[nfbmi-talk] peckham story cleaned up

Mon Dec 12 12:32:40 UTC 2011

I sure will have more to write on this later! But, MCB Commissioner Lydia Schuck sure openly shared the MCB funded transition experience Peckham "provided" her daughter in the last MCB meeting and back in 2007 publicly.

Moreover, the still incomplete corrective actions required by RSA in their monitoring report include Peckham as it is the "third party" in the Ingham and Eaaton and other ISD's transition programs for MCB, or at least it was. We don't know for sure for MCB won't release these agreements in violation of several laws.

Nonetheless Peckham doesn't "do Braille" or other alternate formats either even in the trannsition programs.

Makes me wonder if the work for MCB and MRS or if it is the other way around.

Oh and Tomlinson and other Peckham higher ups are very well connected with MRS and MCB, but I'll save that for another post.

Enjoy the sweatshop.

-JH

For 35 years, Peckham has offered more than just a job for disabled | Lansing State Journal

December 11, 2011

Jack Fischer, of Lansing, constructs fleece garments for the U.S. military at Peckham Inc.'s Capital City Boulevard headquarters in Lansing. Peckham helps

provide paid job training for those with severe disabilities and other barriers to employment.

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Jack Fischer, of Lansing, constructs fleece garments for the U.S. military at Peckham Inc.'s Capital City Boulevard headquarters in Lansing. Peckham helps

provide paid job training for those with severe disabilities and other barriers to employment. / MATTHEW DAE SMITH/FOR THE LANSING STATE JOURNAL

&maxH=34&maxW=34

Written by

Melissa Anders

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Peckham's headquarters has multiple Wi-Fi stations. Peckman got its start in 1976 as a small, grant-funded operation that worked with the state's rehabilitation

service program.

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Peckham's headquarters has multiple Wi-Fi stations. Peckman got its start in 1976 as a small, grant-funded operation that worked with the state's rehabilitation

service program. / MATTHEW DAE SMITH/For the Lansing State Journal

By the numbers

$223.6M

Peckham's revenue for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30

$44.5M

wages paid to people in Peckham's job training progam

1,147

people placed into community employment

7,202

total number of people served through Peckham's 24 programs

Source: Peckham Inc.

Peckham

At-A-Glance

• Headquarters: 3510 Capital City Blvd. in Lansing

• President and CEO: Mitch Tomlinson

• Staff: 375

• Paid job-training clients: 2,500

• Locations: Lansing, Charlotte, Battle Creek and Coralville, Iowa

job Statistics

November 2011 Labor Force Participation

• People with disabilities: 20.8%

• People without disabilities: 69.5%

Unemployment Rate

• People with disabilities: 13%

• People without disabilities: 8%

2010 Percentage of people ages 18 to 64 employed nationwide

• People with disabilities: 33.4%

• People without disabilities: 72.8%

Percentage of people ages 18 to 64 employed in Michigan

• People with disabilities: 28.9%

• People without disabilities: 69.3%

Note: Figures exclude people in institutions (correctional facilities and residential nursing and mental health care facilities) and in the Armed Forces.

- Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey

More

Geraldine Rush got her first apartment last year - at age 62.

"I got dishes and I got a bed - my first bed," she said, holding back tears.

Rush, now 63, has been able to get her own place and a car in the 3-1/2 years since she was hired as a sewing machine operator at Peckham Inc. It was her

first job in more than 20 years.

Rush has bipolar disorder and physical impairments stemming from childhood polio.

For Rush, Peckham represents more than "just a job."

She and her co-workers also are able to tap into services the nonprofit offers, such as computer training, personal finance classes, art programs, and housing

and employment support to people with disabilities.

Filling a need

Lansing-based Peckham, now in its 35th year, got its start in 1976 as a small, grant-funded operation that worked with the state's rehabilitation service

program and performed vocational assessments for people with disabilities.

Now, Peckham has jobs for about 2,500 people with disabilities in manufacturing, warehousing, professional office cleaning, information technology support

and farming. Some also work at a call center.

"Quickly we learned that folks with disabilities needed a lot of service between the point of referral to being ready for work, so we began to kind of fill

those gaps in between as a company," said Mitch Tomlinson, president and CEO.

Peckham began subcontracting work with local businesses in the early 1980s, such as minor packaging operations for General Motors Co.'s Oldsmobile division,

Tomlinson said. But such arrangements had a drawback.

"We also realized that subcontracting with other companies kind of put our destiny in their hands and we wanted to really get our destiny in our own hands,"

he said.

Peckham eventually took its work in-house and began supplying automotive companies with interior trim products such as the nets found in trunks.

In the 1980s, as auto suppliers began moving out of the country and competition grew for remaining contracts, Peckham diversified into apparel and picked

up contracts to make long underwear for the military.

(Page 2 of 3)

Military deals, more

The nonprofit now makes 400,000 garments a month for the U.S. Army and other branches of the military. It specializes in extreme cold weather gear.

It hasn't abandoned the automotive business but does less work in that area. Peckham is the exclusive supplier of seat belt re-routers, or comfort guides,

for GM.

But Peckham's operations go far beyond manufacturing.

The nonprofit also operates the largest cleaning company in Lansing. Its has 250 people who clean 7 million square feet of office space a day, including

the Capitol and state office buildings, Tomlinson said.

About 30 people work in the warehousing division, which has more than 300,000 square feet of space, where it manages all of the clothing and textiles for

the Navy and Coast Guard nationwide.

About 500 people work in business services, which includes call center and information technology positions.

Call centers, farms

Call centers in Lansing, Battle Creek and Coralville, Iowa support federal departments. Calls to the U.S. State Department regarding passports, for example,

go to Peckham's call center in Lansing.

Peckham also supplies computer help desk services for the Department of Defense.

And, it also has a fledgling farming operation. Peckham purchased nearly 80 acres of land in Watertown Township, completing construction of a barn in October.

It hopes to have seven hoop houses by spring.

Employees have planted crops on about three acres; the rest is used by a local farmer.

Peckham is working on arrangements to sell its produce to local businesses and organizations, including Sparrow Hospital.

Most of Peckham's work derives from government contracts acquired through the federal AbilityOne Program, the nation's largest source of employment for

people with significant disabilities.

Jobs with benefits

At Peckham, most participants in the job-training program work 40 hours or more a week and receive health and retirement benefits.

Pay varies depending on position. Call center employees earn the federal prevailing wage of about $12 to $15 an hour, while warehouse workers can earn about

$16 to $18 per hour, Tomlinson said.

(Page 3 of 3)

The business has continued to grow throughout the recession. Peckham reported $223.6 million in revenue in the fiscal year that ended in September. That's

up about 11 percent from 2010, and nearly double its 2008 revenue of $114.6 million.

Diverse businesses

"We attribute it to our strategy to have diverse lines of business," Tomlinson said. "So, where one line of business might be not flourishing, some other

line of business is growing, and we've been able to kind of balance that.

"The other thing is we've attributed that to just to the capability of people with disabilities."

Local employers are taking note of that, opting to work with Peckham to hire people with disabilities.

Last year, the organization helped 1,147 people with disabilities gain jobs in the community.

With Peckham's help, Jackson National Life Insurance Co. hired 12 people with disabilities to work in document processing in the mailroom. The employees

open upward of 3,000 pieces of mail a day and prepare them for scanning into the company's paperless document system, said Shannon Rolley, a spokeswoman

for the Alaeidon Township-based insurer.

"We're highly regulated; we need to process certain items by the end of the day," Rolley said. "The speed that they've allowed us to have has been fantastic."

-Lansing Michigan