[nfbwatlk] CNIB Article

[Frye, Dan]

List Colleagues:
I saw the following article about the appointment of the new Chief
Executive of the CNIB on the WCB list. Knowing that we have CFB members
and others from Canada on this list, and because we all may be
interested in this topic, I provide it below:
 
CHIEF DEBATES 

Here are some other recent identity controversies: 

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The NAACP's
selection of biracial Benjamin Jealous as president and CEO in

2008 was criticized by a friend, columnist George Curry, who implied it
recalled the days when members of the black elite had to be "light,
bright, and damn near white." 

A member of the search committee also wondered during deliberations
whether a light-skinned man should lead a black organization. 

"It would be beneath us to consider it," said chair Julian Bond. 

Gallaudet University

"Deaf President Now" protests in 1988 brought academic I. King Jordan to
the presidency of Gallaudet, the world's first university for the deaf. 

Protests erupted on the Washington campus again in 2006 when provost
Jane Fernandes, a deaf woman who uses her voice and learned American
Sign Language only as an adult, was designated as his successor. 

Many protesters said their issue was Fernandes's poor relations with
students and a flawed search process. Fernandes said her critics thought
she was not sufficiently deaf. 

"We're in a little bit of an identity politics struggle on campus
regarding who speaks for deaf people," she said. 

Her appointment was revoked. 

Daniel Dale This man can see the trees ... and that, some say, is the
problem Debate stirs over hiring of sighted CNIB head Board defends
choice as critics ask how it can lobby firms to hire blind when it will
not do so itself May 3,

2009

Daniel Dale STAFF REPORTER 

 

When John Rafferty looks out the window of his modest third-floor corner
office at CNIB's Bayview Ave. headquarters, he can see the trees of a
wooded ravine. 

This is why an advocacy group calls his hiring "a step backward." 

This is why he speaks of "my unique challenges" and "taking time to
understand" and being "extra careful." This is why the leader of another
charity says a genial man with a sterling resumho left a lucrative
private-sector job to occupy this corner office would, "in a perfect
world," 

be somewhere else. 

This is John Rafferty's burden. He can see. Rafferty's predecessor, Jim
Sanders, was blind. So was his predecessor, so was his predecessor, and
so was every top executive in the 91-year history of CNIB, formerly the
Canadian National Institute for the Blind. Rafferty, 43, is its first
"sighted" 

president and CEO. 

His selection for the post has engendered a complicated debate about
identity and employment equity within Canada's diverse blind and
visually impaired community. 

Some, like Sharlyn Ayotte, the blind CEO of Ottawa's T-Base
Communications, argue the CNIB CEO should be selected "on merit alone." 

Others, she says, argue "it's despicable they hired him." 

There are many nuanced positions in between. 

"I don't know," says Neil Graham, a blind computer company manager who
supports the hiring, "if there is a right answer." 

WEARING A BLUE DRESS shirt and a tie, Rafferty sits at a table in front
of his tidy desk. He has blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. He speaks
with the accent of his native England. He projects the low-key
affability of a salesman 

you would introduce to your wife after you wrote him a cheque. 

Rafferty moved to Canada in 1986. He co-founded Canpages, the directory
company, in 2005. As chief operating officer, he oversaw its growth to
$100 million in annual revenue. When he told CEO Olivier Vincent he was
leaving, Vincent, upset, offered him a raise and the title of president.


"I tried everything, including bribing him," Vincent says. "But no, he
had to go. It took me about a week to realize he really had a calling." 

Rafferty, who has held senior positions with Verizon in China and
Poland, British Telecom and Dun and Bradstreet, had planned to seek a
non-profit job, in the spirit of public service, when the younger of his
two daughters graduated high school. She is still in Grade 11. He
accelerated his schedule, he says, "only because it was the CNIB." His
late grandmother was blind for the last 20 years of her life. 

Upon assuming the position in March, Rafferty embarked on a national
tour, meeting the blind and visually impaired in every province. 

CNIB is frequently criticized for failing to listen to the people it
serves, he says. Part of his job is to convince 100,000 clients a
sighted man is the empathizer many of them seek. 

To prove his commitment to their cause, he says, he will likely have to
try harder than would a blind man. 

"I think it is true I can't fully understand," he says. "I can
understand it intellectually, can understand it empathetically. I can't
understand it 100 per cent. But I don't think there's anything I can't
do in the job because I'm sighted." 

The Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians agrees. The Alliance for
Equality of Blind Canadians is also his fiercest critic. 

"YOU MUST UNDERSTAND," says John Rae, the AEBC's first vice-president.
"This is not personal." 

CNIB is an 800-plus-employee behemoth, its $60-plus-million in annual
expenditures dwarfing those of other domestic blind groups. It provides
the most services training, counselling, camps, a national library and
has the highest profile. Its CEO is the de facto leader of blind Canada.


In 2006, CNIB removed the word "blind" from its name, in part to convey
its increasing focus on people experiencing vision loss. To the AEBC,
says Rae, a retired civil servant, the hiring of a sighted man as CEO is
yet another example of CNIB "turning its back on the people it was set
up to serve." 

Rafferty can certainly do the job, Rae says. By selecting him, however,
CNIB has implied that blind Canadians qualified to lead a major
organization do not exist. 

How can CNIB lobby corporations to hire the blind when it will not do so
itself? 

Accustomed to discrimination, minority groups of all types ethnic,
religious, disability can be exacting about the identities of the people
who lead prominent community institutions. The intensity of intramural
leadership debates can surprise outsiders. 

"This community is very complex," says Susan Wolak, a Halton police
officer whose son is blind. "Everybody doesn't play nicely in the
sandbox." 

The CNIB board knew the selection of a sighted chief executive would
prompt criticism. They chose Rafferty anyway, says chair Al Jameson,
"because most important to us were our 100,000 clients and the future of
the organization." 

When, in 2008, Sanders announced his intention to retire as CEO, the
organization was running another budget deficit a year after bleeding
$11.9 million. During a recession, CNIB needed a proven executive who
could quickly improve its financial situation. 

A bylaw, however, reserved the top CNIB post for a blind or visually
impaired person. 

Uncertain they could recruit a suitable candidate from a limited pool,
board members, and then general CNIB members, voted last year to
eliminate the restriction. 

The board still asked its search firm to seek out blind or visually
impaired candidates. "If it had come down to two people, one guy who was
blind and John Rafferty, with exactly the same credentials, the blind
guy would've gotten it," 

says board member Terry Kelly, a blind singer and motivational speaker.
"But that didn't happen." 

Few qualified blind people applied, Jameson and Kelly say. Rafferty was
the unanimous choice of the eight-person search committee, which had
four blind members including Kelly. 

"If you have a 747 to fly, you don't put a guy who flies a Cessna in the
front seat," Kelly says. "There are blind people or people with vision
loss out there who could absolutely do that job. However, they're off
doing their own thing." 

Kelly's intricate position illustrates the complexity of the debate. He
praises Rafferty's listening skills and business acumen. He calls him
"the absolute best choice." Yet he says better succession planning will
ensure "we won't have this problem in the future." 

Like Kelly, Harold Schnellert, national president of the Canadian
Council of the Blind, criticizes the AEBC's criticism of Rafferty. CNIB,
Schnellert says, had to do what was best for its future. 

"In a perfect world," however, qualified blind people would always apply
for and obtain leadership positions at the organizations that serve
them, he says. 

But perhaps some of them have better things to do, says blind lawyer
Robert Fenton. 

If the Rafferty hiring was a product of the unwillingness of blind
professionals to apply, Fenton says, it may symbolize the community's
progress, not its failings. 

Fenton is counsel to the chief of the Calgary police. He may seek the
CNIB leadership in the future. Happy with his current position and busy
with two young children, he declined entreaties from CNIB's search firm
this time. 

"Most of us are pretty successful where we are. We can pursue
opportunities in mainstream industry or government that may be more
attractive to us than going to CNIB. CNIB is a competitor. They have to
compete for qualified people like everybody else does. They don't have a
monopoly on employing blind people." 

He supports the selection of Rafferty. He does not envy Rafferty's
responsibilities. 

Among other daunting short-term challenges, applicants for the job were
asked to balance the CNIB budget in 2009-2010 despite the recession. 

"The way this thing is framed," says Fenton, "you basically have to be
God, Jesus, Muhammad, Allah, Vishnu, and any other religious figure you
can think of rolled into one to be able to do this job." 

THE CHOSEN ONE walks quickly, chatting amiably, through the deserted
halls of CNIB's building after the end of the workday. As Rafferty
passes a set of tables, he tucks in a chair that is slightly askew
without breaking stride. It is not clear if he notices he has done so. 

He will run CNIB, he says, with an eye on the little things. To balance
the budget, CNIB will reduce capital expenditures and limit travel and
hiring; under Sanders, it announced the closure of a money-losing
catering business. 

But there are no imminent service cuts, he insists, and he plans no
radical changes. 

He will attempt to "re-engage and re-inspire" volunteers, vigorously
communicate CNIB's value to potential donors, correct the enduring
misperception that the organization is solely for the fully blind. 

And, like any businessman worth his charity paycheque, he will attempt
to better serve his client base hopefully winning over his vociferous
critics in the process. 

"We have to make sure clients have a voice at the table in every
decision we make," he says. "It's about understanding client needs and
delivering what's important to them most effectively. Fundamentally,
it's not different than other organizations, in some ways." 

In others, he knows, there is no organization like it. 

Toronto Star 

 
***********************
Daniel B. Frye, J.D.
Associate Editor
The Braille Monitor
National Federation of the Blind
Office of the President
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
Telephone: (410) 659-9314 Ext. 2208
Mobile: (410) 241-7006
Fax: (410) 685-5653
Email: DFrye at nfb.org <BLOCKED::mailto:DFrye at nfb.org> 
Web Address: www.nfb.org <BLOCKED::http://www.nfb.org/> 
"Voice of the Nation's Blind"
 
 
***********************
Daniel B. Frye, J.D.
Associate Editor
The Braille Monitor
National Federation of the Blind
Office of the President
1800 Johnson Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230
Telephone: (410) 659-9314 Ext. 2208
Mobile: (410) 241-7006
Fax: (410) 685-5653
Email: DFrye at nfb.org
Web Address: www.nfb.org <http://www.nfb.org/> 
"Voice of the Nation's Blind"