ABILITY Jobs - Affirmative Disability Action - Employment for People with Disabilities

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EMPLOYMENT ARTICLES May, 2008
PepsiCo — Effervescent Corporate Culture

During the recent Super Bowl, millions of viewers caught a Pepsi commercial, one that some say represents an historic first. The unusual ad featured a silent, 60-second joke: Two guys drive to their friend Bob’s house to watch the big game. Once they get to his street, neither remembers his address. So they sit in the car arguing in sign language until one of them gets a clever idea and lays on the horn. One by one, the houses light up-except for Bob’s.

Clay Broussard, who plays Bob, also developed the commercial and has worked for PepsiCo in Dallas for 27 years. Though he is not deaf, the two actors who play his friends, Brian Dowling and Darren Therriault, are. They’re also Broussard’s coworkers and members of PepsiCo’s EnAble, an employee network for associates with different abilities and for caregivers. The three-year-old organization was founded to influence and provide guidance to the company, which also owns Frito Lay, Gatorade, Tropicana and Quaker, so that people with different abilities were included at all levels. Now more than 300 PepsiCo associates strong, EnAble has chapters in New York, California, Ohio, Washington, Arizona, Florida and Texas.More

Connecticut Dept. of Labor — Gift of Opportunity

Joe Stromondo was born with dwarfism. But dwarfism doesn’t define who he is; it is simply the name of his disability. It doesn’t take more than a five-minute conversation with the 24-year-old Stromondo, who works full time as a career advisor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, to realize how bright and energetic he is. Upon graduating from Trinity with a BA in philosophy two years ago, Stromondo had hoped to pursue a PhD in bioethics, with a specific focus in disability bioethics. He applied for entry to nine different PhD programs, only to be rejected by all of them. Never one to be easily discouraged, Stromondo switched his emphasis. At the urging of one of his undergraduate advisors, he applied for a position in the career services department at Trinity. He jokes that he was a perfect fit for the job because “I had a lot of experience applying to graduate schools!” More
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Pathways to Work

Steve Tamburro, co-chair of the association of persons with disabilities at the Raytheon Company helped plan a recent Creating Pathways to Work retreat. The daylong strategic-visioning event brought together key representatives of federal and state government, educators, members of the business community and advocates for people with disabilities, along with Rhode Island Congressman Jim Langevin, the first quadriplegic elected to Congress. They huddled to address the barriers and challenges people with disabilities face when trying to enter the workforce. Tamburro, who has had MS for 10 years, serves as manager of Community Partnerships for Raytheon, an 80-year-old company that specializes in defense, homeland security and other government markets throughout the world.. More
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Behind the Scenes at Walgreens

When you stop by Walgreens to pick up a prescription or a few toiletry items, you don’t see what’s going on beyond the shelves, beyond the brick and mortar. What you don’t see is that the corporation has been busy at work creating distribution centers that employ impressive numbers of people with disabilities. More
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Your Boss is Not Your Mother

Image of article Your Boss is Not Your Mother

Surveys show that most people who are unhappy at work attribute their distress to their relationships with coworkers. Often these people are unknowingly replicating problems they had with parents, siblings, or others in childhood. More
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Vocational Rehabilitation Service Programs (NEW)
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Events and Conference Calendar (NEW)
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