[Ohio-Talk] A quick message to motivate you in the NFBO including a personal recording.

[Andra Stover]

Thank you for sharing this Richard. I am so glad I have been a part of this
wonderful organization for almost 2 years now :-).

On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 11:57 AM Richard Payne via Ohio-Talk <
ohio-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Who Are the Blind Who Lead the Blind?
>
> From the Editor: Though brief profiles of the members of the current board
> of directors can be found on our Website at any time, we periodically
> revise and reprint here a compilation we have used for years. It includes
> profiles of Dr. tenBroek, Dr. Jernigan, and members of the current NFB
> board. A number of changes to the board have occurred since we last
> published this piece in January 2007, so here it is:
>
> Introduction
>
> The National Federation of the Blind has become by far the most
> significant force in the affairs of the blind today, and its actions have
> had an impact on many other groups and programs. The Federation's
> president, Marc Maurer, radiates confidence and persuasiveness. He says,
> "If I can find twenty people who care about a thing, then we can get it
> done. And if there are two hundred, two thousand, or twenty thousand,
> that's even better."
>
> The National Federation of the Blind is a civil rights movement with all
> that the term implies. President Maurer says, "You can't expect to obtain
> freedom by having somebody else hand it to you. You have to do the job
> yourself. The French could not have won the American Revolution for us.
> That would merely have shifted the governing authority from one colonial
> power to another. So too we the blind are the only ones who can win freedom
> for the blind, which is both frightening and reassuring. If we don't get
> out and do what we must, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We have
> control of the essential elements."
>
> Although many organizations and agencies for the blind exist in the United
> States today, there is only one National Federation of the Blind. This
> organization was established in 1940 when the blind of seven
> states‑‑California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
> Wisconsin‑‑sent delegates to its first convention at Wilkes‑Barre,
> Pennsylvania. Since that time progress has been rapid and steady. The
> Federation is recognized by blind men and women throughout the entire
> country as their primary means of joint expression; and today‑‑with active
> affiliates in every state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico‑‑it is
> the primary voice of the nation's blind.
>
> To explain this spectacular growth, three questions must be asked and
> answered: (1) What are the conditions in the general environment of the
> blind which have impelled them to organize? (2) What are the purpose,
> belief, and philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind? (3) Who are
> its leaders, and what are their qualifications to understand and solve the
> problems of blindness? Even a brief answer to these questions is
> instructive.
>
> When the Federation came into being in 1940, the outlook for the blind was
> anything but bright. The nation's welfare system was so discouraging to
> individual initiative that those forced to accept public assistance had
> little hope of ever achieving self‑support again, and those who sought
> competitive employment in regular industry or the professions found most of
> the doors barred against them. The universal goodwill expressed toward the
> blind was not the wholesome goodwill of respect felt toward equals; it was
> the misguided goodwill of pity felt toward inferiors. In effect the system
> said to the blind, "Sit on the sidelines of life. This game is not for you.
> If you have creative talents, we are sorry, but we cannot use them." The
> Federation came into being to combat these expressions of discrimination
> and to promote new ways of thought concerning blindness. Although great
> progress has been made toward the achievement of these goals, much still
> remains to be done.
>
> The Federation believes that blind people are essentially normal and that
> blindness in itself is not a mental or psychological handicap. It can be
> reduced to the level of a mere physical nuisance. Legal, economic, and
> social discrimination based upon the false assumption that the blind are
> somehow different from the sighted must be abolished, and equal opportunity
> must be made available to blind people. Because of their personal
> experience with blindness, the blind themselves are best qualified to lead
> the way in solving their own problems, but the general public should be
> invited to participate in finding solutions. Upon these fundamentals the
> National Federation of the Blind predicates its philosophy.
>
> As for the leadership of the organization, all of the officers and members
> of the board of directors are blind, and all give generously of their time
> and resources in promoting the work of the Federation. The board consists
> of seventeen elected members, five of whom are the constitutional officers
> of the organization. These members of the board of directors represent a
> wide cross-section of the blind population of the United States. Their
> backgrounds are different, and their experiences vary widely; but they are
> drawn together by the common bond of having met blindness individually and
> successfully in their own lives and by their united desire to see other
> blind people have the opportunity to do likewise. A profile of the
> leadership of the organization shows why it is so effective and
> demonstrates the progress made by blind people during the past seventy
> years--for in the story of the lives of these leaders can be found the
> greatest testimonial to the soundness of the Federation's philosophy. The
> cumulative record of their individual achievements is an overwhelming
> proof, leading to an inescapable conclusion.
>
>
> Jacobus tenBroek
> Founder of the National Federation of the Blind
> (Author, Jurist, and Professor)
>
> Hazel and Jacobus tenBroekThe moving force in the founding of the National
> Federation of the Blind, and its spiritual and intellectual father, was
> Jacobus tenBroek. Born in 1911, young tenBroek (the son of a prairie
> homesteader in Canada) lost the sight of one eye as the result of a
> bow‑and‑arrow accident at the age of seven. His remaining eyesight
> deteriorated until at the age of fourteen he was totally blind. Shortly
> afterward he and his family traveled to Berkeley so that he could attend
> the California School for the Blind. Within three years he was an active
> part of the local organization of the blind.
>
> By 1934 he had joined Dr. Newel Perry and others to form the California
> Council of the Blind, which later became the National Federation of the
> Blind of California. This organization was a prototype for the nationwide
> federation that tenBroek would form six years later.
>
> The same year the Federation was founded (1940), Jacobus tenBroek received
> his doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of California, completed
> a year as Brandeis Research Fellow at Harvard Law School, and was appointed
> to the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School.
>
> Two years later he began teaching at the University of California at
> Berkeley, becoming a full professor in 1953, chairman of the department of
> speech in 1955, and professor of political science in 1963. During this
> period Professor tenBroek published several books and more than fifty
> articles and monographs in the fields of welfare, government, and
> law--establishing a reputation as one of the nation's foremost scholars on
> matters of constitutional law. One of his books, Prejudice, War, and the
> Constitution, won the Woodrow Wilson Award of the American Political
> Science Association in 1955 as the best book of the year on government and
> democracy. Other books are California's Dual System of Family Law (1964),
> Hope Deferred: Public Welfare and the Blind (1959), The Antislavery Origins
> of the Fourteenth Amendment (1951)--revised and republished in 1965 as
> Equal Under Law, and The Law of the Poor (edited in 1966).
>
> In the course of his academic career Professor tenBroek was a fellow at
> the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Palo Alto and
> was twice the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation. In
> 1947 he earned the degree of S.J.D. from Harvard Law School. In addition he
> was awarded honorary degrees by two institutions of higher learning.
>
> Dr. tenBroek's lifelong companion was his devoted wife Hazel. Together
> they raised three children and worked inseparably on research, writing, and
> academic and Federation projects. Until her declining health prevented
> travel, Mrs. tenBroek continued as an active member of the organized blind
> movement. She died October 7, 2005.
>
> In 1950 Dr. tenBroek was made a member of the California State Board of
> Social Welfare by Governor Earl Warren. Later reappointed to the board
> three times, he was elected its chairman in 1960 and served in that
> capacity until 1963.
>
> The brilliance of Jacobus tenBroek's career led some skeptics to suggest
> that his achievements were beyond the reach of what they called the
> "ordinary blind person." What tenBroek recognized in himself was not that
> he was exceptional, but that he was normal--that his blindness had nothing
> to do with whether he could be a successful husband and father, do
> scholarly research, write a book, make a speech, guide students engaged in
> social action, or otherwise lead a productive life.
>
> Jacobus tenBroek died of cancer at the age of fifty‑six in 1968. His
> successor, Kenneth Jernigan, in a memorial address, said truly of him: "The
> relationship of this man to the organized blind movement, which he brought
> into being in the United States and around the world, was such that it
> would be equally accurate to say that the man was the embodiment of the
> movement or that the movement was the expression of the man.
>
> "For tens of thousands of blind Americans over more than a quarter of a
> century, he was leader, mentor, spokesman, and philosopher. He gave to the
> organized blind movement the force of his intellect and the shape of his
> dreams. He made it the symbol of a cause barely imagined before his coming:
> the cause of self‑expression, self‑direction, and self‑sufficiency on the
> part of blind people. Step-by-step, year-by-year, action-by-action, he made
> that cause succeed."
>
>
> Kenneth Jernigan
> (Teacher, Writer, and Administrator)
>
> Mary Ellen and Kenneth JerniganKenneth Jernigan was a leader in the
> National Federation of the Blind for more than forty‑six years. He was
> president (with one brief interruption) from 1968 until July of 1986. Even
> after Jernigan ceased to be president of the Federation, he continued as
> one of its principal leaders until his death on October 12, 1998. He was
> loved and respected by tens of thousands of members and nonmembers of the
> Federation, both blind and sighted.
>
> Born in 1926, Kenneth Jernigan grew up on a farm in central Tennessee. He
> received his elementary and secondary education at the school for the blind
> in Nashville. After high school Jernigan managed a furniture shop in Beech
> Grove, Tennessee, making all the furniture and operating the business.
>
> In the fall of 1945 Jernigan matriculated at Tennessee Technological
> University in Cookeville. Active in campus affairs from the outset, he was
> soon elected to office in his class and to important positions in other
> student organizations. Jernigan graduated with honors in 1948 with a B.S.
> degree in social science. In 1949 he received a master's degree in English
> from Peabody College in Nashville, where he subsequently completed
> additional graduate study. While at Peabody he was a staff writer for the
> school newspaper, co‑founder of an independent literary magazine, and
> member of the Writers' Club. In 1949 he received the Captain Charles W.
> Browne Award, at that time presented annually by the American Foundation
> for the Blind to the nation's outstanding blind student.
>
> Jernigan then spent four years as a teacher of English at the Tennessee
> School for the Blind. During this period he became active in the Tennessee
> Association of the Blind (now the National Federation of the Blind of
> Tennessee). He was elected to the vice presidency of the organization in
> 1950 and to the presidency in 1951. In that position he planned the 1952
> annual convention of the National Federation of the Blind, which was held
> in Nashville, and he then planned every NFB national convention through
> 1998.
>
> In 1952 Jernigan was first elected to the NFB board of directors, and in
> 1953 he was appointed to the faculty of the California Orientation Center
> for the Blind in Oakland, where he played a major role in developing the
> best program of its kind then in existence.
>
>  From 1958 until 1978 he served as director of the Iowa State Commission
> for the Blind. In this capacity he was responsible for administering state
> rehabilitation programs, home teaching, home industries, an orientation and
> adjustment center, and library services for the blind and physically
> handicapped. The improvements made in services to the blind of Iowa under
> the Jernigan administration have never before or since been equaled
> anywhere in the country.
>
> In 1960 the Federation presented Jernigan with its Newel Perry Award for
> outstanding accomplishment in services for the blind. In 1968 he was given
> a special citation by the president of the United States. Harold Russell,
> the chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped,
> came to Des Moines to present the award. He said: "If a person must be
> blind, it is better to be blind in Iowa than anywhere else in the nation or
> in the world. This statement," the citation went on to say, "sums up the
> story of the Iowa Commission for the Blind during the Jernigan years and
> more pertinently of its director, Kenneth Jernigan. That narrative is much
> more than a success story. It is the story of high aspiration magnificently
> accomplished‑‑of an impossible dream become reality."
>
> Jernigan received too many honors and awards to enumerate individually,
> including honorary doctorates from four institutions of higher education.
> He was also asked to serve as a special consultant to or member of numerous
> boards and advisory bodies. The most notable among these are member of the
> National Advisory Committee on Services for the Blind and Physically
> Handicapped (appointed in 1972 by the secretary of the Department of
> Health, Education, and Welfare); special consultant on services for the
> blind (appointed in 1975 by the federal commissioner of rehabilitation);
> advisor on museum programs for blind visitors to the Smithsonian
> Institution (appointed in 1975); special advisor to the White House
> Conference on Library and Information Services (appointed in 1977 by
> President Gerald Ford). In July of 1990 Jernigan received an award for
> distinguished service from the president of the United States.
>
> To date he has been the only person ever to be invited to deliver keynote
> addresses to the primary gatherings of the two worldwide blindness
> organizations in a single year: the fourth quadrennial meeting of the World
> Blind Union in August 1996 and the annual meeting of the International
> Council for the Education of the Visually Impaired in spring 1997. In 1998
> he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Council of
> State Agencies for the Blind, the first-ever International Leadership Award
> from the American Foundation for the Blind, and the Canadian National
> Institute for the Blind's Winston Gordon Award for his leadership in
> establishing NEWSLINE® for the Blind.
>
> Kenneth Jernigan's writings and speeches on blindness are better known and
> have touched the lives of more blind people than those of any other person
> writing today. From 1991 until his death he edited the NFB's immensely
> popular series of paperbacks known as the Kernel Books. On July 23, 1975,
> he spoke before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and his
> address was broadcast live throughout the nation on National Public Radio.
> Through the years he appeared repeatedly on network radio and television
> interview programs.
>
> In 1978 Jernigan moved to Baltimore to become executive director of the
> American Brotherhood for the Blind (now the American Action Fund for Blind
> Children and Adults) and director of the National Center for the Blind. As
> president of the National Federation of the Blind at that time, he led the
> organization through the most impressive period of growth in its history to
> date. The creation and development of the National Center for the Blind and
> the NFB's expansion into its position today as the most influential voice
> and force in the affairs of the blind stand as the culmination of Kenneth
> Jernigan's lifework and a tribute to his brilliance and commitment to the
> blind of this nation.
>
> From 1987 to 1997 he played an active role internationally as president of
> the North America/Caribbean Region of the World Blind Union. He traveled
> widely and spoke frequently before international groups about blindness and
> the NFB's positive philosophy that changes lives and society.
>
> Jernigan's dynamic wife Mary Ellen remains an active member of the
> Federation. Although sighted, she works with dedication in the movement and
> is known and loved by thousands of Federationists throughout the country.
>
> Speaking at a convention of the National Federation of the Blind, Jernigan
> said of the organization and its philosophy (and also of his own
> philosophy):
>
>
>
> "As we look ahead, the world holds more hope than gloom for us‑‑and, best
> of all, the future is in our own hands. For the first time in history we
> can be our own masters and do with our lives what we will; and the sighted
> (as they learn who we are and what we are) can and will work with us as
> equals and partners. In other words we are capable of full membership in
> society, and the sighted are capable of accepting us as such‑‑and, for the
> most part, they want to.
>
> "We want no Uncle Toms--no sellouts, no apologists, no rationalizers; but
> we also want no militant hell‑raisers or unbudging radicals. One will hurt
> our cause as much as the other. We must win true equality in society, but
> we must not dehumanize ourselves in the process; and we must not forget the
> graces and amenities, the compassions and courtesies which comprise
> civilization itself and distinguish people from animals and life from
> existence.
>
> "Let people call us what they will and say what they please about our
> motives and our movement. There is only one way for the blind to achieve
> first‑class citizenship and true equality. It must be done through
> collective action and concerted effort; and that means the National
> Federation of the Blind. There is no other way, and those who say otherwise
> are either uninformed or unwilling to face the facts.
>
> "We are the strongest force in the affairs of the blind today, and we must
> also recognize the responsibilities of power and the fact that we must
> build a world that is worth living in when the war is over--and, for that
> matter, while we are fighting it. In short, we must use both love and a
> club, and we must have sense enough to know when to do which‑‑long on
> compassion; short on hatred; and, above all, not using our philosophy as a
> cop‑out for cowardice or inaction or rationalization. We know who we are
> and what we must do--and we will never go back. The public is not against
> us. Our determination proclaims it; our gains confirm it; our humanity
> demands it."
>
>
> Marc Maurer
> President
> (Attorney and Executive)
>
> Marc MaurerBorn in 1951, Marc Maurer was the second in a family of six
> children. His blindness was caused by overexposure to oxygen after his
> premature birth, but he and his parents were determined that this should
> not prevent him from living a full and normal life.
>
> He began his education at the Iowa Braille and Sight-Saving School, where
> he became an avid Braille reader. In the fifth grade he returned home to
> Boone, Iowa, where he attended parochial schools. During high school
> (having taken all the courses in the curriculum), he simultaneously took
> classes at the junior college.
>
> Maurer ran three different businesses before finishing high school: a
> paper route, a lawn care business, and an enterprise producing and
> marketing maternity garter belts designed by his mother. This last venture
> was so successful that his younger brother took over the business when
> Maurer left home.
>
> In the summer of 1969, after graduating from high school, Maurer enrolled
> as a student at the Orientation and Adjustment Center of the Iowa
> Commission for the Blind and attended his first convention of the NFB. He
> was delighted to discover in both places that blind people and what they
> thought mattered. This was a new phenomenon in his experience, and it
> changed his life. Kenneth Jernigan was director of the Iowa Commission for
> the Blind at the time, and Maurer soon grew to admire and respect him. When
> Maurer expressed an interest in overhauling a car engine, the Commission
> for the Blind purchased the necessary equipment. Maurer completed that
> project and actually worked for a time as an automobile mechanic. He
> believes today that mastering engine repair played an important part in
> changing his attitudes about blindness.
>
> Maurer graduated cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in 1974. As
> an undergraduate he took an active part in campus life, including election
> to the Honor Society. Then he enrolled at the University of Indiana School
> of Law, where he received his Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1977.
>
> Maurer was elected president of the Student Division of the National
> Federation of the Blind in 1971 and reelected in 1973 and 1975. Also in
> 1971 at the age of twenty he was elected vice president of the National
> Federation of the Blind of Indiana. He was elected president in 1973 and
> reelected in 1975.
>
> During law school Maurer worked summers for the office of the secretary of
> state of Indiana. After graduation he moved to Toledo, Ohio, to accept a
> position as the director of the Senior Legal Assistance Project operated by
> ABLE (Advocates for Basic Legal Equality).
>
> In 1978 Maurer moved to Washington, D.C., to become an attorney with the
> Rates and Routes Division in the office of the general counsel of the Civil
> Aeronautics Board. Initially he worked on rates cases but soon advanced to
> dealing with international matters and then to doing research and writing
> opinions on constitutional issues and board action. He wrote opinions for
> the chairman and made appearances before the full board to discuss those
> opinions.
>
> In 1981 he went into private practice in Baltimore, Maryland, where he
> specialized in civil litigation and property matters. But increasingly he
> concentrated on representing blind individuals and groups in the courts. He
> has now become one of the most experienced and knowledgeable attorneys in
> the country regarding the laws, precedents, and administrative rulings
> concerning civil rights and discrimination against the blind. He is a
> member of the Bar in Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, and Maryland and a member of the
> Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.
>
> Maurer has always been active in civic and political affairs, having run
> for the state legislature from Baltimore. Through the years he has also
> served on the board of directors of his apartment complex's tenants
> association, the board of his community association, and the school board
> of his children's school. In 1981 Maurer was elected president of the
> National Association of Blind Lawyers and served in that office until 1985.
> From 1984 until 1986 he served as president of the National Federation of
> the Blind of Maryland.
>
> An important companion in Maurer's activities and a leader in her own
> right is his wife Patricia. The Maurers were married in 1973, and they have
> two children--David Patrick, born March 10, 1984, and Dianna Marie, born
> July 12, 1987.
>
> At the 1985 convention in Louisville, Kentucky, Kenneth Jernigan announced
> that he would not stand for re-election as president of the National
> Federation of the Blind the following year, and he recommended Marc Maurer
> as his successor. In Kansas City in 1986 the Convention elected Maurer by
> resounding acclamation, and he has served as president ever since. From
> 1997 to 2000 he also served as president of the North America/Caribbean
> Region of the World Blind Union, and he chaired the WBU Committee on the
> Restoration of the Louis Braille Birthplace in Coupvray, France. In 2004 he
> became vice president of the World Blind Union North America/Caribbean
> Region and in 2006 reassumed the presidency.
>
> Maurer was honored with the Maryland Black Caucus's Leadership Award in
> 1985, the United States Presidential Medal for Leadership in 1990, the 1990
> Heritage Award from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and the
> Baltimore Business Journal's 1999 Innovation Award for Excellence in
> Workplace Technology. Recent honors include the 2002 VME Robert Dole Award
> and the Daily Record's 2002 Innovator of the Year award. He joined
> President George W. Bush in the Oval Office in July of 2001 to celebrate
> the success of the NFB Everest Expedition and once again when President
> Bush signed into law the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The Daily Record
> acknowledged President Maurer's contributions again in April 2009 when he
> was recognized as an Influential Marylander. He received honorary degrees
> from California's Menlo College in 1998 and the University of Louisville in
> 1999. More recently he received an honorary doctorate from the University
> of South Carolina Upstate and the honorary doctorate of laws from the
> University of Notre Dame. In 1987 he delivered an address at the Kennedy
> School of Government at Harvard University, and in 2000 he was invited to
> deliver addresses on civil rights at Oxford University and Birmingham
> University in the United Kingdom. After Kenneth Jernigan’s death he edited
> the NFB's Kernel Book series of optimistic paperbacks written by blind
> people about blindness.
>
> As president of the National Federation of the Blind, Maurer is boldly
> leading the organization into a new test of its resolve, beginning with the
> visionary expansion of the National Center for the Blind--the National
> Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute, which was completed in the
> spring of 2004. The facility, located on the grounds of the National
> Center, has added more than 170,000 square feet to the NFB's headquarters
> complex. The Institute, which is the first of its kind, conceived and built
> by the blind for the blind, is developing innovative education,
> technologies, products, and services that support independence for the
> world's blind. One of the early products of the Institute was the
> Kurzweil–National Federation of the Blind handheld reading machine and its
> even smaller successor, the knfbReader Mobile, produced in conjunction with
> the noted futurist and inventor, Raymond Kurzweil. Maurer's unswerving
> determination to succeed and his absolute conviction that the organized
> blind are the best-equipped people to solve the problems facing them have
> set the tone and are guiding the organization into an exciting new period
> of growth and accomplishment.
>
>
>
> Fredric Schroeder
> First Vice President
> (Research Professor and Orientation and Mobility Pioneer)
>
> Fred SchroederDr. Fredric K. Schroeder was born in Lima, Peru, in 1957. He
> and his brother Steve were adopted and moved to the United States when he
> was nineteen months old. Born with normal vision, Dr. Schroeder became
> blind at the age of seven after suffering a severe allergic reaction known
> as Stephens-Johnson's syndrome. The reaction did not immediately take all
> his sight, but his vision deteriorated gradually over a nine-year period,
> leaving him totally blind at the age of sixteen.
>
> He attended public school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but received no
> special education services to teach him to read Braille or learn any
> alternative techniques that would allow him to function competitively.
> Although raised in New Mexico, Dr. Schroeder spent much time in San
> Francisco receiving medical treatment in an effort to save his vision. As a
> result he was living in California when he became totally blind. For this
> reason, following graduation from high school, Dr. Schroeder attended the
> Orientation Center for the Blind in Albany, California. There he found the
> Federation, and his involvement in the organization has been central to his
> life and work ever since.
>
> Through the Federation he met blind people from all walks of life who
> encouraged him, eventually convincing him that he could live a normal,
> productive life. Dr. Schroeder attended San Francisco State University,
> earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1977 and a master's degree in
> special education in 1978. After completing that degree, he went to work
> teaching cane travel in the Nebraska Services for the Visually Impaired's
> orientation center in Lincoln. For the next two years he returned each
> summer to California to complete postgraduate studies in orientation and
> mobility in order to become eligible for national certification as a cane
> travel teacher. This was revolutionary at the time. He was the first blind
> person ever to be admitted to a university program in orientation and
> mobility. Although he graduated with distinction, he was denied
> certification solely on the basis of blindness. Nevertheless, that did not
> stop him from continuing with his career or education. He earned a Ph.D. in
> education administration from the University of New Mexico in May 1994.
>
> His professional achievements are impressive. In 1980 he returned to New
> Mexico to work as a teacher of blind children for the Albuquerque Public
> Schools. Knowing how important the Federation had been in his own life, he
> immediately began integrating Federation philosophy into his work. In a
> year he was running the program for blind children across the district. The
> results were dramatic and the program so effective that in the early 1980s
> the district's program for blind children was featured on the Today Show.
>
> While at that time in New Mexico programs for blind children were the
> finest in the nation, services for blind adults were among the poorest. As
> president of the New Mexico affiliate of the National Federation of the
> Blind, Dr. Schroeder was deeply troubled by the lack of employment
> opportunities for blind people in the state.
> In 1986, after a long, bitter legislative fight, the Federation succeeded
> in establishing the New Mexico Commission for the Blind. Dr. Schroeder was
> appointed the Commission's first executive director, giving him the
> opportunity to bring Federation philosophy into the work of the newly
> founded agency. In a short time the program was transformed, and soon the
> New Mexico Commission for the Blind stood out as the most progressive and
> successful rehabilitation agency in the country. Under Dr. Schroeder's
> leadership blind people in New Mexico were being assisted to go to work in
> very good jobs—in fact, jobs paying so well that they had higher earnings
> than blind people anywhere else in the nation.
>
> Dr. Schroeder's accomplishments did not go unnoticed. In 1994 President
> Bill Clinton appointed Schroeder to serve as the ninth commissioner of the
> Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) within the U.S. Department of
> Education. As RSA commissioner he administered a $2.5 billion dollar
> program providing services to more than one million people with
> disabilities each year. He focused on high-quality employment--better jobs,
> jobs with a future, jobs enabling people to achieve a good and equitable
> standard of living. His crowning achievement as RSA commissioner was ending
> the shameful practice of placing blind people in sheltered workshops, often
> at subminimum wages, rather than providing training to enable them to
> obtain high-quality, integrated employment with better wages and the
> opportunity for upward mobility. Following his service as RSA commissioner,
> he joined the faculty of the Interwork Institute at San Diego State
> University. He now works as a research professor specializing in leadership
> and public policy in vocational rehabilitation.
>
> His involvement in the National Federation of the Blind continues. On July
> 5, 2006, Dr. Schroeder was unanimously elected first vice president of the
> National Federation of the Blind. In addition to his service on the
> Federation's board of directors, since 2004 he has served as the president
> of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia and often represents
> the Federation at national and international meetings and conferences.
>
> Dr. Schroeder is married to Cathy Nusser Schroeder. They have two
> children, Carrie, born in 1981, and Matthew, born in 1983. Dr. Schroeder is
> the first to admit that it is the Federation that has made the difference
> in his life, enabling him to achieve professionally and to live a normal,
> productive life. In his own words, "We still have much work to do. Far too
> many blind people still face discrimination, still live in isolation and
> poverty, still lack access to the encouragement and training they need to
> live productive, integrated lives. Nevertheless, in spite of all that
> remains to be done, because of the National Federation of the Blind,
> opportunities are better for blind people today than at any time in
> history. The change we have made cannot be turned back, cannot be taken
> away. We have changed forever what it means to be blind, and we and society
> are better off as a result."
>
>
> Ron Brown
> Second Vice President
> (Businessman and Advocate)
>
> Ron BrownRon Brown was born in Gary, Indiana, the first boy of eight
> children, to Marzette and Myra Brown on May 15, 1956. When he was a senior
> in high school, he became blind after he was shot on his way home from a
> basketball game. At the time he knew nothing about blindness and was
> overwhelmed by the feeling that his entire life had been radically changed
> in an instant. One of the first painful lessons he learned was that many of
> his friends could not deal with his blindness and stayed away from him.
> Luckily he began to make new friends, members of the National Federation of
> the Blind. They became inspiring role models for Ron, teaching him that it
> was respectable to be blind and that he could continue to strive for the
> goals he had set himself.
>
> Armed with this newfound freedom, Ron graduated from Ball State University
> with a bachelor of science degree in health science. He then went to work
> at Tradewinds Rehabilitation Center in Indiana, where he met his wife Jean,
> who was on the staff. Eventually he was offered a job in the Business
> Enterprise Program. He had always wanted to own his own business, and this
> gave him the opportunity to do so. He has now been in business for himself
> for twenty years. More recently Ron returned to school to earn a master's
> degree in educational psychology with a certification in orientation and
> mobility from Louisiana Tech University. He now owns a second business,
> teaching cane travel to blind people in the state of Indiana. Ron has
> received the Mayor's Lifetime Achievement Award in Rehabilitation and the
> Margaret Fairbearing Outstanding Service Award for Business and Industry.
>
> As Ron Brown has developed and matured in his personal life, his
> commitment to and service in the National Federation of the Blind have
> deepened as well. In the early years he was a chapter president and was
> then elected to the NFB of Indiana's board of directors. He was first
> elected president of the affiliate in 1996 and has been reelected every two
> years since. In 2001 he was elected to serve on the NFB board of directors.
> He served in this capacity until 2008, when the Convention elected him to
> serve as second vice president of the organization.
>
> Looking back, Ron says, "Becoming a member of the national board is the
> fulfillment of a life dream. I have been an advocate for blind people for
> more than twenty-five years, and with every passing year my commitment to
> serving the blind of this nation increases. My life indeed changed the
> night I became blind but with the perspective I now have, I must say that
> it was for the better."
> Your message is ready to be sent with the following file or link
> attachments:
>
> A quick message to motivate   you in the NFBO.
>
>
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