteley established two
computer-training programs for visually impaired people at the Western Blind

Rehabilitation Center, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, in California, and
at the Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center, Texas Commission for the Blind and

Visually Impaired, in Austin, Texas. His consumer-advocacy work included
service on the Federal Communications Commission Consumer Advisory Committee
and

on the advisory boards for the telecommunications company Verizon, which is
based in New York, and the Atlanta, Georgia-based airline Delta Air Lines.

He also served on the Board of Directors for AER and as president and chair
of the Board of Directors for the Academy for Certification of Vision
Rehabilitation

and Education Professionals (ACVREP).

 

Under Mr. Stiteley's leadership, in 2014, ACREP established a five-year exam
scholarship fund, to which $2,000 had been added annually, a process that

was planned to continue through 2019. The ACVREP Board of Directors recently
voted to rename the scholarship fund The Jay H. Stiteley Memorial
Scholarship

Fund and to make it a permanent offering. Until the time of his death, Mr.
Stiteley served as the founding chair of the Certified Assistive Technology

Instructional Specialist for People with Visual Impairments (CATIS) Subject
Matter Expert Committee for ACVREP.

 

Since his death, Mr. Stiteley has been hailed by friends and colleagues. The
current chair of the ACVREP Board, Mickey Damelio, Florida State University,

stated,

 

block quote

Jay was a lion of a man and professional in our field. If you had the
privilege to work with him, you quickly learned to respect his wisdom,
gentle leadership

style, and genuine nature. He was passionate about people with vision loss
achieving their full potential, accessing independence and employment, and
having

the appropriate education and tools to do so. . . . ACVREP mourns his
passing and will miss him tremendously, I'll miss him as a mentor and dear
friend.

block quote end

 

Mr. Stiteley was described in his obituary as, "Always shining as an example
of a successful, independent blind person, [he] touched the lives of
everyone

he met. . . . Though many will mourn his passing, he will be especially
missed by his dog-guide, Nelson." Mr. Stiteley's survivors include his wife
of

20 years, Karen Stiteley, who is also a professional in the field of visual
impairment. His funeral was held July 29, 2016, at St. Anne's Catholic
Church

in Houston, and a further celebration of his life is planned for Friday,
September 16th, 2016, with friends and colleagues joining in a national
celebration

from various locations around the United States, including at The Seeing Eye
and the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. For more
information,

contact: The Seeing Eye, P.O. Box 375, Morristown, NJ 07963; phone:
973-539-4425; e-mail: 

info at seeingeye.org

; website: 

www.seeingeye.org.