Mike’s interests and passions for change are in Election Reform, mainly Voter Rights, freedom to travel on public transportation, equal access to public and private employment and free, equal and adequate education. As an advocate, Mike has paid his dues and has offered to share some of his wisdom with us here today.
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Andy Pasternak
Andy Pasternak holds a Master of Arts in Guidance & Counseling from New York University along with numerous post-graduate courses, seminars, and workshops. He is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor and is a Counselor Educator in the Graduate Schools of Education at Hunter College of the City University of New York and, in the past, at St. John’s University. Currently, he is the Metro New York Chapter Past-President of the National Rehabilitation Association, the major professional organization in the field, plus is a member of the International Association of Rehabilitation Professionals, Forensic Section. He is also a designated Vocational Expert for the Social Security Administration.
Mr. Pasternak’s almost 40 years of experience in the field of Vocational Rehabilitation of persons with disabilities is extremely broad-based and comprehensive, encompassing stints in the public, non-profit, and private rehabilitation sectors. He has successfully worked with persons with a wide range of impairments, both exceptional and non-exceptional, including spending over 18 years with the New York State Commission For The Blind in various capacities.
He is currently also in private practice as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC), who specializes in working with individuals with disabilities of various types. Andy helps in the appraisal process with regard to vocational assessment, employment, and work planning. Techniques that are utilized include: occupational assessment, diagnosis, career and vocational counseling, case management, job analysis, job development, and job placement services, as well as interventions to remove various barriers, physical as well as those of attitude.
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Sherry DeFrancesco
Sherry DeFrancesco is currently the Administrative Director of Westchester Disabled On the Move, Inc. Sherry has been with the agency since August of 2004. She has worked with people with disabilities most of her professional life, and became blind in 1991. Sherry obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Psychology from SUNY Purchase College after losing her vision. She also attended the CUNY School of Professional Studies where she obtained a Graduate Certificate in Disability Studies. Sherry is a strong advocate for the disabled community and dedicates her time working toward the independence, dignity and well-being of people with disabilities.
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Christina Curry
Christina Curry is the Executive Director for the Harlem Independent Living Center (HILC), Harlem, NY. Ms. Curry began her career in rehabilitation as an Advocate with the Deaf, Hard of Hearing communities, working primarily within the Black and Hispanic populations. From there, Ms. Curry transitioned to the mental health field as a Mental Health Counselor working with Deaf, Hard of Hearing domestic violence victims/survivors. At the same time, she began freelance work with an outpatient mental health facility located in Brooklyn, NY, working with the Black and Hispanic disabled community. She joined HILC in 1999 as the Program Director and was promoted to the position of Executive Director in 2001.
Ms. Curry has/currently served/s on many committees, such as, the Chair for the Deaf, Hard of Hearing domestic violence victims/survivors task force (formed thru the Brooklyn D.A’s office) the Monarch Center Advisory Committee, the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities Disability Mentoring Day (MOPD/DMD), Mt. Sinai SCI Advisory Committee, Office of Emergency Management Special Needs Advisory Committee, the Disability Network of New York City (DNNYC), the New York State Independent Living Council Committee (NYSILC) the New York Association of Independent Living (NYAIL), the Cultural Diversity Advisory Committee (CDAC), Yad YaChazakah, Community board 10/Harlem and most recently an appointment to the Executive Board of Directors for the Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped.
Additionally, Ms. Curry is a financial sponsor for an independent domestic violence organization which provides its’ disabled members with the tools to reenter the job force, relocate, etc.
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Louis Mercado
Louis Mercado has worked with the Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor for 14 years. He has a caseload of 100 consumers consisting of bilingual (English/Spanish), Spanish only, and English only clients. In addition Louis coordinates vocational rehabilitation services for legally blind consumers looking for work and provides job services to working consumers. Services provided through arrangements with agencies and organizations include mobility and rehabilitation teaching, job readiness skills, and other training to help achieve a successful employment outcome.
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Brett Eisenberg
Brett Eisenberg is Disability Coordinator at American International Group (AIG) in Manhattan. In this capacity, he leads the corporation’s Disability Initiative programs in various areas, including recruitment and retention, corporate affairs, assistive technology, and products and services. He has created programs whereby AIG is able to focus on the disability population to better serve their needs as well as the needs of AIG.
A graduate of the renowned Henry Viscardi School in Albertson, New York, Eisenberg joined AIG in 2006 as an Analyst in the Human Resources-Corporate Staffing division. He was responsible for preparing all reports regarding hiring activity and cost per hire worldwide in addition to assisting in all aspects of the budget process for five different departments.
Eisenberg serves on the AIG Corporate Diversity Council. But his extensive involvement and outreach to assist people with disabilities in finding employment goes beyond his daily work at AIG. Eisenberg contributes his time, talent and energy as a member of more then five Business Advisory Councils, including Abilities, Inc., Just One Break, Inc. (JOB), and Fedcap. In addition, he founded and now directs the New York chapter of the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation.
Before joining AIG and while attending college, Eisenberg worked at Merrill Lynch in various areas including Private Wealth Management, Global Philanthropy, Office of General Counsel and Litigation Department.
Eisenberg was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting, with a concentration in Management, from Nova Southeastern University in Florida. He also attended Adelphi University and Baruch College. In 2008 Eisenberg received the prestigious Paul G. Hearne/AAPD Leadership Award.
In 2007 he married Christina who is also a graduate of the Henry Viscardi School.
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Patrick T. Allen, First Vice President, Corporate & Enterprise Recruiting, Merrill Lynch
In his current position, Patrick manages Corporate and Enterprise Recruiting at Merrill Lynch. His team develops Merrill’s recruiting strategy for the technology, operations, finance, legal and research functions across the firm. Prior to joining Merrill in 2006, Patrick has played a variety of staffing roles within the financial services community, most recently with Bank of America and JPMorganChase. He graduated from Lynchburg College with a bachelor's degree in Business Management. Patrick is a strong advocate for the disabled community and has dedicated much of his time toward improving disability recruiting efforts at Merrill Lynch. In October of 2007, he partnered with Matt Sapolin and the New York City Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities in hosting "Raising Disability Awareness on Wall Street". This unique event invited Wall Street firms together to discuss disability issues in the workplace and provided a springboard for these firms to share best practices.
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Carroll Stone
As Blindness Products Account Manager, Carroll Stone represents the
blindness-related products for HumanWare in the Northeastern states, including New York.
Carroll's background before joining HumanWare is in Information
Technology, and Medical Sales. Carroll's previous focus on technology as
related to patient health and well-being have served well at HumanWare, where our goal is empowerment through technology solutions.
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Jeff Pledger
Jeff Pledger is a Senior Financial Analyst in Verizon Business and the Vice President of Verizon’s Disability Issues Awareness Leaders (DIAL) Employee Resource Group. He joined the company in 1991 as the first person with a disability recruited into the Executive Development Program and has been promoted through increasing responsibilities related to database design and management with concurrent involvement in representing corporate interests and advocating for people with disabilities.
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Guido Corona
While music composition was his first love, Guido D. Corona joined the IBM Canada Software Laboratory in Toronto in 1982 with a BA in Computer Science from York University. He worked on compiler construction for RPG3, Ada, and SEDL (Software Engineering Design Language) until 1991.
His involvement in accessibility commenced in 1984 with the design and implementation of the 'Edit Facility' for an experimental programmable IBM screen reader for DOS dubbed PC/SAID. The software included the first kernel of a software technology for multiplexing the denotation of textual meta-information by voice parameter mapping. Guido later ported a more advanced version of the technology to SRD/2--the IBM screen reader for OS/2. In more recent times, his early ideas have been adopted and extended by designers of current screen readers for the blind.
In 1998 he was transferred to the IBM Accessibility Center in Austin (Texas) where he specialized in non visual user interface designs and test management. He is currently part of the consultative sales team of the IBM Human Abilities & Accessibility Center (HA&AC). He has filed patents in the accessibility domain and is currently exploring accessibility problems and solution methodologies in Virtual Worlds.
Guido is also a freelance columnist for AFB's AccessWorld, and a contributor to The Absolute Sound—a leading journal of High-End Audio.
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Julie Jansen
Julie is a speaker, trainer, coach, and consultant who helps organizations and individuals reach their fullest potential in today’s chaotic workplace.
Julie is the author of “I Don’t Know What I Want, But I know It’s Not This: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Gratifying Work” which is available in audio from Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.
Her most recent book is “You Want Me to Work With Who? Eleven Keys to a Stress-Free, Satisfying and Successful Worklife … No Matter Who You Work With.”
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Lynnette Tatum
Lynnette is a senior training instructor at CCVIP specializing in teaching Microsoft Office applications, Internet Explorer, and other software programs. In addition she teaches a class on Career Exploration and Job Search using assistive technology.
She is a expert on screen reader and screen magnification training.
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Conference
