[stylist] Sharing some exciting news with you all

Thu Feb 16 12:27:07 UTC 2012

Excellent Cheryl. Congrats on the coverage.

Brad

On 2/16/2012  05:14 AM cheryl echevarria said...

>I had mentioned that I was going to be interviewed for this organization.
>February 16, 2012  This is from 
>www.fortune52.com, I am also going to be honored 
>with 52 other women from Across Long Island on March 12, 2012
>Cheryl Echevarria is blind and might not be able 
>to sightsee like everyone else, yet this 
>intrepid Brentwood woman loves to travel. She 
>relies on her service dog, Maxx, her heightened 
>sense of smell, touch and sound and the 
>confidence that comes from traveling often.
>Born with Type 1 diabetes, Cheryl was 22 years 
>old when she was diagnosed with diabetic 
>retinopothy, a common diabetic eye disease that 
>is the leading cause of blindness in American 
>adults.Cheryl’s life changed forever one night 
>in 2001 when she was driving home from her job 
>as an administrative assistant when suddenly, 
>she recalls, her vision became completely 
>blurry. “I had to pull over. I couldn’t 
>see.”Cheryl’s doctor told her that if her 
>diabetes was affecting her eyes, it would also 
>affect other organs in her body. Subsequently 
>her kidneys began to fail as well. In 2002 she 
>began kidney dialysis treatments three times a 
>week for four hours a day. Her treatments 
>continued for three years until she went through 
>another life-altering experience when her friend 
>Steve Carroll donated his kidney to her.
>Once Cheryl recuperated from the organ 
>transplant, she was determined to go back to 
>work. During her dialysis treatments, she lost 
>her sight completely in one eye. She says her 
>remaining sight is “like looking through a 
>telescope hole covered in thick plastic.”
>Cheryl enrolled in a training program provided 
>by the New York State Commission for the Blind 
>and Visually Handicapped (CBVH), where she 
>learned new job skills, including how to use 
>computer software for the blind.After completing 
>the program, Cheryl was ready for the next step 
>in her recovery which was to go back to school. 
>She began taking classes at Branford Hall Career 
>Institute in Bohemia, and became the school’s 
>first blind student to graduate. She found an 
>administrative job in the healthcare field where 
>she worked for two years.Cheryl felt she missed 
>10 years of her life being sick and was ready to 
>transition into a new career. She began scouring 
>the internet for new connections.
>“I found the National Federation of the Blind 
>(NFB) online and joined the greater Long Island 
>chapter,” she says.The NFB is the largest 
>non-profit organization in the world for the 
>blind that is operated by the blind. Cheryl now 
>serves as the treasurer of the Long Island 
>chapter, adding that all members and officers 
>must be blind to serve in a board position. “We 
>are advocates for education, employment and 
>accessibility,” Cheryl says proudly. “We lobby 
>ourselves, we don’t hire anyone.”After searching 
>through the federation’s resources, she decided 
>that becoming a travel agent would be a good 
>career choice. She loved to travel and she could 
>work from home. “I have a background in customer 
>service and sales, and this was a good fit,” she 
>says. After completing her job training online, 
>Cheryl started working through a host travel 
>agency, confident that becoming a travel agent was the right career move.
>In 2009 Cheryl and her husband, Nelson, founded 
>Echevarria Travel. Cheryl says Nelson is an 
>integral part of the agency, and is the 
>photographer and videographer for the travel 
>images used on their website. “I’m the only 
>blind travel agent in the tri-state area that I 
>know of,” she says and was recently named 
>president of the NFB’s national travel and tourism division.
>Cheryl’s blindness has given her a very clear 
>insight into the planning required to ensure a 
>pleasurable trip for her clients.Her agency 
>offers services to everyone, but Cheryl’s 
>specialty is the traveler who is blind, on 
>dialysis, in a wheelchair, or has had an organ 
>transplant. As a survivor of all of these 
>illnesses, Cheryl is uniquely qualified to help them plan their trip.
>“I know what a person would need and the 
>questions to ask,” she says. “What’s your degree 
>of blindness?  Do you use a cane?”If travel 
>plans include a cruise, she will want to know if 
>the client can read Braille. “I ask because not 
>everyone does,” she explains. “If they don’t 
>[read Braille], I contact the cruise line and 
>make sure they get a meet-and-greet and tour of 
>the ship so they can familiarize themselves with their surroundings,” she says.
>If they plan on traveling with their service 
>animal, Cheryl explains that they will need to 
>go to their vet to get a health certificate and 
>they need to secure a permit to bring the animal into another country.
>The cruise industry has taken notice of this 
>newly mobile customer base and are making their 
>vessels more accessible so sight-impaired 
>travelers can acclimate themselves quickly.
>Cheryl has been working closely with Norwegian 
>Cruise Lines, and says she helped them implement 
>Braille menus on their ships.No two visually 
>impaired people have the same level of 
>functional vision so Cheryl helps her clients 
>overcome some of the red tape they might 
>encounter to ensure that they have a good 
>experience. All of this pre-travel preparation 
>includes additional paperwork that Cheryl helps 
>her clients complete as part of her services.
>Understanding the requirements and information 
>needed for traveling today is invaluable. As a 
>travel advocate and advisor for the blind, 
>Cheryl has opened up a world of new experiences 
>for these sensory travelers that might have been 
>out of reach before.For more information, email: 
>reservations at echevarriatravel.com, call Cheryl 
>at  631-456-5394 , or toll free 
>at  866-580-5574  ; or go 
>to:www.echevarriatravel.com. For daily updates 
>read Cheryl’s blog atwww.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com
>Leading the Way in Independent Travel!
>
>Cheryl Echevarria
>http://www.echevarriatravel.com
>631-456-5394
>reservations at echevarriatravel.com
>
>For daily updates read our blog at
>http://www.echevarriatravel.wordpress.com 
>
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Brad Dunsé

"Art is not about thinking something up. It is 
the opposite - getting something down." --Julia Cameron

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