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| Company Description | |||||||||||
| With representation by Damon Brooks & Associates, Dr. Frankeberger
both designs and delivers disability awareness seminars and programs
for clients throughout the U.S. and beyond. Many of his clients have
been transit agencies as well as transit trade organizations. Kevin
recently returned from China having traveled with a large contingent
of members of various U.S. based Chambers of Commerce to learn more
about “awareness” in that fast developing country in anticipation
of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
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| Dr. Frankeberger also works with major corporate clients who serve the traveling public. Although currently between guide dogs (shown is recently retired Chessy who is enjoying his life of leisure at Kevin and PCA/spouse Becky’s home), Kevin is a frequent traveler who has had first-hand experience with the negatives people with disabilities that travel are expected to endure. He has turned those negatives into educational “opportunities” as he believes sometimes it makes more sense to educate then to litigate! | |||||||||||
| How Did you Get Started? | |||||||||||
| What happens if you made your lemonade out of the lemons
given but years later the pitcher breaks? If you are like Kevin Frankeberger, you pick up the pitcher and refabricate it with a new batch of juice! Many have made the proverbial “lemonade out of lemons’ but to do it twice in one lifetime is a different kind of feat. Born with congenital Nystagmus, Kevin prospered with the limited sight he had. He performed perfectly through graduate school, spent years as a development officer for the Boy Scout of America, went on to be the assistant vice president at the oldest historically Black college in America and then had his own fund development firm that helped to build battered women’s shelters, children’s hospitals, a private Jewish Academy and so on. Next he was to run for Congress. That never happened though. A car accident in 1995 left him in chronic pain along with his blindness. He could no longer work and support his family and those of his employees. The family finances went to pay medical bills. The home was lost. His marriage ended. Life itself almost ended at his own hands. Five years later, Kevin stopped merely existing and began living again. Teamed with his first guide dog, the blindness issue almost went away in terms of getting around safely. He immersed himself into public transportation options. Kevin began speaking about his experiences, the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the importance of “working from the heart” and, the inspiration he got from his teenaged children to find help for his chronic pain and to live again! Kevin’s story is one of strength and courage, twice. At times humorous, at times emotional but always motivating, this story of a man who is blind who then had to overcome yet another (and hidden) disability to live again proves that the human spirit is strong enough to make as much lemonade as life presents lemons. As Kevin says, “Sometimes, the pitcher just has to be redesigned a tad.” Dr. Frankeberger was dubbed a “national transit success story” by Easter Seals Project ACTION and has been featured in many national publications. |
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| How does your disability affect or impact your business? | |||||||||||
| Although Kevin’s blindness seems most obvious as his
disability, it is his chronic pain that mostly affects or impacts
his business. As he laments, many in the disability “knowledge group”
as he calls it, don’t get it either and that’s a source of frustration.
The “it” is that he must travel and rely on a PCA (Personal Care Attendant)
when he travels or presents. And, she is not there to help at all
with his orientation or mobility, Becky is there to assist with the
chronic pain issue. In fact, Becky is blind as well. And, she just
happens to now be his wife! Dr. Frankeberger says that clients are at least relieved to know that they don’t have to pay for two hotel rooms but at times, they want to question the extra airplane ticket or extra meals and so forth. To have to explain what his PCA does for him is of course an illegal ask but even more, an immoral one as well in his opinion. But, until he tells his tale and brings forth what the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was designed to bring to bear, his clients just don’t have a clue. At the onset, it seems that this speaker or presenter is simply bringing his wife along for a paid holiday, he says. Another impact upon the business that his hidden disability has is that Kevin must travel a day ahead of any seminar or presentation so that he can physically try to recover from the plane ride and this and that. Also, he must stay a night after any such presentation to again, regroup and try to bring his pain levels back to a manageable level. Dr. Frankeberger reports that sometimes clients “get it” and sometimes they don’t meaning, extra hotel nights and meals associated (times two with his PCA) are sometimes out of pocket. As he says, “I’ve been fortunate in my life to stay in way too many nice hotels and have eaten at again, way too many nice restaurants. If only I could, I’d leave at the last minute and come home at the first opportunity to sleep in my own bed and cook my own food. But, I can’t.” |
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| Your Best Advice | |||||||||||
| Network, network and then, network some more! And, do
it out of your comfort zone! Most readers probably are on one list
serve or another with people who have the same disability or, have
a guide dog from the same school or use a wheelchair made by the same
manufacturer and so on. That won’t propel whatever business but, of
course it will propel friendships and bring you a place to cry but,
it won’t make you any bucks. Get into your community. Serve on Boards and get to know the shakers and movers around. Be a Rotarian or a Lion or a Sertomen…whatever but get out there and network. And, once on that Board or a member of that civic club, be active and involved. Show yourself and not your disability by that active involvement. Those around you will make you successful if they feel you believe in yourself. And, say “thank you” in 24 hours or less when a thanks is in order. In a similar way, respond to people who you think have some way to positively help you in 24 hours or less. Thanks now to all who might have read this piece about me. I’m humbled to have been asked to share my story. I can always use more business! Pass my name along. <grin> Remember, network! |
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