[Jobs] Fw: [LCA] A Match that Works

[Corey Cook]

interesting program.

Corey Cook
corey_cook at bellsouth.net

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Pelfrey" <jamespelfrey at charter.net>
To: "Jobs for the Blind" <jobs at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 2:58 PM
Subject: [Jobs] Fw: [LCA] A Match that Works


I have mentioned the statler Center on this list, and thought I would share 
this article.  I have two interviews coming up, but am considering this 
option.  Enjoy
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Suzanne Ament
To: Jim Pelfrey
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 1:46 PM
Subject: Fw: [LCA] A Match that Works


Jim, here is an article you might find interesting for future ifthe road 
Island job doesn't come through.
Suzanne
----- Original Message ----- 
From: kljh4
To: LCA at yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 11:29 AM
Subject: [LCA] A Match that Works


A Match that Works
The Post-Standard
Syracuse, NY

Sunday, June 03, 2007
By Carolyn Thompson
The Associated Press
Buffalo

Pearl Arnold needed a job. Daniel Blachut's hotel needed good, loyal 
workers.

A tall order for both.

Blachut is general manager in an industry with a 50-plus percent turnover 
rate, and Arnold is blind and up against a 70 percent unemployment rate.

That the two could help each other made perfect sense to Dr. Ronald Maier, 
who conceived of a program to train blind and other disabled people for 
front-end careers in the hospitality industry.

Since Arnold graduated in the first class eight years ago, the National 
Statler Center for Careers in Hospitality Service has equipped more than 200 
people with college-level training and placed 87 percent of them in jobs.

Arnold was operating the telephone system at the Adam's Mark hotel on a 
recent afternoon on a computer enhanced with a voice reader and Braille 
display.

"I've always been a people person so I've always had jobs working with 
people," said Arnold, 50, a former preschool teacher.

With seven years at the Buffalo hotel, she is a rare and welcome find, 
Blachut said.

"In the hospitality industry, we're challenged with a lot of turnover," he 
said. "Seven years ... it's huge."

The U.S. Labor Department reported a 52.2 percent turnover rate in the 
leisure and hospitality industry last year, more than double the 23.4 
percent overall turnover rate in the U.S. job market.

Experts say employees tend to move between hotels for even slightly higher 
pay or to advance more quickly in their careers.

That Arnold is staying put is no surprise to Renee DiFlavio, vice president 
of employment and education at the Statler Center.

For a blind employee to change jobs requires all kinds of unique challenges 
learning a new bus route, new schedule, how to get around in the new place.

"Too much has been put into that job," DiFlavio said at the center, located 
inside an inviting 1920s mansion set up like a bed and breakfast that a 
graduate might find work in.

The need for the program is obvious from the list of applicants: About 70 
percent of students come from out-of-town or out of the country for the 
13-week course developed in partnership with Johnson and Wales University.

More than 800 people have applied to attend since 1999. About 30 students 
are interviewed for each class of 12 to 14 students. Students have come from 
15 states and eight countries for the program, which is offered three times 
a year.

While other programs train blind and disabled adults for careers, Statler 
Center executives believe theirs is the only one specifically targeting the 
hospitality industry.

Only serious students need apply: All must have a high school degree and 
many have two- or four-year college degrees.

Students cannot miss more than three days of classes and they must follow a 
business casual dress code which excludes jeans, piercings and baseball caps 
usually favored by the college set.

Students also are taught to be super-prepared for job interviews with loads 
of facts about the employer at the ready blind applicants don't have the 
icebreaking advantages of a sighted person who might comment on a golfing 
trophy or child's artwork decorating an office.

"We're just preparing for the work world," DiFlavio said. "We expect a lot 
from the students and they expect a lot from us."

Earlier this year, program leaders conducted a first-ever session outside of 
Buffalo, in Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, Toronto, Detroit and Florida have ex- pressed interest in running 
the program there, DiFlavio said.

"It would make sense to places very dense in hospitality," she said.

It was a condition of a $1 million startup grant from the Statler Foundation 
that students train for positions other than housekeeping or other 
lower-rung jobs. The program also receives funding from the Conrad N. Hilton 
Foundation, other philanthropic agencies, New York state and the city of 
Buffalo.

Susan Hall, 54, of Methuen, Mass., one of 12 students in the current class, 
practiced filling out a fact sheet using a Braille display while the Seeing 
Eye dogs lounged beneath their owners' work stations in the center's 
computer lab.

The challenges of being, for example, a hotel reservation clerk, were 
becoming obvious, Hall said.

When blind, the clerk needs to be able to listen to a caller on the phone 
while typing information into a computer and at the same time, listening as 
the computer reads out what is being typed.

"And you still may be needing to look up information as well," Hall said, 
"so you have to really put your ears on."

Hall is aware of the abundance of hospitality jobs, but she also wants to 
branch out maybe even into the entertainment business. The youngest of her 
four children is a backup singer with the rock band INXS.

Advances in technology have opened jobs that were nonexistent to visually 
impaired 20 years ago.

"I figure, hey, you're never too old to jump in," she said.

Actually, at 54, Hall is only about 10 years older than the average student 
at the Statler Center.

The program's founders were surprised to find that many applicants were not 
fresh out of high school as they'd expected, but older people who may be 
looking for a new career after losing their sight.

One graduate was a cabinet maker who lost sight in one eye to an injury.

Then he went blind in his other eye after suffering a detached retina while 
out at sea working as a commercial fisherman.

Virgil Stinnett is now a switchboard operator at the Waikiki Marriott Beach 
Resort in Hawaii.

Graduates are earning an average of $9 to $9.50 an hour.

Online: The National Statler Center for Careers in Hospitality Service is at 
www.statlercenter.org

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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