If you have the right attitude and the right expectations, blindness is nothing more than a nuisance, and nothing more than a condition that we happen to have. My parents embraced me as their blind son, and I was never treated as Hoby, our blind child. I was Hoby, our child.

Welcome to the Heard and Empowered podcast presented by The National Industries For the Blind. You’re not just a listener here, you’re a catalyst for change. Whether you’re blind, visually impaired or an ally, this is your ultimate resource for building a fulfilling career and an enriching life. We’re on a mission to shift perceptions, open hearts and minds and unlock unparalleled opportunities for the BVI community. Ready to be heard and empowered?

For our very first episode we want you to meet the host of Heard and Empowered, Dr. Hoby Wedler. His story is not just about overcoming challenges, it’s about redefining what’s possible. Prepare to be inspired.

Hi there, and welcome again to the Heard and Empowered podcast. As I was introduced, I’m your host, Dr. Hoby Wedler. We are all in for such an exciting treat because there’s so much to learn, there’s so much opportunity and I just love being on this journey with you all.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself and my story. I was born completely blind, and my parents really didn’t know that much about blindness. They didn’t know anyone who was blind. I was born normally, my genetics came out perfectly normal, there were no issues, there were no problems. My parents thought that they were going to have this perfect, normal, able-bodied baby. And then I was born, and they found out immediately that I was blind and that I was going to be blind for the rest of my life.

Now, as a parent if I think about this, it’s pretty stressful. What do we do? How do we teach him to walk? Is he going to ever have a job? What’s going to happen here? When I was 12 hours old, I think, about 12 hours old, my mom picked up the phone and called her best friend from college. Barb is the name of her friend, and Barb’s husband, Steve, answered the phone. And all Steve was saying was, “Oh no. Oh, what is this? What’s going wrong? I’m so sorry to hear that.”

And Barb, being the person that she is, really wanted to know what was happening so she grabbed the phone from her husband and said, “What’s going on?” And my mom said, “Well, Hoby was born, but he’s blind.” And Barb’s response to that was, “Oh, thank goodness, he’s blind. From the way Steve was reacting I thought he was dead.”

Why did Barb have this outlet on blindness that it was okay? My mom didn’t know that Barb was raised by her father, who was sighted, and her father’s best friend, who was blind. So Barb was literally surrounded by blindness ever since she was a child. And to her, being blind was just like having brown eyes. It was no different.

Whenever her family needed help with anything mechanical, they called John, her dad’s friend who was blind. And John would come fix the dishwasher, fix the lawnmower, change the oil in the car. He did these things better than sighted people do them, better than they could. So she had no issue with blindness.

And the point of telling this anecdote is just to show you that if you have the right attitude and the right expectations, blindness is nothing more than a nuisance and nothing more than a condition that we happen to have. My parents embraced me as their blind son and I was never treated as Hoby, our blind child. I was Hoby, our child who just so happens to be blind.

I was treated with the same extremely high expectations as my sighted brother who is two years older. Sure, our chores may have been different, but I was held to the same high standard. We were taught how to work hard.

The other thing that my parents did for my brother and me, that was so wonderful, is they taught us that the lives we live are our lives and we need to take responsibility for ourselves and for our actions. If we succeed at something, it’s ours to celebrate. And quite frankly, if we fail, we need to take the blame for that.

That life lesson of embracing life myself has helped me every step of the way. I love taking on challenges in my life. That’s what keeps me going because when you fail, you learn a lesson. And when you succeed, the adrenaline you feel and the positivity you feel, is just priceless. I can’t even put my finger on it, but it’s what I love doing.

For me, one of these challenges was studying chemistry. I fell in love with chemistry as a high school student. I absolutely thought it was the subject that was going to shape my future. And I ended up testing into honors chemistry and had to show the instructor that I could do things the same way as my sighted peers with just a little bit of guidance and with a little bit of sighted assistance in the laboratory, and as my scribe on exams and problem sets.

One thing that was really challenging in that chemistry class was that the instructor always told my peers, my fellow colleagues in class, my classmates, that chemistry is not just the prerequisite that you have to take to study what you really want to study in college. Chemistry is fun. We eat it. We drink it. We live it. Chemistry is literally one of the most fundamental sciences.

So she would say, you all should think about studying chemistry beyond just the boring prerequisite that you often think it is, and jump in with both feet and embrace it. Well, I was probably the only student in the class who really did want to embrace chemistry. And I went to her and said, I know that this is something that you tell my classmates that they should love and study and all that, but I really want to do that myself. I love chemistry, do you think that’s possible?

And she would say in a very sad voice, you know, Hoby, I really think because you’re blind, chemistry is impractical. It’s not something that you should study full-time because it’s going to be a huge challenge for you. I mean, think about how challenging the labs that we do in honors chemistry in high school are.

And I thought, I love this subject so much. There’s got to be something I can say to show her that if I want to study chemistry in college, I should be able to with her support. And I remember the day like it was yesterday when I went into her classroom early in the morning during the second week of the second semester. It was cold, it was January.

And I walked up to her classroom before any students were there and I said, I understand that you think chemistry is a visual science, but nobody can see atoms. We really think about atoms. So chemistry is a cerebral science. And in fact, we spend a lot of money as chemists working to make things that we can’t see accessible to us, like radio waves and X rays.

The things that we can see with our naked eye are a very, very narrow spectrum of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. So we see a very narrow part of that with our eyes. And we use instruments like radio wave detectors, X ray detectors, microwave detectors, what have you to make things visible to us.

From that point on, my high school chemistry instructor was, and still is today, my biggest supporter and ally. And I did go out and study chemistry as an undergraduate student and earned my undergraduate degree in chemistry. Because I didn’t know that chemistry would be possible for me as a graduate student, I also earned degrees in history, and then a minor as well in mathematics, just because I’m kind of a nerd.

It ended up working out very well that I was able to study computational organic chemistry in graduate school. And when I graduated, I thought I wanted to teach. But instead, I was pulled, while in graduate school, in the direction of food and drink. So I wanted to have a job as a chemist, and really as a translator between hardcore research and development science, and sales and marketing teams.

So I applied for a position at one of the largest food groups in the world. Everything was great, I went back for a day and a half interview. It was exciting. I talked to amazing people. And everything went well except for the chat that I had with HR, where they asked me a few questions. They really wanted to know about my blindness and how was I going to make this job possible?

And I explained how we could make accommodations to help me out without issue. And I explained it just like I explained to my high school and college professors that we can do this and we’re collaborators, we’re not adversaries. So let’s just work on this together.

A week went by. My ally at the company said I think that interview went really well. Two weeks went by, I thought I had the job. But then I got a call from HR saying, we’re so sorry but you’re under qualified for the position. The way I felt at that time was totally deflated, totally compromised. Like my blindness alone, despite extremely hard work and a great deal of academic effort, was the one thing in the way of getting my dream job.

I felt dejected. I felt depressed. I felt oppressed when I found out the true reason that I didn’t get the job was not that I was under qualified, it was that HR was worried about accommodating me. How do you think that feels? Now I know that it really was my blindness. I lifted out of this funk through amazing mentors.

My dear business partner, Justin, and I worked through things together and that’s when I said, I really want to work for myself. So I started a marketing agency, Senspoint, and I am a product development expert in the food and beverage world.

This brings us to think about why this podcast? Well, I was introduced to the National Industries for the Blind back in April of 2023, and they told me that they wanted to show blind and visually impaired people around the country what opportunities were possible. And I just fell in love with the mission of the National Industries for the Blind because they are working to lower the unemployment rate of the blind community, which if you didn’t know, hovers right around 70%. Seven zero.

That means 7 out of 10 blind or visually impaired people in this country are unemployed. That’s just striking. And it became my passion to figure out a way to tell that story. We recommended this podcast to them, and they were extremely excited where we show people what opportunities are available, how much incredible upward momentum is present at all of the agencies, the 100 agencies they support. And blind people in the workforce for industries and agencies supported by the National Industries for the Blind is not only accommodated, but celebrated.

That’s the idea here, is that we are going to walk through a journey of learning about people’s blindness, learning the struggle they had and then learning about the empowerment they felt and the great self-worth that they gained and the opportunities that presented themselves to them when they started working at these agencies.

We’ll talk to people who have been successful in jobs at the agencies. We’ll talk to presidents and CEOs of the agencies, and people from all aspects of work at the agencies supported by the National Industries for the Blind.

Two quick things you can gain by listening to this podcast, and I really look forward to having you on this journey with me. Number one, how much opportunity there is for folks who are blind or visually impaired. We embrace blindness and visual impairment like it’s just a trait that we have.

And second, you will be inspired by the stories that you hear. So as you listen to this first episode, please subscribe to this podcast, and check back weekly for shows that will drop on whatever technology you listen to podcasts on. Look for our show notes and head over to our website to give us a five-star review if you think we’re worthy of it.

And please leave a comment. One word will do, that’s all we need from you as you enjoy this podcast and really learn, not what is out there that is a dream, but how we have turned, with the National Industries for the Blind, so many dreams of employment into realities.

And if you want to know more information about employment opportunities for the blind, about how blind people do things or if you’re just generally curious about this podcast and what we’re about, head on over to our website, heardandempowered.org. Thank you so much for tuning in. I can’t wait to be on this long, exciting journey with you and tell the great stories of the men and women of this world who happen to be blind and visually impaired, but are truly successful at what they do.

Blindness is no longer accommodated, it is celebrated. Be ready to be heard and get ready to be empowered. Cheers.

Thanks for being a part of today’s conversation.

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