Intro: 00:00

Welcome to the Heard & Empowered podcast, presented by National Industries for the Blind. We’re on a mission to empower people who are blind, low vision, or visually impaired to build fulfilling careers, gain personal independence, and take the next step toward achieving their own American dream. Guests from all walks of life share their journeys and how they overcame challenges they faced along the way. Whatever your interests, experience, talents, or career goals, listen to discover important connections and unlock the resources and inspiration you need to chart a new path. Ready to be heard and empowered?

Dean Thompson: 00:36

Hi, I’m Dean Thompson and again, welcome to the Heard & Empowered podcast. Thanks for joining. We’re here at the 2025 Public Policy Forum in Washington for NIB. And I’m here with Rebekah Grieb, who, among other things, is a stage manager.

Let’s start at the beginning.How did you lose your vision? How much do you have, if you don’t mind my asking?

Rebekah Grieb: 00:51

Well, we don’t know why. I actually do not have a diagnosis. I’ve been in a couple different research programs, but when I was about 12 years old, I actually was just going in for a normal, routine eye appointment. Happened to be on the day that my normal doctor had off, and it was like the new young guy in the office and he was just doing the normal exam and saw some stuff he didn’t like about some blood cells and when he was looking – when they get, you know, uncomfortably close to your face and look in there – and so seeing the specialists started. So gone, down that road. I played sports up until middle school and then kind of had to give that up, and then eventually gave up driving. And now I use adaptive technology on my computer, my phone, you know, I had a cane and now I have Zinnia. So mine, I would say most closely resembles Stargardt’s disease as far as the symptoms. But I have a little extra.

So, I have photophobia, night blindness, visual snow, which I always describe as, you know, looking at an old TV through the static. Right. And then a nystagmus, which my niece and nephews think is so cool that my eyes wiggle. And then just kind of general bad vision, and central – my middle is gone.

Dean Thompson: 02:15

What part of the country are you from?

Rebekah Grieb: 02:17

I’m from the middle. I’m from Kansas City. So originally on the Kansas side, but now I’m on the Missouri side.

Dean Thompson: 02:22

Gotcha. And what? What’s your day job?

Rebekah Grieb: 02:24

I work for Alphapointe and I work in their contract management department. So I head that up where we do contract closeout work for the Navy. We’ve got a couple teams on it right now, hoping to add another team in the fall. So, I actually started as a specialist and then moved my way up to heading up the department.

Dean Thompson: 02:45

So make all of us smarter. What is Alphapointe?

Rebekah Grieb: 02:48

Alphapointe is a nonprofit agency out of Kansas City. We also have a location in New York, in Queens, and we do services as well as employment for the visually impaired. So how I found out about Alphapointe was actually by going through the rehab center. So I was unemployed for three years. I couldn’t get past that in-person interview.

They loved me on the phone. They loved my resume, you know. But the minute they see the cane, they want to tell, they want to decide what you can’t do for you, instead of letting you tell them how you’re going to do it.

And so I ended up, through the state of Kansas, getting hooked up with Alphapointe and going through their services, learning how to use – because part of, especially when it’s degenerative, it’s kind of admitting to yourself each step of needing something, needing a new tool to help you. And so for me, it was learning the adaptive technology on the computer, learning how to use a cane, and learning how to read braille. You know, I didn’t need to learn how to use a computer, period. I just needed to learn how to make it to where I could still use the computer.

So and that, otherwise, I can’t imagine you know where I’d be if it weren’t for stuff like ZoomText and JAWS and Fusion that make it possible. You know, because I have nine employees and only two of them are sighted, and that’s purely because of the positions that they’re in involving paperwork, because some of the contracts can be a little old. So I’ve seen some on typewriter, but it’s amazing. One of the things I really enjoy about my job and, and working for Alphapointe now, is being able to hire other visually impaired people. You know, I have a college degree, I have experience, I have knowledge and skills, but was having a hard time finding somewhere that would let me utilize all of them.

And so by finding Alphapointe through the rehab center, getting to know them and then kind of being in the right place at the right time when an opening came up – I also was on loan a couple years to the EPA for some of their closeout. So we’ve, just general work with the federal government. There’s also other – you know, we do manufacturing. It’s quite an operation.

Dean Thompson: 05:04

So. So tell me about CMS. What is it? Contract management services. And why did you gravitate towards that — towards that expertise?

Rebekah Grieb: 05:12

Yeah. Contract management. So a contract has what we call a life cycle. And so, you know, pre-award where they’re doing the bidding and awarding the contract and things like that. And then it goes through the actual action of the contract to where the work gets done, the invoices get paid, but then it kind of sometimes falls off the radar because all the important things are done, the work is done, the vendor has gotten paid, so it might fall off.

And so what we do is we come in for that post award part of the closeout. So we administratively close it out. And one of the most important aspects of that is that, just because the contract is for a certain dollar amount, doesn’t mean all of that dollar amount gets used. So if it’s a labor contract, or if it’s, you know, for a certain quantity of something, but maybe they don’t end up needing that quantity, then there’s money left on that contract that’s obligated so it can’t be used elsewhere. And so what we go in, what we do is go in and deobligate that money back to the budget.

Dean Thompson: 06:15

That’s a word?

Rebekah Grieb: 06:16

I know, right? I know. I have been corrected in written interviews, but yes, in our world it is. There’s a hyphen. So maybe it’s…

But yeah, so we take that money back from the contract and put it back into the bucket so that it can go back onto a new contract and get actually used instead of just sitting out there, obligated but unused. And so we have, just my department alone, and there’s several other nonprofits that are part of National Industries for the Blind that have a CMS department, I mean, we have deobligated in the billions of dollars. I mean, just.

Dean Thompson: 06:52

These are all government contracts?

Rebekah Grieb: 06:54

Yes, yes.

We – my team specifically work for the Navy right now. So we have two different teams working on two different commands for the Navy, and just the one that started in February, I think we have already deobligated close to $10 million. So it’s, you know, it seems like something that’s not a big deal because the quote unquote important part of the contract is done.

But if that money is still obligated, then it’s just going out, it’s just being unused. And it could be repurposed, you know, for a new contract. So.

Dean Thompson: 07:29

You’ve given me a new word. I’m going to try to use deobligate at least three times today and bore everybody on set completely, because I’ll be using the word deobligate.

Rebekah Grieb: 07:38

Yeah.

Dean Thompson: 07:38

Let’s go back a bit. Where’d you go to school? Were you a theater major?

Rebekah Grieb: 07:41

I went to Pittsburg State, and they didn’t have an actual theater major, which I -t was intentional for me, because I wanted to be able to put a communication degree on my resumé and not a theater degree on my resumé, because that’s typically only good to go into one field. So I actually got a degree in communication with an emphasis in theater. So, but yeah, I went down there. It was just far enough away from home, but close enough to go back on the weekends.

Dean Thompson: 08:14

I must tell you, I’m also a communications major. And I’ve often thought that, I’ve worked for my whole life in television, and I liked getting my training on the college level because nobody sat  me down and said, ‘hey, Dean, you may not want to do this.’ Who’s going to hire a blind TV producer? And nobody, probably nobody, sat down and said, who’s going to hire a blind theater person? Did they? And that’s the advantage of getting this on the college level, is it not?

Rebekah Grieb: 08:37

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, and I actually, I mean and I’ve, I’ve faced that. I’ve faced to where the first time stage managing at a theater, you know when the director said, oh and my stage manager is visually impaired, they’re like, oh yeah, how about we have a co-stage manager, you know, and, and now since then we started a mentorship program where I am, I’ve two years done, mentored the stage manager and now stage manage, obviously on my own. So, you know, like I said, living it, getting in there and showing them, you know, I can do this. Let me tell you how I’m going to do it. You know, don’t – it teaches you to not make assumptions.

Dean Thompson: 09:20

So you get out of college. Your vision continues to diminish. What was your first job? How hard was it to get?

Rebekah Grieb: 09:26

Oh gosh, my first job out of college was…well, I did a summer at a theater, working in the office for theater in the park. But then I actually did, I could still drive at the time, so I worked for an employment agency managing their temps for a distribution center. But so I did that. And then I worked for a little technology company doing third-party item fulfillment, doing orders and things like that.

And that’s kind of the first time I had to use the built-in features of adaptive technology. And then, I actually moved out to Seattle for a couple years because I thought I’d try that. Plus, as everybody’s like, oh, but it’s so overcast and rainy and I’m like, I know! I was very excited.

Dean Thompson: 10:19

Just a beautiful day. Yes. Of course.

Rebekah Grieb: 10:21

Yeah. So I did that for a couple of years, and I did some youth programming for a church doing their, kind of, youth theater-adjacent, because it is for, for kids, you know, keep them entertained. But then, you know, cost of living and missed my theater community back home. So I ended up moving back to Kansas City. And then, like I said, I was unemployed for three years because I just couldn’t get past the in-person interview. So, which is a real struggle.

Dean Thompson: 10:55

Probably everybody or most people watching or listening to the podcast understand what Blindness or partial disability has taken from them. Has it given you anything? How has it changed you, do you think, in your life overall?

Rebekah Grieb: 11:06

Yeah, I think it helps you to be a more understanding person, a more empathetic person. It really, I mean, I would have been one of those people before that didn’t understand the true variety and spectrum of being visually impaired. I mean, when I first got Zinnia, it was so cute. We were at a store, and it was the first time my niece and nephew had been out in public with her, and they had gotten the rules about the harness and the, you know, whatever. And then there was some other little kids and my, you know, five-year-old nephew turned to them and was like, “she’s working, so don’t even look at her. Don’t even,” you know. So, like, now they know. And now they can be little advocates, you know, for me, when I, when I don’t see things or, you know, they help guide me to things. And that’s an amazing thing to see.

Dean Thompson: 11:57

You used that wonderfully interesting word, advocate, which is what we’re here to do, you’re here to do this week. Tell me about your advocacy. How much good do you think it does? And what’s at the basis of it?

Rebekah Grieb: 12:06

Sure! It’s not something I necessarily thought of myself really doing, or that I was already doing it without being intentional or calling myself an advocate. Like I said, just being out in the world as a visually impaired person. And so when the opportunity came to be part of the Advocates program, with my theater background and those kinds of things, it seemed like a good fit. I think it’s important to be an advocate in general, but let alone on an actual like, policy level.

There’s just, you know, just something as simple as SSDI. People are like, okay, great, there’s disability. That’s wonderful. However, I’ll tell you, when I first started looking into SSDI, what they told me was, well, you make too much money. I didn’t make enough.

Dean Thompson: 12:56

What is SSDI?

Rebekah Grieb: 12:59

Social Security Disability Insurance. So I was on it for those three years I was unemployed. I think I got $1,100 a month, you know. And that was, I had to basically not have an income in order to qualify for that.

You know, I was, you know, barely making a good, decent salary. And when I started looking into it, I basically got told, well, you could start working part time and then you would qualify. And I’m like, isn’t that not the point? Like, that doesn’t seem, that’s not what it’s for. And so one of the things we’re advocating for is to kind of eliminate some of that cash cliff that happens with, with disability of, you could hit an income limit and your disability just goes away completely.

But maybe you only made $100 over the limit, but yet you lose $1,100.

Dean Thompson: 13:55

There’s no incremental. If you earn a dollar or $2 more than the minimum, then everything goes away.

Rebekah Grieb: 13:59

Yep. And what that does is make people not take promotions. It makes people not take a raise just because it would knock them off of their payments, their monthly payments, as opposed to maybe if it, you know, as your salary goes up, your disability payment goes down. So it’s not as big of a gut punch when you lose it. You know, because I’ve talked to people that, they made the plunge, they decided to take, like, I’m going to work my way up, so I’m just going to bite the bullet and deal with it for a while.

And then others that they just can’t afford to do that, they can’t afford to hope that someday that they’re going to make enough for that. You know, so that’s one of the things that we are advocating for. Is that – why is that cliff there? Why doesn’t it, you know, one go up as one goes down?

Dean Thompson: 14:48

So how do you explain that to somebody as dull as a congressman?

Rebekah Grieb: 14:54

Right? You know, you try – you definitely use a personal story. So I obviously have that experience. I have experience with SSDI.

You know, I made the decision when I went back to work that I, thankfully, you know, going from unemployed to employed obviously is not as big a difference. I was making more than I was before, but I completely understand and have seen how it can hold you back and how it can make,t’s like we’re trying to be independent. You want us to be normal members of society, you want us to pay taxes, you want us to contribute and do our part, and we want to do. And so why not make that possible for us to do?

And so using personal stories, that’s what they’re going to remember. They’re not going to remember the percentages or the data or those kinds of things. That’s what you send in an email later. So they have it in writing. But the personal stories and how it affects people and how it could affect people in their lives that they may not even realize it does.

Dean Thompson: 15:55

This is not your first advocacy rodeo, am I correct?

Rebekah Grieb: 15:58

This is my second year in the program.

Dean Thompson: 15:59

Okay. Okay. What impact do you think your lobbying, your advocacy had last year, if any?

Rebekah Grieb: 16:09

I think it got us, you know, it’s incremental sometimes with the government. I don’t know if you’ve heard they’re a little slow at things sometimes.

Dean Thompson: 16:16

I’ve read about that in books.

Rebekah Grieb: 16:17

Yes. So I think it’s something that you chip away at. So even if you don’t see the results right away, that doesn’t mean you didn’t make an impact. If you left them, if, you know, I’m going back to see the same legislative assistant that I saw last year.

And so making an impact of like, actually remembering, like, he remembers me and I remember him and personal stories or things that, you know, you can relate to. And some of them, you know, he had a visually impaired person that he knew in college, but he didn’t fully understand the visually impaired world and the effect and those kinds of things. And so I think even if it’s, even if you’re not meeting with the representative themselves, sometimes it’s actually more important to meet with those aides because they’re the ones in the representative’s ear. And so really making an impact on them is going to help you get your goal farther, because now you have an advocate for you in their office.

Dean Thompson: 17:16

Okay. I think we have the cash cliff covered. What about the 1%? What is that? Explain it. What kind of impact is that going to have?

Rebekah Grieb: 17:23

So it’s a 1% utilization goal for the NDAA, which is the budget for the military, for the DOD. And so that budget is huge. And so 1% sounds, like, piddly, you know, and again, out of 100 it is, but out of how large the budget is for the Department of Defense,

Dean Thompson: 17:42

$85 jillion.

Rebekah Grieb: 17:43

Right. That 1% – it employs hundreds, hundreds of visually impaired people.

You know, across the country. It made it possible for me to have a job. Like I said, I work in government contracting, so I really understand that world and how much of an impact that can make. And honestly, the DOD is on board. Like they’re, they want to commit to that 1%.

So it’s getting Congress to understand what it is, why it’s important and what the result of it is. We’re not asking them to increase the budget. We don’t want them to add money. We just want them to dedicate 1% of that money to the AbilityOne Program to use nonprofit agencies like me, like ours, whether it be for, you know, reams of printer paper or a field tourniquet, you know, or a contact center or, you know, contract closeout work that like we do. So, there’s a variety of ways that it can be spent.

And it all benefits the government. Like the government, the military is our biggest customer. And so not only the services, you know, so selling the products, the 1% that they are spending with us, that also makes it possible to support the services that we provide to the community, to then increase the number of taxpaying citizens, to increase the number of independent, visually impaired people. And so it is really just asking them to make an investment in people that want to be productive members of society.

Dean Thompson: 19:20

I understand right now they voluntarily are putting like half of a percent towards this program.

Rebekah Grieb: 19:25

Yes.

Dean Thompson: 19:26

Why do we need legislation? Why can’t you just say, hey, DOD, make it a point? Is that possible?

Rebekah Grieb: 19:31

Well, I don’t know about you, but I do better if I have a deadline. Otherwise, I will procrastinate until I can’t anymore. And so having a deadline, having something that’s measurable. If it’s a commitment, then there’s going to be a body that is going to measure it, that is going to make sure it is happening. If it’s just voluntary, then it’s kind of like, oh great, you did that.

But if it’s commitment, it’s in law, it’s on paper. Everyone has agreed to it. Then it’s a standard. It’s a measurement that they can achieve for they know exactly what they’re going for and that there are consequences if they don’t.

Dean Thompson: 20:12

Where do these issues stand right now? Is there legislation drawn up? Has it been presented to the House floor? What’s the status of the entire process?

Rebekah Grieb: 20:18

Yeah, we definitely have representatives that support and have, you know, sign-on letters going. So I know I think I think I have five meetings on Wednesday on the Hill because of us being in multiple states. So meeting with different people of different, you know, both in Congress and in the Senate or in the House and the Senate. So it’s getting more sign on. So it definitely has the support.

It’s just getting it to the level to actually get included into that NDAA. There’s a lot of people that are aware of it. It’s just getting them to then speak up about it on our behalf as well, because we can only get to so many of them for the one-on-one conversation.

Dean Thompson: 21:05

And the great thing – you come from both a predominantly red and a predominantly blue area of the country, which is kind of cool.

Rebekah Grieb: 21:10

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Dean Thompson: 21:12

Is this a bipartisan issue?

Rebekah Grieb: 21:13

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because it benefits the country and the citizens as a whole.

Dean Thompson: 21:20

Rebekah, this has been marvelous. Thank you. And thank you, Zinnia, for letting the conversation go forward. You’ve been very patient. Yes.

Thank you so much. And good luck. Good luck on Wednesday.

Outro: 21:30

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