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

[Wanda]

I am Wanda Sloan Secretary of the DAN'S and a 25 year member of the Miami Valley Chapter here in Dayton, OH.
Good to know your excitement.  After attending my first convention in 1996, Ibecame addicted. LOL

-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio-Talk [mailto:ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Andra Stover via Ohio-Talk
Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2020 12:41 PM
To: NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Andra Stover <astover at kent.edu>
Subject: Re: [Ohio-Talk] A quick message to motivate you in the NFBO including a personal recording.

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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