[nagdu] Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation co-founder dies

[Ginger Kutsch]

Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation co-founder dies
Published: Sunday, June 20, 2010
Source:
http://www.middletownpress.com/articles/2010/06/20/news/doc4c1e63
dd30380892322246.txt
 
BLOOMFIELD - The Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation announced the
passing away of its president and co-founder Roberta C. Kaman.
 
"We are saddened by Robbie's passing," said Eliot D. Russman,
Fidelco's CEO an executive director. "We will miss her presiding
presence in our midst, the vision she brought to our organization
and the passion with which she served our clients."
 
Dogs and dog training were always in Kaman's life. As she
recently said in "Trust the Dog," the new book about Fidelco,
"I've never been without a dog." From the dogs on her
grandfather's farm, to the dogs her father trained for hunting,
to the thousands of dogs she bred for Fidelco, canines were an
important part of her life. Kaman was bitten by the training bug
early on when she attended a dog training class in Manchester,
Connecticut. She proved to be a natural trainer and the town
asked her to stay on and help with the classes. As she said,
"Apparently I had an ear for the music."
 
Over the years, Kaman and her friends raised and showed several
breeds, including standard poodles. She also spent time mentoring
with Dr. Allen Leventhal at his veterinarian practice in Bolton.
It was in 1958 that she got her first German shepherd; sowing the
seeds for what would become a lifelong fascination with this
extraordinary breed of dog.
 
In 1960, Kaman joined a local German shepherd club in New Haven
and met Charlie Kaman, her future husband and founder of Kaman
Aerospace. Together, they helped form the Fidelco Breeders
Cooperative, the beginnings of what is now the Fidelco Guide Dog
Foundation. For 20 years, the cooperative bred German shepherd
dogs and donated them to guide dog schools and law enforcement.
 
>From 1980, their home-based hobby grew dramatically to become an
internationally accredited guide dog foundation that has placed
more than 1,300 guide dogs with blind and visually disabled
clients throughout the U.S. and Canada. In the process, Kaman was
instrumental in developing the Fidelco "breed within a breed;" a
German shepherd with the temperament, work ethic and stamina
suited to guiding people who are blind.
 
Kaman received numerous awards, including the prestigious Migel
Medal Award from the American Foundation for the Blind and was
honored as a Melvin Jones Fellow, the Lions Club's highest level
of recognition. She was also a certified sheep tending shepherd
and has trained in the U.S. and Germany. However, Kaman's most
important kudos came from Fidelco's clients.
 
"When I get a positive phone call from a person with a Fidelco
guide dog, I am always grateful," said Kaman. "I realize that
we've managed to help someone in a very personal and important
way."