<html>
<head></head>
<body>
blind guy featured
<br />
<br />
<span class="signature">Kathryn Carroll<br /> Intern, One Billion Strong<br /> J.D. Candidate, St. John's University School of Law Class of 2013<br /> Google Voice: (347) 455-1521</span>
<br />
<br />
<hr />
<b>From:</b>
<a href="mailto:Rita, Sherri (Sherri.Rita@americanbar.org)">Rita, Sherri (Sherri.Rita@americanbar.org)</a>
<br />
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, January 18, 2013 02:32 PM
<br />
<b>To:</b>
<a href="mailto:3D@mail.americanbar.org">3D@mail.americanbar.org</a>
<br />
<b>Subject</b>: [ABA-3D] WRP SUCCESS STORY: ENTERPRISING INTERN NOW SEC LAWYER
<div style="height:5px">
</div>
<meta content="text/html; charset=us-ascii" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
<meta content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)" name="Generator" />
<style type="text/css">
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Arial Narrow";
panose-1:2 11 5 6 2 2 2 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
h1
{mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-link:"Heading 1 Char";
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:24.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
font-weight:bold;}
h3
{mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-link:"Heading 3 Char";
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:13.5pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
font-weight:bold;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";
color:windowtext;
font-weight:normal;
font-style:normal;
text-decoration:none none;}
span.Heading1Char
{mso-style-name:"Heading 1 Char";
mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-link:"Heading 1";
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
font-weight:bold;}
span.Heading3Char
{mso-style-name:"Heading 3 Char";
mso-style-priority:9;
mso-style-link:"Heading 3";
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
font-weight:bold;}
span.timestamp
{mso-style-name:timestamp;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
<div class="WordSection1">
<h1> <span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";color:black;font-weight:normal">Workforce Recruitment Program Success Story: Enterprising Intern Now SEC Lawyer (from January 18, 2013 EARN Newsletter):
<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1> <span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";color:black;font-weight:normal">James “Tyler” Kirk, a lawyer at the Securities Exchange Commission, got his start in 2010 as an intern through the Workforce Recruitment Program (WRP). Though he lost his eyesight at the age of nine to Stargardt disease, a form of macular degeneration, he never stopped pursuing his goals. Now 29, he loves his work and the life he has built.
<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1> <span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";color:black;font-weight:normal">“I didn’t have a question whether or not I could perform the work. I knew I could handle it, but what did concern me was whether or not I could be provided with the tools that I need to do that job because of my disability,” said Kirk, who uses Apple technology because the hardware is equipped with accessibility settings that read text back as a voice-over.
<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1> <span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";color:black;font-weight:normal">Although the EEOC has not set specific hiring goals for those with severe disabilities, a 2010 executive order called for an additional 100,000 workers with disabilities to be employed by the federal sector by 2015.
<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1> <span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";color:black;font-weight:normal">“People with disabilities are part of the population, and we want to reflect that. We know the disability workforce is an untapped pool of workers,” said Kathy Martinez, the assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy, who has been blind since birth.
<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1> <span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";color:black;font-weight:normal">The WRP database currently includes 2915 students, including 228 veterans, recruited from 272 colleges nationwide and representing 125 majors.
<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";font-weight:normal"><a href="http://bit.ly/UMBez5" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">Click here for more information and resources on the WRP. </span></a></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";color:black;font-weight:normal">
<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h1> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Working a ‘dream job’ at the SEC
<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h3> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";font-weight:normal">By Josie Duckett, <span class="timestamp">Published: January 3, 2013
<o:p></o:p></span></span></h3>
<h3> <span class="timestamp"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";font-weight:normal">(<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/working-a-dream-job-at-the-sec/2013/01/03/0685d260-4acc-11e2-b709-667035ff9029_print.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/working-a-dream-job-at-the-sec/2013/01/03/0685d260-4acc-11e2-b709-667035ff9029_print.html</a>) </span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";font-weight:normal">
<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">James “Tyler” Kirk walks the two blocks to his office at the Securities and Exchange Commission every morning, thinking about how lucky he is.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">He’s 29, loves his work as an SEC lawyer and loves the life he has built.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">But those two blocks can be dicey. “The most stressful part of my job is crossing Massachusetts Avenue. My heart is literally in my throat,” said Kirk, who lost his eyesight when he was 9 to Stargardt disease, a form of macular degeneration.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">It never stopped him from pursuing his goals, though, and Kirk, with his black Labrador service dog Sailor, makes it across a busy thoroughfare every workday.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“I love economics, I love business, I love investment,” Kirk said. “This is my dream job, and how could you not be happy working in your dream job?”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of nearly 2.8 million employees are <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-increasing-federal-employment-individuals-with-disabilities" target="_blank">blind</a>, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Since 2001, the number of workers with severe “targeted disabilities” such as deafness, missing extremities or paralysis decreased by 6 percent. Blindness is also a targeted disability, and in recent years the government has increased its number of workers in that category.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Although the EEOC has not set specific hiring goals for those with severe disabilities, a <span class="MsoHyperlink">2010 executive order </span>called for an additional 100,000 workers with general disabilities by 2015.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“You have to set goals high, or nothing will ever move,” said Kathy Martinez, the assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy, who has been blind since birth.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“People with disabilities are part of the population, and we want to reflect that. We know the disability workforce is an untapped pool of workers,” she said.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Kirk began as an SEC intern in 2010 through the Workforce Recruitment Program, an effort sponsored by the Labor and Defense departments that recruits students with disabilities. He was a law student at the time.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">After a summer working in the agency’s Miami field office, Kirk was hired as SEC Chairwoman Elisse B. Walter’s only intern in summer 2011.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“She and her staff interviewed Kirk over the phone, and they said, ‘We want him,’ ” said Laura Stomski, a former SEC disabilities program officer who helped recruit Kirk.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">After graduating from the University of Miami Law School in May, Kirk took a job as counsel in the Enforcement Liaison Office at the SEC’s Investment Management Division.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“Our job is to facilitate communication between the enforcement attorneys and the special brain trust we have inside investment management,” Kirk said. “A lot of what I do is work with enforcement attorneys on how they frame their cases.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">His eighth-floor work area is unadorned and dark because he is sensitive to light. Sailor rests on a dog bed in the corner as Kirk works at the computer.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“I didn’t have a question whether or not I could perform the work. I knew I could handle it, but what did concern me was whether or not I could be provided with the tools that I need to do that job because of my disability,” said Kirk, who uses Apple technology because the hardware is equipped with accessibility settings that read text back as a voice-over.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">The SEC was beginning an Apple pilot program when Kirk was hired, he said. “It definitely did help lure me in,” he added.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Stargardt disease was diagnosed in Kirk in 1992. He was living in Atlanta with his parents, Mike and Connie Kirk, and siblings Jerad and Katie.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">The disease damages the macula, the tissue at the center of the retina. It is caused by gene mutation when both parents are recessive carriers. It rapidly destroys central vision but typically does not cause total blindness. The vision in Kirk’s eyes went to 20/200 within months of diagnosis.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Mike Kirk said that his son fought “to stay in the visual world,” retaining portions of his peripheral vision for years. Today, he distinguishes light and dark only.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“I remember sitting in the back of class and still seeing the chalkboard. I can remember being able to open up a book and read the page. I remember doing those things, and now the act of doing that seems completely foreign,” Kirk said.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">He is mindful of eye contact, handshakes and posture, occasionally causing strangers to ask whether he is truly blind.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">His parents helped prepare him for his new life.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“I tell all my kids: When you meet adults, you need to act mature. You need to reach out, give ’em a good handshake. Look them in the eyes,” Mike Kirk said. “And I told Tyler [that] nothing changes — it’s probably more important for you now than ever before.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">James Kirk attended public school and played sports.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“We let him figure it out, riding bikes and all,” his mother said. “He crashed and burned a lot. He came home bruised and bloodied more times than I can even think about.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Atlanta school officials warned that Kirk might take longer to finish high school, but he became the Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s Senior of the Year, finished college early, then earned a master’s in economics and a law degree.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Kirk has mastered life’s routines. He shops for clothing online, organizing it based on color with Braille labels. Friends help with grocery shopping, but he prepares meals and does laundry. He and Sailor confidently navigate their Capitol Hill neighborhood. His barber, dry cleaners and favorite pub are close.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">And he dates with a certain advantage, he said. “Let me put it this way: My situation incentivizes relationships that are not superficial.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">With Stomski’s help, Kirk and Sailor learned their way around the SEC.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p> <span style="font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">“These buildings can be confusing,” Kirk said. “But Sailor — he can give tours of the place.”
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">
<o:p>
</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">
<o:p>
</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Sherri L. Rita, J.D.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Program Specialist
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Commission on Disability Rights (CDR)-Mail Stop 11.0
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">American Bar Association (ABA)
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">740 15th St. NW
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">Washington, DC 20005-1022
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">T: 202.662.1572
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">F: 202.442.3439
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif""><a href="mailto:sherri.rita@americanbar.org">sherri.rita@americanbar.org</a></span>
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif";color:navy"><a href="http://www.americanbar.org/groups/disabilityrights.html" target="_blank" title="blocked::http://www.americanbar.org/groups/disabilityrights.html"><span style="color:black">http://www.americanbar.org/groups/disabilityrights.html</span></a></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif""> </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow","sans-serif"">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
<o:p>
</o:p></p>
</div>
<style type="text/css">
</style>
</body>
</html>