Arizona non-profit helps employ blind people

From The Arizona Republic. In the picture, Fernando Ramos, who is partly blind, works at an Arizona Industries for the Blind manufacturing facility in Phoenix that makes stretchers and other items for the military.

The recession has made it nearly impossible for blind workers such as 51-year-old Charles Arballo to find work, the Phoenix resident said.

"It's tough to get a job in any economy, and the recession adds another factor to that," said Arballo, a former California radio DJ with a college degree.

"There is a lot that a blind person can do, but you have to educate employers," he said. "As soon as you walk in with your trusty walking stick, they say, 'Well, we need to do more interviews.' "

Arballo was fortunate. He landed a temporary job assembling military stretchers for Arizona Industries for the Blind, an agency within the Arizona Department of Economic Security. The non-profit employs about 130 people - 75 who are visually impaired - and handles several government and private contracts.

The program's contract work creates hard-to-find jobs for people with visual impairments. Arizona Industries for the Blind also helps job seekers to locate work.

In Arizona, there is a 9.6 percent percent unemployment rate. But among the state's estimated 32,250 visually-impaired residents, that figure is as high as 70 percent, said Daniel Martinez, community-relations manager for Arizona Industries for the Blind.

Technology, like voice-recognition devices, help visually impaired workers to do a vast array of jobs. Some AIB workers say they have held call-center jobs, that they have computer-science training or that they are certified to operate industrial equipment. But it's a challenge to convince employers that they can work as effectively as people with sight, workers say.

Naturally, the need for work among the visually impaired is much greater than the number of jobs that Arizona Industries for the Blind can provide.

Workers who help build the stretchers earn anywhere from $17,160 to $24,960 annually, not including medical and other benefits. In other divisions, such as the non-profit's distribution center, workers earn from $24,772 to $41,600 a year, agency officials say.

The agency has been around since 1952, and it has four business units.

In one, workers make digital copies of paper documents.

In another, workers ship goods to military bases around the country - everything from the stripes and medals that go on a soldier's uniform to the tiny bulbs that will illuminate a military pilot's instrument panel. The third unit builds litters that help carry the wounded from the battlefield.

The fourth unit operates service stores at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson and the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma. The shops sell office supplies, clothing and equipment to enlisted men and women.

The non-profit gets very limited state funding to finance new lines of business, but most of its funding comes from contracts.

The contracts aren't handouts, said Timothy Adams, a manager who works for the program. The non-profit must compete with private companies and military organizations.

One of those contracts includes a five-year, $2 million agreement with the Department of Defense to distribute the military supplies to bases.

On a recent afternoon, workers pushed carts around a vast warehouse filled with towering shelves lined with boxes. A Talkman - part of a voice-activated, voice-recognition system - guided workers to the correct aisle and box where they would find the items to fill each order. Each worker carried a handheld scanner, which helped verify the right item.

AIB adds a few workers every year, but it has a low turnover. The agency is developing some new products that may help create more jobs.

The agency also helps visually-impaired clients with job placement.

If those workers don't get a job at Arizona Industries for the Blind, the agency "will do everything" it can to get them a job in the private sector, said Martinez, the community-relations official who is visually impaired himself. That's more difficult these days, he acknowledged. Competition for work is fierce.

And long-term unemployment takes a financial and emotional toll on the blind as well as those who can see, Martinez added.

"It is, itself, a disability," Martinez said.