The Road to Greater Independence - Preface

So how did I get here? Let’s just say that it’s been a long and wonderful journey! I’ll be as succinct as possible while also providing context as to how I arrived.

I spent most of the decades of my life as a business owner in the swimming pool, spa, and hot tub industry; an industry that I enjoyed immensely. When I married Barbara, I married a woman who in several short years would begin the long decline due to the effects of Type 1 diabetes myelitis, first enduring a kidney transplant, then several years later a pancreas transplant (curing her of diabetes), and several other operations involving her feet, back and eyes. Barbara’s health issues pushed our relationship and family squarely into the long-term medical and healthcare realm.

As we chose not to have our own biological children which would have put a huge strain on her health, we instead chose to adopt. First, we adopted our daughter as a 4-month-old infant. Then when she was a young teenager, Barbara and I traveled to Russia to adopt two older boys over the course of two and a half years. Our sons came to us with their own sets of struggles as each had gone through trauma in their younger lives before being placed in orphanages for some time before we adopted them.

Over the years we all learned how to deal with both physical and mental health issues and their respective professionals. Looking back even further, I remember times of being with and working with various neurodiverse people as my dad was very active in the local Rotary Club and their programs.

In time, we would bring our business to a close and Barbara would eventually succumb to renal failure and its complications. Shortly after Barbara’s passing and the closure of the business, I knew that I needed to find additional or supplemental employment because I thought I knew what I would do for the remainder of my professional life. Little did I know the abrupt and unexpected turn it would take. All I knew was that I did not want a sales position.

I kept driving by this place, a local driving school, with a banner hung out front simply stating, “We’re hiring!” Since I loved driving (I had been doing some part-time Uber work and loved that) and I love teaching (I’ve been a teen and adult Sunday school teacher at my church since the early 1990s, plus what I enjoyed most of my business career was teaching and training both staff and clientele), this seemed like a natural and hopefully fun change of pace and life.

Long story short, I applied, had a phone interview two days later, and was officially hired two days after that. One week later, I would start my 60 hours of training with The Next Street, LLC. On day two of orientation, our class of new staff and instructors was introduced to the other departments and their respective directors and managers. It was then that I met Joan Cramer. Joan is a licensed Occupational Therapist and a Certified Driving Rehabilitation Specialist (CDRS) through ADED (the Association for Driver Rehabilitation Specialists), as well as a Certified Driving Instructor, and at the time was the only person in the company’s Driver Rehab Services department. During Joan’s presentation, I realized that that was where I wanted to work. I knew it in my innermost being. Joan not only became a colleague but a good friend and mentor. 

Since Joan was “it” in Rehab Services, her concentration was on building and developing the program which at the time was geared more toward working with the physically “differently-abled” (think students and clients who are amputees, paraplegics, those with neuro-muscular diseases, post-stroke patients, cerebral palsy, etc.) plus some or certain more profoundly affected neurodiverse students.

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