Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams

Dr. Kirk Adams, PhD

Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams is a compelling podcast series that brings listeners into the world of accessibility, leadership, and social change through the lens of one of the most influential voices in blindness advocacy. Dr. Kirk Adams, former President and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind and a lifelong champion for the rights of people with visual impairments, hosts this insightful and inspiring program.

  1. 1 day ago

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Mary Williams, Founder, and Sian Welch, Chief Executive Officer/Administrator, New Start Health Enterprises

    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Mary Williams, Founder, and Sian Welch, Chief Executive Officer/Administrator, New Start Health Enterprises https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-10-28-2026/ In this inspiring episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams welcomes Mary Williams, founder of New Start Health Enterprises, and her daughter, Sian Welch, its CEO, whose mission is helping catastrophically disabled people find a pathway from hospital to home. Mary Williams tells how it started in 1982, when she left her job as director of a 50-bed rehab unit after seeing very high-level quadriplegics returned to long-term care facilities with no hope of getting out, and promised a 27-year-old quadriplegic that she would never go to a nursing home. She says she had assistance to write the law for congregate living health facilities, which Sian Welch says became law in California in 2007, and Sian Welch explains that New Start's three six-bed homes in the Chatsworth and Northridge areas of the San Fernando Valley serve 18 patients, with nurses around the clock, therapy and a model that gives people back the power to make their own decisions. Sian Welch describes how families are thrown into the acute care hospital world with very little information, why connecting on day one opens the way to a longer term plan, and the red tape that slows growth, from years of waiting for Medi-Cal approval on a new home to managed care plans that say they only contract with skilled nursing facilities. She tells the story of Angel, who became a quadriplegic after being shot eight times as an innocent bystander, moved from a nursing home to New Start, married his girlfriend of many years in the backyard three weeks after he arrived and is training to move home with his family, and Mary Williams adds that he arranged his own outpatient therapy at Rancho Los Amigos. Dr. Adams connects their work to his father's final years and to the three gifts the school for the blind gave him: blindness skills, high expectations and a strong internal locus of control. To learn more, visit https://newstarthealthenterprises.com, and find Dr. Adams and the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion at https://drkirkadams.com. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that Dr. Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle. And today, I have a guest that I'm just getting to know at the same time you are. I was contacted by a member of their team asking if I thought they would be a good fit for the podcast. And after I looked into what they do, I said, "Absolutely." So Mary Williams is here. She's the founder of New Start Health Enterprises, along with her daughter, Sian Welch, who's CEO of New Start Health Enterprises. Say hi, Mary and Sian. Mary Williams: Hi to everybody. Sian Welch: Hi. Thanks for having us. Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. And we'll be back to you very shortly. So New Start Health, their mission is helping catastrophically disabled people find a pathway from hospital to home, and this is a huge gap in our healthcare system that Mary identified over 40 years ago, and they've been working hard to address ever since. And as we all know, the disabled community is one that anyone can join at any time, and sometimes it happens very suddenly and surprisingly. Dr. Kirk Adams: I was telling Mary and Sian as we prepared that my retinas detached when I was five years old. I was a sighted kid till then. I became a blind kid. So I entered the disability space a long time ago. And then there are other people who have strokes or accidents who were living their lives without significant impairments, and now they find themselves with significant impairments they need to deal with to continue living and thriving. And New Start Health helps individuals to do that. Dr. Kirk Adams: So I'm very pleased to have you here. I will hand the microphone to you to tell the New Start Health Enterprises story and talk more about your proven model, which sounds exceptionally exciting. And as the host, I'll reserve the right to pop in with questions as they occur to me. But looking forward to learning more. So over to you. Mary Williams: Thank you. Sian Welch: Would you like— Mary Williams: Well, just at the beginning, it started back in 1982 when I just left my job as a director of a 50-bed rehab unit because I had noticed that all the patients, the very high-level quadriplegics, were going home and returned to long-term care facilities and had no hope of getting out. I also met a young lady of 27 who was in that position. She had been home. Her family could no longer take care of her, and she was facing a nursing home. So I really promised her. That's how I started. I promised a 27-year-old quadriplegic that she would never go to a nursing home. Mary Williams: And so I did leave my job. I started making inroads to the Department of Health Services because I knew so many people were stuck in the hospitals in long-term care by that time. And over a period of time, I had assistance to write the law for congregate living health facilities, which gave me the opportunity to work with the state to build an alternative for people with catastrophic injuries in the community. There's— Dr. Kirk Adams: And I know you're in California now, so when you say the state, the state of California. Mary Williams: In the states. Yes, in Cal— It's a six-bed home. It's considered the person's home even though each person is an individual. However, they learn there how to be able to start making decisions for themselves again. By the time they come to us, everybody has been, "Oh, you should go here, you should go there. You could..." Mary Williams: And so when they arrive at New Start, what we do is let them know that they are the center part of our team, and that they are the ones that are gonna make the decisions for the rest of their lives, and that they will be able, with hard work... We don't do it all, and we make it very clear that when they come here, we are going to be helping them to maneuver the path to the most independent living situation that is possible for them, and each one is very different and very individual. Mary Williams: Some people rise to the top and have jobs and do more than I'd even dreamt of. And others, they actually are just living out in the community, but they're not fading away in a long-term care facility in a bed waiting to die. So I always say we help people to live a better quality of life and to reach whatever goals, and we help set those goals, and so that they can have an independent living type of situation. Dr. Kirk Adams: I'd say we're very aligned on that. I talk about thriving quite a bit and trying to help create conditions where people can thrive according to their own definition of what that means for them. As I mentioned before we started recording, my focus has really been around employment because as we know, depending on whose numbers you look at, under 40% of people with significant disabilities of working age are in the workforce. So there's lots of poverty and bad things that go along with poverty. But also, work in our society is very important in identity formation and self-respect and dignity and all those good things. Dr. Kirk Adams: So when you talk about people living a better quality of life according to their goals, I think that aligns very closely with my thinking about creating conditions for people to thrive as they see thriving. And I just wanna ask you, you talked about people going through the system, which is a kind of very [chuckles] complex, frustrating, aggravating healthcare system that we have, and people being told what they should do by others and, basically, I'll put words in your mouth, but having their power taken away as an individual, as an autonomous human being. It sounds like kind of the core essence of your proven model is to give that power back to people. Is that— Sian Welch: Absolutely. Dr. Kirk Adams: Is that fair? Yeah. Can you— Sian Welch: Absolutely. Dr. Kirk Adams: Can you talk a little bit about the model? And I don't know, a hypothetical person who connects with New Start Health, how do you begin? What's the process look like? Sian Welch: Well, why we're getting our message out is because we're very small and mostly referral, but the information and the advice that people can find is very, very limited. When something like this happens, nobody expects this to happen, and they're thrown in a world that they're at an acute care hospital, and they have a specific time there, and then when they stabilize, it's like discharge time. And the family is like, "Oh my goodness, where are we gonna go? What are we gonna do next?" Sian Welch: And then, if you're lucky enough, you can go to rehab for maybe a month or two months. But after that period, which is usually three or four months, millions and millions of dollars are spent in saving those lives. And the healthcare system isn't looking at that person that has had a catastrophic injury, illness, or event in their life and saying, "Okay, so this has happened. We're gonna save this life, and we're going to do as much as we can right now, but we are going to continue their recovery." And continuing a recovery when you have a catastrophic injury, it's insane to think that somebody's gonna go home to their family because who's gonna take care of them? Sian Welch: And then the other option is

  2. 2 days ago

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Victoria Hillard, Founder & Executive Director, Blind Professionals Network

    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Victoria Hillard, Founder & Executive Director, Blind Professionals Network https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-10-27-2026/ In this inspiring episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Kirk Adams talks with Victoria Hillard, founder of Blind Professionals Network (BPN), about her journey since going totally blind at 30 from neuromyelitis optica, a rare disease she says went unidentified for nine years; she was even treated for multiple sclerosis for a whole year. She describes the despair of early blindness, the day one of her children asking for food jump-started her, her training at the San Diego Center for the Blind, the 13 years she says she was ashamed of her cane, and the two-year steps that took her through psychology and then human services, followed by work as a switchboard operator, a quality analyst and, for over 15 years, a personal and professional development coach. Victoria Hillard explains how BPN grew from a monthly Zoom support group of 40 members in 2019 to about 290 within a month of the pandemic, and to almost 1,000 members now, all served free through one-on-one assistive technology training, eight-week courses, development workshops, employment services and support groups, plus an in-person Professional Empowerment Conference in Houston that she says drew over 100 people. Dr. Adams recalls being turned away from high school chemistry when neither he nor his parents knew how to advocate, the two compare notes on choosing battles and the spoon theory, and Victoria Hillard describes BPN Workplace Solutions, the commercial division that hires blind and visually impaired professionals to deliver inclusivity training, custom JAWS training and accessibility testing, with everything funneling back into BPN. Dr. Adams closes by pointing listeners to https://blindpronet.org and inviting them to explore the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that Dr. Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have a guest that I've known for several years, but getting to know much better. I have Victoria Hillard, founder of Blind Professionals Network, here today. Hi, Victoria. Victoria Hillard: Hello. Thank you for having me. Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, you bet. So I can't remember how I encountered Blind Professionals Network, but I remember joining a Facebook group, and there were maybe about 150 people in it. And there was virtual gatherings monthly, and I had the opportunity to speak about cybersecurity careers to the group. And then about a year and a half later, I checked in again, and there was something like 800 members, so. Victoria Hillard: [laughs] Dr. Kirk Adams: Victoria has really grown the network and the value to people who are blind. And I just asked Victoria to be with us today and tell us about her personal journey. So where have you been, Victoria? Where are you at now? Where do you see things going? And I would love to just hand you the microphone. Victoria Hillard: All right. Well, thank you. It is such an honor. And yes, it has been many years. And I think when you first spoke to the group, we were just starting, right? And so it was a really small thing. And then pandemic happened, and we blew up, right? And I'll get to that a little bit later, but for myself, I am totally blind, and I went blind older in life. I went blind when I was 30. And once I came out— Dr. Kirk Adams: Victoria, you're just breaking up just a little bit. I don't know if there's anything you can do about that. Victoria Hillard: Okay. Let's see. I'm gonna try. Let's see here. Can you— Dr. Kirk Adams: I think that's— Victoria Hillard: Can you hear me now? Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Victoria Hillard: I'm gonna be still. Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, that sounds good. Victoria Hillard: Am I good? Okay. [laughs] Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. So why don't we start over with your being a totally blind person? Victoria Hillard: Okay. So I am totally blind. I actually went blind at the age of 30. And like most of us— Dr. Kirk Adams: What was the cause, Victoria? Victoria Hillard: So the funny part about that is I didn't know the cause for nine years into my blindness. I had been tested for pretty much everything in the book. And I can tell you what I didn't have, but didn't know what I had. And I was even diagnosed for a whole year with multiple sclerosis. I gave myself a shot every day for a whole year because they said I had multiple sclerosis. Come to find out I had, at the time, was a rare disease called neuromyelitis optica, which is in the MS family. They say it's like a cousin to MS, right? And so that affected my optic nerve and damaged my optic nerve. Sad story about that is if they would have known what it was sooner, they could have saved my sight. But as I have come to feel and truly believe is there is a reason, a purpose for me being blind, and I am just going to accept that and embrace that, and that is what I've done. But it did not come very easily. Of course, when I first went blind, I was like, "Oh my God, my life is over. I might as well die. There's nothing I can do. What am I gonna be able to do?" And so I actually went through that for some time and then had to realize that my life is not over. Because I sat there and thought about somebody closing their eyes and still being able to do half of the things that we do, most of the things that we do every day. Cooking, cleaning, putting your pants on one leg at a time. Dr. Kirk Adams: [laughs] Victoria Hillard: Right? All of these things. And I'm like, "Wait a minute. There—" And so I finally... One of my children came in, and during part of my depression, was like, "Mom, I'm hungry." And I'm like, "Oh my— what is wrong with me?" Right? I just can't see. Am I supposed to let my kids starve because I can't see? So that jump-started me, right? And it started in the home. And then I thought, "Well, if I can do this in the home, what can I do outside the home?" So I tested myself. I went to college, and I got a degree, and then I was surprised that I did that as a blind person. I'm like, "Wait, whoa." Dr. Kirk Adams: Now, what did you do about blindness skills? I assume you needed to get some orientation mobility and some technology. Victoria Hillard: So I did do that. So I am from San Diego, California. And so they had a center there, where I... But the thing is, when I went to that center, I was pretty— Dr. Kirk Adams: You mean the San Diego Center for the Blind? Victoria Hillard: Yes, exactly. Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. I've been there. Victoria Hillard: Yes. Exactly what it is. So, [laughs] when I went there, I knew... So they were like cooking, so I was a little bit advanced in what they were teaching me, 'cause I taught myself a lot of things, right? But what I did not teach myself was the confidence. And especially seeing other people like me. I thought I was so alone, right? When I seen and got around other people that were... We're all just people who happen to be blind, and I couldn't see that before. And that's what the center helped me. It helped to empower me and the confidence. And it did teach me things. I actually learned braille. I still don't know braille two. I just know my alphabet and stuff, enough to play cards. [laughs] Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, there you go. Victoria Hillard: And so I did go there. I sit there for about two years. That was the other thing that I learned too, the O&M skills, which is the orientation and mobility because— Dr. Kirk Adams: Are you a cane person or a guide dog person? Victoria Hillard: I am a cane person, but I will share that I was so ashamed of my cane for probably 13 years. I would not bring that cane out. And finally, when I did, I was mad at myself because I had robbed myself of that confidence for 13 years. When I finally started using that cane, I stopped caring about what other people thought about the cane and pitying the poor little blind girl, 'cause that's what I always thought it was gonna bring to me, right? That attention. And so now I don't go anywhere without my cane, which is a big change. So I learned those skills. I don't know. I really embraced the fact that this is my new normal, right? Because there's nothing I can do to get my sight back. If it's meant to be for me to see again, I will. Until then, I need to do this. And so the college came, and then employment came. And— Dr. Kirk Adams: What did you study? Victoria Hillard: So I did my associate's. I had to do it in steps, right? 'Cause remember, I couldn't believe I can do it. And so, [laughs] I said, "Well, let me just try two years," right? And so I did two years of psychology. And then I said, "Ooh, I got it. I graduated and I did it." And so I said, "Oh, okay. Well, let me try another two years," right? [laughs] So I looked at the syllabus for psychology. Ugh, it was... I did not like it. And [laughs] I didn't really wanna learn that much about the brain, right? So [laughs] I switched it over to human services. So I did two years of that, and I said, "Ooh, wait, I finished this." So I got excited again. I stopped there, though, because I'm done. School is done. [laughs] I did not want to, so— Dr. Kirk Adams: You reached the goal. Victoria Hillard: Right. Exactly. And prove to myself that I could do it, right? That's what it was really, is what I was tryi

  3. 14 Oct

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Anthony Corona, Host and Executive Producer, Sunday Edition with Anthony Corona

    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Anthony Corona, Host and Executive Producer, Sunday Edition with Anthony Corona https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-10-14-2026/ In this candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Kirk Adams welcomes Anthony Corona, founder of Anthony Corona Media and Sunday Edition, who was connected to Kirk by Jeremy Grandstaff and recently joined the Persons with Disabilities Media Co-op. Anthony describes his life before blindness and after blindness: he was the East Coast entertainment editor for The Associated Press when shingles in the tissues of his brain, eyes and ears left him completely blind at 40, and he says he is now 10 years in. He talks about teaching himself VoiceOver, mobility training, guide dog school, his first American Council of the Blind convention in Rochester, New York, in 2019, the internship that led to Sunday Edition, and his work at Open Doors Organization, where he was asked to head communications. Anthony explains how Sunday Edition grew from ACB's weekly news magazine show into an independent family of eight podcasts, with 10 expected by the end of the year, plus Corona FM, its 24-hour streaming channel, and how he mentors contributors to host their own shows, including Sylvia Stinson-Perez, whose Treading the Waters of Life is going solo in January. Kirk and Anthony discuss intersectionality, Anthony's role as vice president of Blind Pride and why it left the American Council of the Blind, and Anthony's focus on sponsorships, short video content and the Double Tap Live network. Kirk closes by describing the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion, an online membership community on the Circle platform. Listeners can find Anthony at https://anthonycorona.com and Kirk at https://drkirkadams.com. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that very same Dr. Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today, I have a guest who I'm a little bit intimidated because Anthony is a very experienced podcast host himself. So we'll see how I do, Anthony. You can give me a grade at the end. Anthony Corona: [laughs] Dr. Kirk Adams: But it's Anthony, Anthony Corona, founder of Anthony Corona Media and Sunday Edition. Say hello, Anthony. Anthony Corona: Hello, everyone. I'm really glad to be here. Dr. Kirk Adams: Glad you're here with us. And I was connected to Anthony by Jeremy Grandstaff, another fellow blind guy who I have known and worked with for eight or nine years now. And Anthony attended the virtual launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion on September 1st, which I'll talk a little more about later. Dr. Kirk Adams: But Anthony is out there doing great work in making the world a more inclusive place for people, and in particular people who are blind. And he has put together a number of really exciting initiatives, and we're happily joining forces in a couple of ways. One is Anthony recently joined the Persons with Disabilities Media Co-op, which is a group of us who share our social media platforms. So between all of us, we have social media platforms with over 200,000 followers. And through the management and direction of Aaron Di Blasi of Mind Vault Solutions, anyone in the media co-op can get a message out to all of those social media platforms at the low, low cost of $25 per message. Dr. Kirk Adams: So if anyone listening is interested in learning more about the Persons with Disabilities Media Co-op, I'll tell you how to get in touch at the end of the podcast. So Anthony, I'm gonna hand you the microphone and ask you to tell us your life story in about 40 minutes. Anthony Corona: [laughs] Dr. Kirk Adams: [laughs] Where have you been? What's been the journey to get you to this point? What are things looking like now, and what's your vision for the future? What's working well for you? Any challenges that we can help with? So the floor is yours. Anthony Corona: Well, I kinda say that there's Anthony and/or Anthony 2.0, or BB and AB, which, you know, before blindness and after blindness. I was sighted until I was 40 years old. Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, wow, okay. Anthony Corona: Yeah, so I'm 10 years in. March 24th is that anniversary. And I threw myself a virtual party. [laughs] But— Dr. Kirk Adams: So it was an event then? It wasn't a gradual degenerative situation? Anthony Corona: No. I am one of those very rare statistical persons who had shingles in the tissues in my brain, in my eyes, in my ears. Had a medically induced coma, woke up three days later and was completely blind. They had to drill a hole in my skull to relieve the pressure. And yeah, the world completely... I was 40 years old, and the world completely changed access. It felt like north was south and south was north, and I had no idea how life was going to exist [laughs] moving forward. Anthony Corona: Before that, I was the East Coast entertainment editor for The Associated Press, but I lived a bunch of lives in 40 years. Played baseball, a year of minor league ball all through high school, college. Worked in retail, worked in restaurants. My degree was in recreational therapy, so I worked in the autism community for a couple years doing early intervention, home-based services as well as ABA, behavioral analysis modification, things like that. Anthony Corona: None of these jobs were high-flying career-paying jobs until I got to The Associated Press. And even then, I mean, the salary was great, but the perks of travel and things like that made life incredible. And then, in the space of three days, I— Dr. Kirk Adams: So how do you move into a job like that? Anthony Corona: I actually had always been writing. And I took a per diem job with The Village Voice, a famous newspaper on the West Coast in New York. A headhunter actually contacted me and said that The Associated Press is interested. Their arts and culture division is going through some changes, would you be in... You have managerial experience as well. Would you be interested in taking a sort of half editor, half managerial position? And I really didn't think I would get the job, so I kinda threw everything I wanted in a job at them, and they gave me everything. Anthony Corona: And seven months later, they asked me to actually take over the entertainment division for a year or so, and clean it up and transition. Media was really changing at that point. When I first walked into that department, we had 17 support staff through researchers, secretaries and such, and there were barely four by the time this happened. And I never left. I loved it. I loved the job, I loved the fast pace, the energy, traveling around the world, meeting incredible people. There were some trade-offs, life-wise. Work/life balance was always hard, and I have a very demanding family. But I loved it. The only thing I joke about is towards the end I was getting really burned out typing the name Kardashian, and major news events in the entertainment industry would happen, and for a month straight you'd just be typing the same things over and over again, recycling the same material. Dr. Kirk Adams: [laughs] Anthony Corona: That part of it became a little frustrating towards the end, but I had no plans to leave or anything like that. Dr. Kirk Adams: So were you in that role when the shingles occurred? Anthony Corona: I was. Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, wow. Anthony Corona: Folks who listen to Sunday Edition, my father passed away. It was happening all at the same time. I didn't know what it was. I was seeing flashes, getting these migraines. By the time I got to the hospital, they rushed me actually to a eye and ear specialty hospital. And that's the last time I drove, I drove myself to the emergency room. And three days later woke up in Manhattan. I was living in Staten Island, New York at the time. Anthony Corona: And after that, I don't really remember a lot about the first year. I think the brain protects you from the harsh parts. I mean, if I sit and focus I can really bring up memories, but they're not part of the kind of fabric of my life. It kind of jumps over until guide dog and becoming involved in the organizations, and life started to pick back up and I knew I wanted to figure out how to find a way to take the skills that I had and turn them into a viable career as a blind person. We all know that— Dr. Kirk Adams: So what was step... My retinas detached when I was five years old, so I've been blind since first grade and I went to school for blind kids, and there was just no question I needed to learn braille, how to use a long white cane. I needed to learn how to type on a typewriter so I could go to public school. So my path was pretty clear-cut. For you at age 40, the first year you say is a bit of a blur, but what was kind of the first coherent strategic thing that you did to move into living as a blind person? Anthony Corona: And this is something we advocate for, the first couple of months I didn't get any real information, and maybe there was a little bit of it, but my brain is, there's so much going on. And honestly, they thought they could save some of the sight, so I did a couple of surgeries with scar tissue and such. Anthony Corona: So by the time that all settled in I realized, okay, I'm gonna have to start figuring out how to live like this. I'd already figured out a few hacks and I wasn't even using a cane yet. And so I reache

  4. 1 Oct

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Zhou Fang, Founder and Principal Practitioner, Intersectional Group

    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Zhou Fang, Founder and Principal Practitioner, Intersectional Group https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-10-01-2026/ In this thoughtful episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Kirk Adams talks with Zhou Fang, an intersectionality practitioner and abundance mindset teacher whose podcast he discovered when it popped up in his iCatcher app. Zhou explains that her intersectionality work begins with her own experience as a Chinese immigrant who is not a citizen, from graduate school in Manhattan, Kansas, to her life in Portland, Oregon, and she compares Midwest hospitality with Pacific Northwest politeness, which she says can cost people the honest conversations that build real relationships. Kirk shares his own culture shift from "Seattle nice" to New York City, and Zhou describes how she uses intersectionality and the "yes, and" approach to help leaders become better, more thoughtful communicators. Zhou says she learned about abundance because of scarcity: about three years ago, she says, illness forced her to stop working, and she found abundance in the people who cared for her and in nature, from the smell of fresh rain to Oregon's waterfalls. She walks through her coaching process, which begins with reclaiming time, rest, space and the ability to dream, and explains the solidarity economy, while Kirk brings in Tricia Hersey's Nap Ministry and his reading of the Dao. The conversation closes with Kirk's invitation to the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion and with where to find Zhou at https://abundancewithzhou.com and Kirk at https://drkirkadams.com. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that very same Dr. Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, and today I'm thrilled to have a guest that I discovered by listening to a podcast. Zhou Fang is here today. Zhou is an intersectionality practitioner and an abundance mindset teacher, two things I am very interested in myself. So welcome, Zhou. Zhou Fang: Thank you so much, Dr. Kirk, for having me on your program. When you told me you listen to my podcast, [laughs] I felt so honored. I rarely have people talk and tell me, say, "Hey, I listen to your podcast." Every time I hear something like that, for some reason, I just feel so nicely surprised and also honored. So when I saw your message, it made my day. So thank you very much. Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. So I'm a totally blind person, and I use various types of technology, screen-reading software. I use one called Job Access With Speech, JAWS, on my desktop, and then on the iPhone there's a built-in screen reader called VoiceOver. And I have an app called iCatcher, which is very accessible and works well with VoiceOver, and it's for listening to podcasts. And when I get ready for the day and set my intentions and kinda write a little vision of what I want the day to look like, what I want the shape of the day, the focus of the day, I typically listen to a podcast while I'm kinda getting organized. And I'll just put in a keyword, just whatever floats to the surface. I might have put in intersectionality. I might have put in abundance. But your podcast popped up, and I tapped on it, and I was just so engaged by what you had to say. So I'm so glad you're here today. Dr. Kirk Adams: I do want to make listeners aware of something that's very important in my life, and that is the launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. I'm serving as executive director of the nonprofit Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion, and we have launched a community coalition that's a monthly membership model. And if you are interested in diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, and gathering together with other like-minded individuals to take collective action to make the world a more socially just, fair, and a place where human dignity can flourish, I would invite you to check out the Community Coalition. Dr. Kirk Adams: So, Zhou, intersectionality is something I talk about a lot in the work that I do, especially when I'm talking to companies about employing people with disabilities. And I say that if you do a good job of including people with disabilities, you're going to be doing a good job of including everybody because disability knows no demographic boundaries, so people of all races, genders, affectional orientations, economic backgrounds, education, rural, urban, there's a certain percentage of us that have or will have disabilities. So intersectionality is something we share. And then the abundance mindset, I know I've read the work of Carol Dweck, and she talks about that. And I loved what you had to say when I listened to your podcast, so I just want to hand the microphone to you and ask you to tell us about your journey, which I heard a little bit on the podcast interview I listened to. But would love to, like I say, where have you been, Zhou? Where are you now? Where do you see things heading? What's working well for you? Any challenges? So the floor is yours. Zhou Fang: [laughs] Such big questions. Thank you, Dr. Kirk. I just wanna say really quickly that I am curious about your Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion organization, so I would love to learn more of that as well. Dr. Kirk Adams: I will send you information. Zhou Fang: Yes. I would love to participate. And for me, intersectionality and abundance mindset, they are really interconnected. When I first entered kind of the consulting space, during the pandemic pretty much, what I started with intersectionality, and for me, that's where I was, is intersectionality really opened my mind about how our world, especially in the US, works. As you mentioned, right, people with disability and with different kind of intersectional identities, different backgrounds, somehow we are all here together and trying to figure this out. And for some of us, more able-bodied people, right, we don't see the challenges people with disabilities, and sometimes visible, sometimes invisible. And just from that perspective, from the intersectionality lens, is that if we can all develop a sense of empathy and also being able to understand and think from different perspective, then we have the opportunity to serve each other better. Zhou Fang: And I think that's the power of intersectionality. 'Cause like you mentioned, Dr. Kirk, is that at some point in our lives, a lot of us will at least become temporarily disabled or having limited ability, and for a lot of us, that condition may be permanent or long-term. So if we have that kind of mindset, disability is not, it's not that unique. It's actually, it can happen to anyone. And having that idea can really make us more empathetic, just as a society and as community. And of course, apply intersectionality to other areas, race, gender, socioeconomic status, and even your citizenship status, right? 'Cause I'm a immigrant, so I'm actually— Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, let's hear a little bit about your lived experience, your life journey. Not everyone follows a path that leads them to a space of thinking about empathy [laughs] and serving others. Some of the things you've mentioned. So what is your life experience that brought you to these spaces? Zhou Fang: Yeah, for me, my intersectionality experience starts with my immigrant experience. Is not being a citizen, and that is invisible identity. And oftentimes also visible because I am, for folks who are listening to this podcast or who heard my name, Zhou Fang, may be able to guess that I am Chinese. So I moved to the US from China as a young adult. So for a lot of people, the way I look will— Dr. Kirk Adams: And what brought you, your education or work? Zhou Fang: Yeah, education. Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, okay. Zhou Fang: Yeah, yeah. Grad school. So I went to grad school in Kansas, actually. A lot of people probably wouldn't guess that either. So the way I look is, people will by default assume that I am an immigrant to begin with, right? Which I am. At the same time, it's like there are so many Asian Americans here, and we are always seen as immigrant. So that intersectionality to me is part of my experience here, and also, because I'm not a citizen, and some people don't know that. So a lot of the benefits that a citizen has, I don't have, right? For example, voting. I'm not able to vote, and a lot of us take that for granted, the right to vote, the ability to vote. So every time I mention myself as an example is, we don't take things for granted, and a lot of the things that we just assume that's readily available may not be for a lot of people, for example. And so that is my very personal experience with intersectionality. And— Dr. Kirk Adams: So some of your identities, obviously you've got Chinese, immigrant, female. Zhou Fang: Yes. Chinese— Dr. Kirk Adams: Not a citizen. So you've got [laughs] a number of intersecting identities. And you live in the Pacific Northwest now. Zhou Fang: I do, yeah. I'm in Portland, Oregon. Which we have a larger Asian population compared to Kansas probably. And still we are a relatively small group of people here, and very diverse as well. So I can also observe a lot of intersectionality within the Asian and Asian American communities, from just personal life and through my professional work as well. So really it's like my lived experience as an immigrant, as Chinese, as woman, as someone who lived

  5. 17 Sept

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Stephanie Sanders, Owner and CEO, Walk In Thought Productions, LLC

    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Stephanie Sanders, Owner and CEO, Walk In Thought Productions, LLCE https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-09-17-2026/ In this warm episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk welcomes Stephanie D. Sanders, a transformational motivational speaker and performer from Lakeland, Florida, who first wrote to him years ago when he was president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, and who later met him in person at the National Federation of the Blind convention in Orlando. Stephanie tells her story from the beginning: legally blind in one eye since birth but undiagnosed until kindergarten, treated through the University of Florida, and raised as the youngest of three by a mother who did not yet know why her daughter kept giving the wrong answer. She describes refusing to let her vision define her, the sports and cheerleading years, the basketball injury that ended her track-and-field and Olympic hopes, and the pivot that followed into sports announcing, a mass communications degree in radio, television and film production, and a career in entertainment. From there the conversation follows her from a Seattle radio station in the early 1990s to Los Angeles, where an improv workshop at the Hollywood Black Film Festival drew unexpected praise from actress Cee Cee Michaela and convinced her to make the move. She talks about her CD, book and audiobook One More Day, sings a few lines of her song Hold On Tight on air, and joins Kirk in a candid exchange about intersectionality, privilege and disclosure, in which he recounts negotiating a car by telephone as Dr. Kirk Adams and then losing interviews the moment he walked in with a long white cane. Both return repeatedly to faith, resilience and the value of community, and the episode closes with how to reach Stephanie and with Kirk's invitation to join the Community Coalition at the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that Dr. Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have a guest that I've known for quite some years now. It's Stephanie D. Sanders. Stephanie hails from Florida, born and raised. She is a transformational motivational speaker and performer. And say hello, Stephanie. Stephanie D. Sanders: Hello, everybody. Dr. Kirk Adams: Great. We'll be back to you shortly. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm the immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind. And I'm a blind person. My retinas detached when I was five years old. And in 2016, I was president and CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind here in Seattle, and I was given the opportunity to move to New York and then to Washington, DC, and lead the American Foundation for the Blind through a turnaround process. The organization was founded in 1921. Helen Keller was their global ambassador from 1924 until she passed away in 1968. And at the time I was given the opportunity to lead the iconic AFB, they were in a severe financial downward spiral. And I spent six years working with a great team of staff, board members. And we did some difficult but necessary things to put AFB back on track. And during that time, I received contact from Stephanie, who said, I admire what American Foundation for the Blind is doing, and I would love to become part of the organization. I am a motivational speaker. I'm a performer. I think I could lend my talents to the good work. And unfortunately, we were eliminating positions and laying people off in order to cut expenses. So the timing didn't work out well for that. But Stephanie and I had a few conversations. I learned she lived in Orlando, and I was headed to Orlando for the National Federation of the Blind conference, and we arranged to meet. And we met in the conference hotel and had a great conversation, and we've kept in touch since. Stephanie is a very inspirational person, a very talented person. I am honored to be considered her friend. And it's great to have you here on the podcast, Stephanie. I want to just hand the microphone to you and ask you to tell listeners your story. And I guess, where have you been? What brought you to where you are now, and how are things now, and where do you see things going? What's your vision for the future? What are you working to accomplish? And then we'll let people know how they can get in touch with you. I'll, as the host, I will sit here and listen. And if a question occurs to me, I will interrupt you and ask you questions. So be — I don't know what they'll be, because I don't know what you're going to say. But here we are, Stephanie. It's a pleasure to have you. The floor is yours. Stephanie D. Sanders: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate it very, very much, for the opportunity to actually be here, just hanging out with you and talking to the people. Yes, I am Stephanie D. Sanders. And I always say, now don't forget the D. That is my middle initial, but it makes a difference when you put me in Google. But I am originally here from Central Florida, and I'm actually from Lakeland, Florida, but I'm very, very close to Orlando, right in between actually Orlando and Tampa. And like Mr. Adams said, I had the opportunity to connect with him years ago when I wanted to start to get more involved with the visually impaired and blind community, because I grew up actually as a legally blind child in one eye, but they didn't find out until I went to kindergarten. And so just imagine those first five years, and your mother's a teacher, and she's trying to teach you things before you go to school, and you're saying the wrong answer. That didn't go over too well for a while. And she actually apologized to me later when I was an adult. She was like, I'm so sorry, I was tough on you. I did not know that I had a visual impairment at that time. So it's actually been since birth. And went to University of Florida for some research for several months, I believe it was, as they tried to help me out in making my vision at least better in one eye. Yeah, they tried both, but it only turned out to be in one eye that they could help me more to have some vision. So then I kind of moved on and transitioned into teenage years and growing up. And I tell you, even though I had and still have a visual impairment, I absolutely, positively never let that deter me, discourage me in any way, shape or form. And I know that had to be God just instilling something, just that self motivation within myself, to not even pigeonhole myself at times into only being a visually impaired person. People saw me, they saw that I would wear glasses one day. Another day I would wear a patch, another day I would wear contacts, lost them several times. So mom was like — mom and dad are like, no, that is way too expensive. Yeah. And at that time, you were only getting one contact a year. Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. Let me — a couple things. So visual impairment, blindness, legal blindness means a lot of different things. Like I'm totally blind. I have been since I was five, when my retinas detached. Most people who are legally blind or visually impaired have some level of vision, usable vision. Some people can see shapes, some people can tell the difference between light and dark. Some people's vision change. Some people have night blindness. They kind of see okay during the day, but not at night. Some people day to day, like sometimes their vision is pretty good, sometimes it's not very good. And then there's progressive conditions like retinitis pigmentosa. I know lots of people with RP who don't really know they have a visual impairment till maybe they're eight, nine, ten, 15, 20 years old, and then they discover they have retinitis pigmentosa, starting with usually difficulty seeing at night, and progressively lose the peripheral vision until people are just looking through a tunnel. Then there's macular, where people lose the central vision. They can only see out of the sides. So it's a one size does not fit all. Stephanie D. Sanders: So it— Dr. Kirk Adams: Really does. Your experience and my experience with visual impairment is obviously very different. You grew up in Florida. I grew up in little towns in Washington and Oregon. So definitely different backgrounds. But tell me about your family. Were there brothers and sisters too? Stephanie D. Sanders: Yes, actually, I have one brother and one sister, and they're both older, so I'm the baby of the family. And I played my role. I accepted that role as the baby in the family. I didn't abuse it, though. I didn't abuse it. I just had to watch my siblings and how things were going for them and mistakes they might have made here and there. And I'm like, oh, I'm not going to do that. Dr. Kirk Adams: I have one younger brother and one sister who's quite a bit younger, and she's definitely the baby in some ways. We still kid her, because my dad's famous line was, I don't care what's going on, I just don't want to hear her cry. Stephanie D. Sanders: Right. I was a bit of a tomboy. I was like a rough and tough, and just into anything and everything that was going on around me and in the neighborhood. We had kids in the neighborhood, so it was a really good time. Dr. Kirk Adams: City, country? What kind of neighborhood? Stephanie D. Sanders: Ours was in the city. It wasn't like city city, but it wasn't country either. We were kind of like

  6. 16 Sept

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Jeff Wissel, Vice-President, Accessibility, Aira

    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Jeff Wissel, Vice-President, Accessibility, Aira https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-09-16-2026/ In this warm and candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk welcomes Jeff Wissel, Vice President, Accessibility at Aira, a friend he first met in a Washington, D.C. hotel hallway when the Secret Service cleared a banquet room for Secretary Elaine Chao. Kirk opens with his own decade as an Aira subscriber: a demonstration at AFB's New York offices from founder Suman Kanuganti, and the airport navigation that became his most valuable use case. Jeff then traces his own arc, retinitis pigmentosa noticed around age seven, a 28-year career at Fidelity Investments that began before the internet, giving up driving at 34, and years spent covering a non-apparent disability because he had no blind role model and believed he was the only one. The turning point was meeting Alicia, a blind vice president at Fidelity, who pushed him to start an employee resource group, it now has 8,000 members, and in his own 3,000-person phone center he found nine other people with RP who had each thought they were alone. That led to Fidelity's Office of Customer Accessibility, then four years and eight months as Chief Accessibility Officer at Disability:IN, and now Aira, where he is two months in. Kirk tells his own Disability:IN story along the way, meeting Northrop Grumman's Bob Vetere, pitching CEO Wes Bush on the Seattle Lighthouse's blind and DeafBlind machinists, and winning ITAR certification and a place in the defense supply chain. Both men close on community: Jeff on Aira Explorers and the stigma that disappears when accessibility sits in the accommodations catalog, Kirk on ISDI's new Community Coalition. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that very same Dr. Kirk Adams, speaking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I have with me today — I'd say it's long enough to say a long time friend and colleague — Jeff Wissel, who's Vice President, Accessibility at Aira. Hello, Jeff. Jeff Wissel: Hey, Dr. Kirk, how are you? Dr. Kirk Adams: I'm good. And this is really interesting to me, because two really interesting parts of my life are intersecting here today. When I first was hired by the American Foundation for the Blind to lead that iconic organization, Helen Keller's organization, I moved to New York City from Seattle. And among other things, learned how to travel the subway system using the long white cane, which is an orientation and mobility personal highlight for me. And I got a call very early on from a gentleman named Suman Kanuganti, who said he was developing a system for blind people to connect with human beings who could offer sighted assistance. And he wanted to show it to me. So he and another gentleman whose name escapes me, who I never encountered again, came into the offices at AFB, and we sat in the conference room and I put on a pair of Google glasses, and I downloaded an app onto my iPhone and I connected with an agent who described the room to me. What was on the walls? The view out the window down onto Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. There was a bust of M.C. Migel, the founder of AFB. She described that. After about five minutes of that, it was enough of a wow factor that I was pretty much an Aira fan from then on. Dr. Kirk Adams: And I've been a subscriber since then — I guess ten years, coming up on ten years. And wow. And Aira has gone through many different steps and evolutions and advancements and improvements. And probably the most intense situations I've used Aira to support me is in airports. Even the Uber driver — you say Alaska Airlines, they drop you off in front of an airport and you're going in, and where's the Alaska Airlines desk? And in the past, you would kind of wait till you heard a friendly sounding set of footsteps: excuse me, can you direct me to the Alaska desk? And sometimes that worked well and sometimes it didn't. But with Aira, you say, can you help me? I need to locate the Alaska desk. And they say, hold your camera up. Turn it a little left. Hold up your phone. Turn a little left, a little right. Okay, there it is. Turn 20 degrees to your left. Walk about 25 feet. Now turn ten degrees to your right. Go about ten more steps, a little left. There you are. You're in line. So it's like magic. For me, as someone who has traveled a lot for business travel, that's probably my most interesting use case. I've also done, many times, I'm in this hotel room and it is really hot and I cannot figure out this climate control. Dr. Kirk Adams: And which of these buttons does which? How do I — where's the fan? How do I turn it on? My suitcase is locked. These four little rotors need to all be turned to zero. Can you help me get them adjusted so I can unlock my suitcase? So obviously, for me, a lot of travel stuff. But then at some point, not long after, I was at a conference. It was in the DC area. It might have been after I moved to Arlington, Virginia. Honestly, I attended so many conferences representing the American Foundation for the Blind, I don't recall exactly what it was. But I was by myself. I was at a table with other folks, but I was the only person from AFB there. And they said, everybody clear the room. Secretary Elaine Chao was coming to speak, and the Secret Service needs to make sure the room is safe. So everybody get up and go into the hall. And as I merged into the traffic in the hallway, I encountered another gentleman with a long white cane. And it was Jeff Wissel, there with the team from Fidelity. And we stood there and got to talking for about 15, 20 minutes while the Secret Service did their thing. And they cordially invited me to join them at their table, which I did. Dr. Kirk Adams: And so Jeff and I have been in pretty regular contact since then, as both of us have turned various pages and chapters in our career paths. And so I'm just so pleased to have Jeff here. I'm so excited that the Aira part of my life and the Jeff Wissel part of my life have now aligned. So it's a good thing for everybody in our community. And Jeff, I really just want to hand the microphone to you. I know our experiences with blindness are so very different. I became totally blind very quickly as a five year old when my retinas detached. I know the arc of your becoming a blind guy, it's quite different than mine. And so I would love to hear your reflections on that journey. Hear about your career path, any thoughts you might have for especially young blind people out there wanting to make their way in the world of work. And then really the excitement about Aira — what your role is there, and what you've discovered so far in the short time you've been there, where you see things. What's the current state of the union at Aira, and where you are a visionary. So where do you see things going? So I'm handing you the talking stick. Jeff Wissel: Awesome. Thanks, Dr. Kirk. And I'm honored to call you my mentor and friend. And as you were describing how we first met, I was remembering it vividly. It was an honor to meet you also, because you're a legend in our space. And when you and I first met, I was pretty new on my accessibility leadership journey, and you really took me under your wing. And I'm forever grateful for that. So for the audience, I'm Jeff Wissel. This month, actually, I'll be turning a young 59 years of age. And the reason I lead with my age is, for me, my personal journey with sight loss started — I have retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. And when I first noticed symptoms, I'll say I was seven years old, somewhere in there. And one experience, I was riding my bike with a friend of mine on our school parking lot near our house. It's dusk time and we're riding and I start pulling ahead of my friend and I'm like, wow, I must be really fast. But what I didn't realize is I was getting ready to run into a rusty chain separating the parking lots, that my friend saw from way behind. Fortunately, the way it hit the tire, the fender, the handlebar had flipped right over me and I didn't get a scratch. And I just ran through this metal chain, and it was like one of the worst experiences I can remember. Jeff Wissel: And for many in the audience who have retinitis pigmentosa, our journey is probably very similar. Night blindness, one of the key symptoms. For me, I still have sight to lose. I became a late in life runner, so it drives my wife crazy. But when the conditions are light and it's safe enough, I can run. In that same environment at night time, if I didn't have my white cane or my guide dog, Gabe, you would swear I was a drunk man walking, because I can't navigate the sidewalk, just stepping into the grass and everything. But throughout my life, it is a degenerative eye disease. So different things. I started out driving and playing softball, just an alumni league after high school, and I remember being in the outfield and saying, I got it, and ball's hit and I got it. All of a sudden it's like, I don't got it. And ball dropped 20 feet from me. Do that a couple of times and it's like, all right, I kind of have to get rid of that sport. Gave up driving when I was 34. And for many folks, when I tell them that, they're like, oh my gosh. And I reverse it and I say, no, it was really thank gosh. That last year and a half of driving, nothing happened. Jeff Wissel: But it was so stressful. It's always, to this

  7. 15 Sept

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Rachel Antoine, Senior Director of International Operations, Braille Institute

    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Rachel Antoine, Senior Director of International Operations, Braille Institute https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-09-15-2026/ In this warm and wide-ranging episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk welcomes Rachel Antoine, Senior Director of International Operations at Braille Institute, for a conversation about Braille literacy and the programs that sustain it. Kirk opens with his own Braille history, losing his sight at five, learning to read and write Braille from Mrs. Summers at the Oregon State School for the Blind, and depending on Braille books through long hospital stays, then traces his three encounters with Braille Challenge: a regional in Tampa, a 2019 keynote at the Braille Challenge gala, and a return visit in 2026 where he met Rachel. Rachel explains that Braille Challenge has grown from one Southern California regional in 2000 to over 80 regionals worldwide, reaching around 2,200 students a year and over 26,000 since it began, with the competition as the vehicle and Braille literacy as the mission. The second half covers the documentary Brailled It, filmed at the 2024 Braille Challenge Finals with GoPros worn by competitors Salome, Isaiah and Christopher Morgan and now touring US cinemas; the program's first African regional in Kenya, where more than 1,000 students took part and many competed with slate and stylus because there were not enough Braillers to go round; and plans to build an East Africa model spanning Uganda and Tanzania, with three Kenyan students due at the 2027 Finals. Rachel also describes the free, non-competitive foundational category any parent, teacher or grandparent can order year-round, and Cane Quest, Braille Institute's orientation and mobility program, whose SoCal regional runs October 3rd at the Los Angeles Zoo. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am that Dr. Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And very excited today, because we're going to be talking a lot about Braille. I have Rachel Antoine here with me from the Braille Institute. Say hey, Rachel. Rachel Antoine: Hello. So happy to be here. Thank you, Dr. Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: And Rachel, what's your title at Braille? Rachel Antoine: Yeah. So I am Senior Director of International Operations at Braille Institute. My role is really about connecting programs, people and possibilities around the world. I lead our international work, expanding programs like Braille Challenge and Cane Quest, and building partnerships with organizations, schools, and educators in other countries. Dr. Kirk Adams: That sounds like a fun job to me. Rachel Antoine: It is. Dr. Kirk Adams: So my history with Braille — I think many of you know I'm a blind person. My retinas detached when I was five years old. I was in kindergarten in Lynnwood, Washington, north of Seattle. My parents — I was born when they were in college, so they were in their mid-20s when my retinas detached. They had never met a blind person before. Before I became one very quickly. And they were told that I wasn't going to be allowed to come back to the neighborhood school, that I needed to go to the school for blind children. At that time, the model was, I think, most blind and deaf kids went to a state school. My parents visited the Washington State school. They did not like what they saw as far as the level of academic activity. My retinal surgeon was in Oregon, and someone there at University of Oregon Medical Hospital said the Oregon State School for the Blind is awesome. So I remember visiting there, and they agreed that it was awesome. And they quit their jobs and moved the family down to Oregon so I could go to the Oregon State School. And I had a teacher named Mrs. Summers for first, second and third grade. May she rest in peace. And whenever I'm in a setting where they say, name the person who had the most influence on your life, I say, Mrs. Summers, because she taught me how to read and write Braille. Dr. Kirk Adams: I was hospitalized a lot. I had quite a number of eye surgeries that were painful and unsuccessful, and I would spend 10 to 14 days after each surgery in the hospital with my head in a clamp, so I couldn't move my head to disrupt the surgery they'd done. So Braille was really my lifeline. And my mom would go to the Braille library of the National Library Service library in Salem and load up the station wagon with boxes of books and bring them to the hospital. And I read and read and read. So Braille has been super important to me. I learned about the Braille Challenge, gosh, ten, 12, 14 years ago. I was aware of it. At the time, I was the CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind here in Seattle. And we had a mentor-protegé relationship with the Lighthouse for the Blind in Port Richey, Florida, which is near Tarpon Springs, the sponge capital of the United States, which is fairly near Tampa. And the Tampa Lighthouse was having the regional Braille Challenge the week that I was there. So my wife, Ros, and I went, and I got to meet the kids and see the activities they were doing. It was a Harry Potter theme, so it must have been when the Harry Potter books were so popular. And I had a chance to talk to the parents while the kids were doing their activities. Dr. Kirk Adams: And like my parents, most of them had never met a blind person before. They had a blind child. So they had a lot of questions about how to raise a child successfully who is blind. So we talked about being developmentally appropriate, and talked about creating a Braille-rich environment — that your sighted child is surrounded by print all the time. The cereal box, the magazine on the table, the street signs you drive by. And you have to be very intentional with the young blind child to have lots of Braille around. And I said, order some Braille magazines from the National Library Service, and let them play with those and tear them up, chew on them and do what little kids do with board books. And put Braille on everything, label everything with Braille. And then, if your four-year-old sighted child is out playing in the sandbox and tussling with other kids over the toys, you want your blind child out on that playground with their cane doing the same thing. If your 12- or 13-year-old sighted child is taking the bus or getting themselves downtown to meet friends, to do things, go to movies, you need to make sure your blind child is learning how to use public transportation and has orientation and mobility skills, so they can do those same things. Dr. Kirk Adams: And we talked about the school-to-work transition. You have sighted kids doing chores. Blind kids need to do chores, and you need to figure out different approaches to do things. But you want blind kids doing the same thing sighted kids do, using the alternative techniques of blindness. And literacy is so important. Braille is so important. For me, there was no question — I was totally blind. So in first grade, I learned Braille. Blindness comes in so many variations. Many people who are legally blind have some usable vision. Sometimes there's questions whether or not kids need to learn Braille. And I always say, if the visually impaired child cannot read at the same speed and comprehension as a sighted child, if they're trying to use magnification, they need to learn Braille. Braille is literacy. I say, if listening to materials is sufficient, then why do sighted people still read? So we need to read too. So anyway, I did the Braille Challenge regional in Tampa, and I was given a certificate of Braille wizardry, which I still have, with the Harry Potter theme. And then, my gosh, five, six years later, I became the president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind. And I was visiting partners around the country, and I made a stop at the Braille Institute and sat with — that was before your time, Rachel. Dr. Kirk Adams: 2016, 2017. Yeah. And got to know folks. And then I got a call in early 2019 asking if I would come and give the keynote talk at the Braille Challenge gala. So again, my wife, Ros, and I flew out and met the kids. And they — [unclear 00:08:13] Rachel will tell you all about this — but they fly in the winners from the regions, and they gather on the USC campus. And [I] remember the Trojan, the hated Trojan marching band — I'm a Husky fan — marched the kids across the campus playing the USC fight song. And they had their competitions, and then the awards gala. And I got to talk about how important Braille is to me, and said a lot of the things I've said so far on this podcast, in a more organized and elegant fashion. But I talked about the importance of Braille and how meaningful it was to be there. They had an alumni who's become a really good friend of mine, a young lady named Caitlin Hernandez, who's totally blind. She lives in San Francisco, and she's a public school teacher. And she gave the alumni speech, and it was just such a moving experience. Dr. Kirk Adams: And then fast forward to this year, 2026. I was talking to Dimitri Kales, who's now the CEO of Braille Institute, and we were just catching up and comparing notes on a few things. And he said, well, next time you're going to be in the Los Angeles area, let me know. I said, I'm going to be there next week, because my wife and I are visiting our daughter Rachel, who lives in Highland Park. We're coming to visit her. And he said,

  8. 20 Aug

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Tom Babinszki, Owner, Even Grounds

    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Tom Bobinszki, Owner, Even Grounds https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-08-20-2026/ Here, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Tom Babinszki, owner of Even Grounds and a travel and tourism accessibility consultant, whom he first met across an exhibit table at a Kennedy Center LEAD Conference, where, as Kirk tells it, "what to my wondering hands should appear" was a 3D model of the White House, pillars and porticos and all. Babinszki was born completely blind in 1970s Hungary, where a close family member advised his parents not to take him out on the street because it would be embarrassing, and suggested that one day he might watch the geese at the end of the village. His parents decided instead that their son would have exactly the education everyone else had. A scholarship year at the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia followed, then Trinity College in Hartford, then George Mason, three years directing the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Hadley School for the Blind, and some twenty-five years in digital accessibility, including teaching thousands of people at IBM. Even Grounds grew out of a failure. A lifelong traveler, "my favorite smell is jet fuel," and a coin collector who bought building replicas in museum gift shops just to understand where he was standing, Babinszki hired a designer and a 3D printing company and produced models of Washington landmarks, only to find his blind friends admired them and had no wish to own fifty large buildings. Museums and schools did. The company he founded in 2023 now pairs holistic accessibility consulting with tactile 3D work for the Toledo Zoo, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Opera, a Kenyan school for the blind through Clovernook, and a Braille map from the 1800s remade so it could finally be touched. One small tactile map of a public restroom drew thirteen hundred LinkedIn likes against his usual fifty. His advice to listeners is the whole argument in four words: don't ever accept that something is not accessible. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr. Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams. I am Dr. Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have a guest who's doing some very interesting things to make the world more accessible for us who are blind and visually impaired. Today I have Tom Babinszki. He's the owner of Even Grounds. He's a travel and tourism accessibility consultant. Say hey, Tom. Tom Babinszki: Hi, Kirk. Thank you for your invitation. I'm glad to be here. Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah, absolutely. So several summers ago I attended a conference here in Seattle that was sponsored by the Kennedy Center for the Arts. It's called the LEAD Conference, and it's about leadership and accessibility of the arts. And one of the exhibitors there was Tom. And [I] visited his room, his booth, his table — and what to my wondering hands should appear, but 3D models of buildings and architectural wonders that I had never seen and had no concept of what they looked like. I lost my sight at five when my retinas detached. I cannot remember anything visual at all. I cannot conjure up a visual image in my mind. I cannot recall colors. If you say blue, in my mind I see the Braille characters. Tom Babinszki: Blue — I'm the same way. Dr. Kirk Adams: Yeah. But I remember having in my hands a 3D model of the White House, and I was so surprised by the pillars and the porticos and the verandas. And it was not a symmetrical situation. It had a lot going on. And it was very interesting. And I spent quite some time with the 3D model. And Tom and I recently reconnected, and he is creating accessibility for museums and various sites, points of interest. One thing he is doing that I applaud so heartily [is] 3D maps of [unclear 00:02:49] public restrooms. How many times have I searched for the paper towels? How many times have I decided, no, I'm not going to wash my hands, because I'm going to pick up more germs trying to find the faucet and the soap that I'm going to lose. So Tom's doing some really cool stuff. We just want to hand it over to you and have you talk a little bit about your experience with blindness, your personal lived experience — and then you've had such a long and varied career in accessibility, I know 20, 25 years at least. So I would love to hear the summary of that, and how you came to start Even Grounds, what the history has been so far, where you're at, what you're doing now, and then what do you see for the future? So Tom, it's over to you. Tom Babinszki: Thank you. Kirk, if you don't mind, let me start from the very beginning, from where I was born. Because I think that's pretty relevant to where I am today. I was born in the '70s in Hungary, and that was one of those socialist countries in Eastern Europe. So education for blind people was rather limited. There was a school for the blind. But what started everything was that when I was born, there was a close family member who said that my parents shouldn't take me out on the street because it's embarrassing. And then she said, well, maybe when he grows up, maybe he can watch the geese at the end of the village. Now, mind you, I think watching the geese at the end of the village was going to be much more difficult than my two master's degrees, but I didn't know what she had in mind. But that was the point where my parents said that, regardless of how — they had no idea how to do it — but this kid is going to have the same education that everybody else [has]. And that's when I was a baby. Dr. Kirk Adams: So did your parents — were there other brothers and sisters already, or were you the first? Tom Babinszki: I was the first at that point, and later I had a brother two and a half years [younger?] 00:05:03. So we're pretty close, growing up. Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, so high five to your parents. Good for them. Tom Babinszki: Thank you. I'll tell them. Because it was incredible what they did. And they took me to — where they found a school for the blind, they took me there. I studied there and then went to high school. But then I had to advocate a lot for myself, because there really wasn't too much advocacy. So I had to fight for every single thing. All I heard is that you cannot do it because you are blind, and blind people can't write. So I heard it enough. And I'm very thankful to every one of those people, because — Dr. Kirk Adams: Did you get blindness skills instruction? Were you [taught?] 00:05:56 Braille and cane travel? Tom Babinszki: [Taught?] 00:05:59, actually. So when I was 16, I got a scholarship. It was an international scholarship at the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia. And I spent there a year, and I got lots of mobility instruction there and other skills. Actually, I just came back from the LEAD Conference last week, which was in Philadelphia. It was amazing to be back after 30 years and wander the same streets. Dr. Kirk Adams: Cool. Tom Babinszki: But then, in the meantime, life was difficult, because my parents gave me the education, but what they couldn't give me is, they couldn't stop the discrimination. Every time I looked for a job, they either told me you can't do it because you're blind, or somehow they started convincing me that I need a car and the driver's license, in a city where public transportation is amazing. Tom Babinszki: And then I got a scholarship to the US, and I came here and I finished my master's degree, and I got a job. And — Dr. Kirk Adams: Where did you go to school? Tom Babinszki: At that point, I went to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. And later, when I moved to Washington, DC, and I was working in accessibility, I went to George Mason. Dr. Kirk Adams: Okay. Tom Babinszki: So this country welcomed me. They didn't ask me what is it you cannot do. They told me that you're welcome to help us with anything that you would like to, and do what you can, and we'll support you. I get so much support from people that I didn't even know, because they never looked at me as a blind person. They looked at me as an accessibility consultant. And sure, I know we still have problems, and we do, and that's why I'm still doing what I'm doing. But at least I was able to succeed. And so I started working for accessibility consulting companies. And I'm not going to keep it too long here, but at some point, for three years, I was at the Hadley School for the Blind, where I was the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship. Dr. Kirk Adams: Oh, I did not know that. Tom Babinszki: Yeah. I built that program. George Abbott started building it, and then under his leadership, basically I got the whole thing, and they told me build it from scratch. And that was a ton of fun. But what's most important here is that the travel bug bit me when I was young, very young. And I love traveling. You know, my favorite smell is jet fuel. Tom Babinszki: And every time I have a chance, I go. And I hardly ever had — other than during Covid time — in my life when I didn't have an upcoming airline ticket to be used. But that interest in travel gave me something, that it wasn't just enough to be there. I wanted to experience so much. And some of the things that I really wanted to experience was buildings. Every time I went somewhere like a more famous building, I always started out at the gift shop, because some of the places have building replicas. Tom Babinszki: And when they ha

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Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams is a compelling podcast series that brings listeners into the world of accessibility, leadership, and social change through the lens of one of the most influential voices in blindness advocacy. Dr. Kirk Adams, former President and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind and a lifelong champion for the rights of people with visual impairments, hosts this insightful and inspiring program.

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