And so they just assume, oh, she’s going to be slow. She’s not going to, you know, we’re going to have to do all this special stuff for her. And it’s like, no, my blindness does not affect my brain. It doesn’t affect my work ethic. It doesn’t affect my problem-solving and my deductive reasoning. It just affects my vision.

Welcome to the Heard and Empowered podcast presented by 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 job opportunities for the BVI community.

Ready to be heard and empowered? Let’s welcome our host, Dr. Hoby Wedler.

This is a special episode recorded at the 2023 National Industries for the Blind Conference in Washington DC. Please excuse any audio quirks as we capture these conversations, but we guarantee the wisdom is pure gold.

Hoby: Welcome back to the Heard and Empowered Podcast. Today, I’m so honored to be chatting with Rebekah Grieb, who is an employee of the year nominee at the 2023 National Industries of the Blind Conference. Rebekah, welcome.

Rebekah: Thank you.

Hoby: It’s so great to chat with you. I would love to hear a little bit about your background and tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are now.

Rebekah: Okay. Well, I have been working at Alphapointe for six years now. I am visually impaired, and it’s a gradual loss of my vision. And so it’s been quite the journey over the years. So I started out playing sports and driving and doing all of the things. I come from a very sports oriented family. And then when we kind of figured out that I was going to start losing my vision, that was quite a shift in how the future was going to play out.

And so I actually got into theater because of that, and then pursued that in college. And then after college, I worked for a few years. But as my vision started to get worse, it became harder to work in the private sector without any adaptive technology or assistive things. And so actually, I was unemployed for a few years.
And then I learned about Alphapointe. And so I actually started by going through the rehab program, getting to learn how to use adaptive technology on the computer and learning how to use a cane. I learned braille through that. And then a job became open and so I started as an employee at Alphapointe and I’ve kind of moved up through the department since then.

Hoby: That’s incredible. I love that journey. And I can hear you’ve got such a great speaking voice. I’m sure a lot of that comes from the theater work that you did.

Rebekah: From theater, yeah.

Hoby: Was it mostly musical theater?

Rebekah: Exactly. Yes, live theater. And I actually am on the technical side. So I’m a stage manager for musicals throughout the year at community theaters throughout Kansas City.

Hoby: I love that. I love that. So you still, you’ve kept that interest up. I love that. And you haven’t let your visual impairment stop you from doing that at all.

Rebekah: Correct. Yep, I just surrounded myself with the right people that were willing to adapt with me and work with me and figure it out. And they decided they were willing to work with the blindness to get me to be the stage manager. They wanted my organizational skills and my being very detail-oriented and things like that. And you need that in the creative world as well. Somebody’s got to keep all those creatives on track. So that’s kind of what I do.

And we actually started a mentorship program so that we can mentor the next generation of technical people. There’s plenty of stuff for actors out there, but there’s not always a lot of stuff, unless you actually pursue it as a career, to learn the technical side of things. And so we started a mentorship program for that at one of the theaters in Kansas City.

Hoby: I love that. And you do some of the mentoring yourself?

Rebekah: Yep, I am the stage manager mentor. Yeah. So a couple years ago was our first time, we did Spongebob the musical at Theater in the Park, which is actually one of the largest outdoor theaters in the country. And then we’re going to do it again this year with Sister Act.

Hoby: Two of my favorite shows. I love that.

Rebekah: A lot of fun.

Hoby: That is incredible. That’s phenomenal. And let’s just fast forward a little bit. So one of the things that I think is so important is that we have these amazing mentors in our life that we can learn from that maybe see a path for us to take before we see it for ourselves. And when you can pay that back – I’m sure you’ve had some great mentors, and if you want to tell us about some of those in a second or some of the opportunities that you’ve gained as someone who happens to have a visual impairment from just watching and being with other people.

But it’s just so great that you can pay that back as a mentor of fellow stage managers, whether blind or sighted, it doesn’t matter.

Rebekah: Right. Well, the world is going to try to limit us, and so we can’t then also limit ourselves. And so it’s so important to make sure that we’re still doing the things that we enjoy and pursuing those things, and surrounding ourselves with the people that are going to support and encourage us. There’s been a couple of times where I thought maybe I’m done stage managing, as my vision has gotten worse. And quite honestly, my other production staff members won’t let me.

Hoby: I love that.

Rebekah: They won’t let me quit.

Hoby: I love it. I love it.

Rebekah: And so I enjoy that I got to kind of move into more of a mentorship role because sometimes with the technical side of things, there’s only one stage manager, one director, one choreographer. And so you don’t work with other people in the same position, so you can’t recommend people if you turn down a show. And so it’s great to be able to know for sure that you’re recommending somebody that knows what they’re doing and that you’ve seen them actually do it and they’ve learned it correctly.
And when I first started out, at some of the larger theaters there was definitely some hesitancy when the director would say, yeah, my stage manager, she’s visually impaired. And they’re like, wait, what? And they’re like, I don’t know if that’s going to work. And it’s like, no, let her prove you wrong. And that’s what I enjoy doing, is proving people wrong and proving that they can’t limit me.

Hoby: Exactly.

Rebekah: So just give me the opportunity. I may not do it the same way, but isn’t the important thing the result? And everyone does things slightly different, whether you can see or not. You have to adapt the process to what works best for you. We all process things differently, we think differently, we work differently. Just because my vision is different, doesn’t mean that I can’t find my own way to do it.

Hoby: Isn’t it crazy how so often society holds such low expectations, that if we say, oh, by the way, I’m blind, or, oh, I’m visually impaired, they come to the conclusion, and I think a lot of it is fear-based.

Rebekah: Right.

Hoby: I think so much of it is that they can’t imagine themselves in that position, so it’s just really scary in many ways. And I love that mentality that you’re exuding, which is you want to just show them. Just give me a chance, right? That’s what I’ve found as a blind guy, too. It’s like, if you just give me a chance to show you what I can do, and I’ll teach you. You can teach me about stage managing, and I’ll teach you what I can do and what it’s like to work with a blind person.

Rebekah: Exactly. And it’s a great opportunity because, let me tell you, I don’t come across very many other blind people in live theater. And so I may be the biggest exposure to a lot of those people, the actors, the other production staff. They may not be around very many visually impaired people in their regular lives, and so it’s also an opportunity.

When we’re doing things with other blind organizations or we’re doing things at work, yes, we can learn from each other, and we all are blind differently. That’s something I even learned as I became more visually impaired, is the normal thing to think is blind is blind. And that’s just not true. Like, it’s so not true. We’re all blind in different ways, we have different symptoms, and so then we also have different processes, even within being blind.

And so I think it’s a great kind of exposure for some of those people in the theater community. Because there’s always times, even just walking out in public when I’m with a sighted friend, they get so upset about the people that react weirdly when they see the cane. And it’s like, what’s your problem? And I always use the example of two different kid parent interactions that I’ve heard while being out in public. The first one was when the kid asked, “Mom, why does she have that stick?” And the mom shushed her. And I’m like, you just made it taboo. You just made something wrong.

Whereas the more recent interaction I had is I actually heard a mom initiate it and say to their kid, “Hey, look. Do you see that she has that cane? That means that she can’t see very well and so that cane helps her get around.” And I’m like, thank you, thank you. That’s what you need to do, is educate, so it’s not a big deal. It’s not weird. It’s not taboo.

Hoby: We’re just two normal people, who happen to be blind or visually impaired, having a chat.

Rebekah: Right. Exactly. And it’s amazing, in those three years that I was unemployed I’d get the interview, I’d get the phone interview, they’d really like me. And then you go in person and it’s like they freak out. And it’s like nothing changed in my brain between my phone interview and meeting you in person. And you don’t know about the adaptive technology, so let me tell you how I can do this job because I applied to this job because I think I can do this job. And I can tell you how to help me do that job.

Hoby: Let’s explore the topic here of to disclose or not to disclose. And different places I’ve done both. So what was your tactic?

Rebekah: Well, I did the whole disclosures at the end where it’s kind of lumped in with also are you a veteran, are you this? I went ahead and did it because I do need that adaptive technology. I use invert, zoom and VoiceOver, but I can still see some. I can sometimes bump my nose on my computer screen. Sometimes I can see it, but other times it is just easier to use the VoiceOver or the invert. And I learned about all of that technology through Alphapointe using zoom text, and things like that.

And so many private companies or companies that haven’t dealt with it, why would they know that that technology is out there? Because they don’t need it, they don’t use it. And so they just assume, oh, she’s going to be slow. She’s not going to, you know, we’re going to have to do all this special stuff for her. And it’s like, no, my blindness does not affect my brain. It doesn’t affect my work ethic. It doesn’t affect my problem solving and my deductive reasoning. It just affects my vision.

Hoby: It’s funny, during the pandemic I would often intentionally make zoom calls without my video on. The reason for doing that is to say, hey, let’s all be on the same playing field.

Rebekah: Exactly, yes. Yeah, I was on a board of directors for a theater when Covid happened, and we had to go remote. And I was like, you know what? This is a little unfair, y’all can see each other’s facial expressions and I can’t. So how about we all do it to where we’re on the same playing field here.

Hoby: I love it. I love it. No, I think that’s fantastic. I want to jump, just for a minute, to your role with Alphapointe. And what do you do with Alphapointe in terms of the job that you do day to day and how do you feel about that? It’s amazing to be employed, right?

Rebekah: Absolutely, yes. Yeah, especially after being unemployed and then having jobs that I knew I was worth more. I went to college. I got a degree. I know I’m smart. I know that I can do these things. And so to be undervalued purely because I’m visually impaired sucks. It’s not right.

Hoby: Yeah, it’s terrible.

Rebekah: And it’s like, wait a minute, so just because that person can see, but they’re not as smart as me, they get paid more? That doesn’t make any sense. And so when I started at Alphapointe it was really, I mean, it was a God thing. It was pure chance that I was actually going in for a marketing thing for rehab. And I was still unemployed, and they were like, hey, let’s walk on over to the call center and see if they have any openings.

And it just happened that the manager of the call center wasn’t in her office right then. It actually turned out to be a good thing. So then we just walked on over to her boss, who was also over the contract management services department. And he said, “Well, do you have a college degree?” I said yes. And he’s like, actually, we just had an opening come up in CMS. Which is a better paying position. It’s better for using my education and my brain because I got so tired of doing jobs where I wasn’t using my brain. I’m like, yeah, it’s a paycheck, but it’s not challenging me. I’m not learning anything, I’m just doing it.

And so, of course, with the contract management position, we work on federal contracts, so you have to have a security clearance. And so sometimes that can take six months, sometimes it can take a year. So mine, unfortunately, took a year.

Hoby: You mean the government doesn’t work fast?

Rebekah: What? I know, I know, paperwork. But it worked out. And so actually, just to get on with Alphapointe while my clearance was going through, I did pull some overnight shifts in the call center from home, which was great because what I’d do is I’d go to rehearsal, get out at 10, and then hop on the computer at 11.

Hoby: Exactly. There you go, a cup of coffee later and you’re good to go.

Rebekah: Yeah, I just flipped my schedule a little bit for a year. And then I got on with the CMS department as a contract closeout specialist. And I did that for about five years. And so what we do is, by the time the contracts get us, everything is supposed to be done. So the product or the service is supposed to have been completed, shipped, supposed to have been invoiced and paid for. But, of course, by that point all the people on the contract don’t care about it anymore because their part is done.

But the government needs it to be officially closed out. Or if there are unused funds on it, so we de-obligate money back to the government. It’s always been the government’s money, but it was allocated to a contract. And if it didn’t get used, it’s still going to be flagged as allocated. And so what we then can do is de-obligate that money so it goes back into the pool that they can then put on new contracts.

So that’s a big part of, you know, they like to see the de-obligations, for sure. And so that’s our main process and sometimes what we do also is deal with physical files. So getting those paper contracts, scanning them, and digitizing them.

Hoby: God, and then shredding the paper.

Rebekah: Yeah. Yep, shredding lots of paper. Actually, right before the pandemic hit and then after we came back a little, I was actually on a project over at the EPA.

Hoby: Really?

Rebekah: Yep. And so they actually contacted us at Alphapointe and said, hey, I hear you guys do contract management and contract close out. We’ve got a storage room full of papers that we need to figure out what’s going on. And so I spent what was going to be a year, but then 15 months of furlough with the pandemic it turned into a little bit longer. But I went through, and I got all that cleared out for them, and they were just so happy about it. And some of those contracts, I think, were older than I am.

Hoby: I know, right?

Rebekah: I was like, I think this was written on a typewriter. And I was able to do that because I had a CCTV. And so I was able to look at those documents and find all the information. We deal with dollars and dates, that’s our main thing. And so I did that and then, actually, right when I came back over to being on campus at Alphapointe from the EPA project, Ken, who was in charge of the CMS department actually put in his two weeks’ notice to leave for another job, right when I got back. I was like, oh my gosh, how’s this going to go?

And we had just had somebody pass away, so our department had shrunk, and it was kind of floundering a little bit. And so I actually then got offered the position to become the supervisor. And so then I moved up to that, and now I head up the CMS department.

And then just this year, for the Navy, we de-obligated $3 billion back to the Navy’s pool of money just because it was either services where they maybe didn’t have somebody that month or, for example, that contract for us that we work on is a labor contract. So we have three specialists, and we have a clerk, but all of those people have to have clearance. And so there might be some months, like this past year, we were waiting on our clerk to get clearance. So we couldn’t bill, obviously, for that position. So that money could be obligated back to the government. It was just unused funds.

Hoby: And the clerk there would be someone working with the federal government.

Rebekah: Right.

Hoby: Because they couldn’t find someone with clearance, they couldn’t pay that person and fill that position. And de-obligating is sort of a fancy way of saying deallocating it, right?

Rebekah: Absolutely, yeah. And actually, I just found out this week that the clerk’s clearance came through. So we’re going to be fully billing that contract next month. So yeah. And then we actually, even this last year, had a project with the Navy hospital in Guam. And let me tell you, that time difference makes communication harder. But it was an interesting experience doing the different types of closeout.
And then what we really are trying to do is then branch out into the private and commercial, you know, outside of the government, because there’s plenty, like I’m in Kansas City where there’s a big old

Honeywell and they have all sorts of government contracts with engineering and all those kinds of things. And so we could branch out to that, or into colleges and hospitals and do grant closeouts.
We’ve been kind of trying to figure out how we get into maybe some auditing because these are going to be positions that are going to be better paying jobs for visually impaired people. They’re good salaries and it’s something you can live on and thrive on. And that’s, I mean, I just bought a house.

Hoby: Yes!

Rebekah: And I never, I never would have thought that was going to happen. But yeah, I just bought a house. I closed on August 1st.

Hoby: Congratulations. Oh my gosh, just a couple of months ago.

Rebekah: Yes. It has a beautiful screened in porch, so I just need the weather to cooperate.

Hoby: Yes. Well I just want to say congratulations on your, well, first of all, on your purchasing of your first home. But congratulations on the supervisory position.

Rebekah: Thanks.

Hoby: So often I think people feel like, oh, we’re being good Samaritans.

Rebekah: Yes, charity.

Hoby: We’re doing people like Hoby and Rebekah favors, right?

Rebekah: Yes.

Hoby: Nobody’s doing us a favor, we work for this. And that’s what’s so great about this opportunity with Alphapointe that you’re describing. You earned that supervisory role. You earned it fair and square. And doesn’t it feel good, then we can start, you know, you were talking about theater earlier, we can start to give back to causes that we totally believe in.

Rebekah: Yeah, and we’re not living paycheck to paycheck.

Hoby: Yes.

Rebekah: Yeah, it’s been amazing. And there’s no way, just from my experience trying to get a job in the private sector, there’s no way I would be making as much as I’m making now, anywhere else. Because even some of my sighted friends, I’m like, you’re not getting valued. How in the world would I be valued if you’re not even getting your true value?
It’s so hard. And you have to fight for yourself.

Hoby: You do.

Rebekah: And you have to advocate for yourself. And that’s what, even just since becoming the supervisor, I then now am head of the NAEPB CMS Services Committee with the other nonprofit agencies, and we kind of meet once a month to talk about like, our goal is, yes, to grow the business. To get more clients, to get more customers. But our goal in doing that, the real reason is so that we can hire more blind people.

Hoby: And you know what? How does a blind person feel, who’s working as your direct report, to be reporting in to another blind person?

Rebekah: Absolutely. And you feel comfortable asking them questions and that they’re going to understand. I mean, even on my team, we’re all blind in different ways. One of us doesn’t use a cane, two of us do.

Hoby: And who cares, really? You’re just great people who happen to be blind, we said that earlier in the show.

Rebekah: Yep. And that’s one of the first things I wanted to do when I became the supervisor, is to get us to be remote because that then opens up the field and makes it easier. I mean, just saving on transportation. It’s so much more expensive as a visually impaired person with transportation. And so being able to hire somebody that doesn’t have to be able to get to the building.
And so now I have, you know, one of my employees is in Wichita, but we still meet once a week and we chit chat. We miss out on the in-person office banter, but that’s what Teams is for. And so now we have this ability to get on a call, and it’s a small team so we can chit chat for a bit. Sometimes our meeting is more checking in on each other than it is actual business, but that helps us be a better team.

Hoby: It’s so important. Culture is everything and that connection is so important.

Rebekah: Yes.

Hoby: I could talk to you for hours. I love what you’re saying. We’re just about out of time here but I have two more questions that I really want listeners to be inspired by from what you have to say about them.
So a lot of our listeners are people who are thinking about taking that first step of getting off of Social Security income and getting into the workplace. What advice do you have for those individuals?

Rebekah: And that was something that was kind of frustrating when I was first, right before I was unemployed and when I was trying to figure it out. When I was trying to contact various services on the Kansas side, they basically would tell me, well, if you went to part time or if you quit your job, you could get some services. And I’m like, isn’t that not the point?

Hoby: That hurts.

Rebekah: It’s not that I want to live off of the government. There just might be some supplemental help you can get to make up for that gap if I was not visually impaired. It’s to fill in the gap. And it changes how you view yourself, how you feel about yourself. And in the beginning, it might be nice to live off Social Security and not have to go to work every day. But come on, we can’t all, as much as we say we’d love to just stay home in bed for a week, it gets old.

Hoby: It gets totally old.

Rebekah: And it starts to make you feel bad about yourself. You start to be a little bit more shut in, not getting out and doing those things. And I think, really, getting out and getting off of that and getting into positions where you’re earning that money, really gives you ownership of that. And it makes you feel more empowered and more like you can do this. And it opens up doors and it allows you to meet other people, especially if you’re working at some of the agencies.

Some of the best ideas of ways to adapt or, hey, have you heard about this app? Or when podcasts and audiobooks first became a thing, it was amazing because I was a big reader back before. And then I was just devastated when I couldn’t physically read books anymore. And then even trying to read them on a Kindle got hard. And now I think I’ve earned all the badges on Audible, I’ve read all the books. And so it makes it to where you just feel better about yourself and also believe in yourself more. You know what I mean?

Hoby: Oh, absolutely.

Rebekah: It gives you the courage to do other things as well.

Hoby: And it raises your own expectations of yourself.

Rebekah: Absolutely, yes.

Hoby: And the other type of listener that I think could really benefit from what you have to say, is family members of blind relatives who are so worried about Johnny going to get a job. Is this going to be okay? How is this going to work? What advice would you give them? And how did your family deal with it?

Rebekah: Yeah, I’m a prime example of that because undiagnosed, they don’t know what’s wrong with me and there’s no family history. So there’s no experience in my family of dealing with any type of vision loss other than age related. And so it was not only a learning experience for me as the blind person, but it has been a continuous learning process for my family. And it continues because it is degenerative. And so it’s not like you learn it and you’re done and it’s not going to change. Mine has continued to get worse, and so we all have to keep adapting.

And yes, my parents were definitely worried about me living by myself and buying a house, even though I’m almost 40. And that’s understandable. Everybody has that fear of the unknown. That’s what the fear of the dark is. That’s what, sometimes, being visually impaired is, is just fear of what you can’t see and what isn’t out there. And so, that happens with the sighted people as well, the fear of how do I help my loved one? How do I be a better support?

You don’t want to be over protective or overdo it to where then you’re limiting them. You want to support them so that you’re lifting them up and not holding them down. And so my family has really had to learn how to do that and how to help me be a better person in spite of my vision loss, with my vision loss. And my life went in a completely different direction than it would have if I was sighted.
And you know what? I’m okay with that. I love doing theater. I really enjoy my job and getting to be a part of creating more jobs for other visually impaired and educating people just by doing things that normal people wouldn’t think of.

Another hobby of mine is knitting and crocheting. And everybody is like, well how do you do that when you can’t see? And it’s like, well, you learn how to do it differently. I do it by feel. I do it by texture. I just made, I think, five different stuffed animal sharks for my niece and nephews, and they think it’s so cool that I can do it. And they want me to teach them how to crochet. And so I’m educating that next generation as well of Aunt Becca is Aunt Becca. She can’t see very well, but she’s still Aunt Becca.

Hoby: I love that. God, you’re just making my day because this is exactly what people need to hear.

Rebekah: Yeah.

Hoby: And we are so much a part of that education that needs to happen. We need to take the bull by the horns in so many ways, and do that teaching ourselves. And it’s more work for us to have to show our family who says, “Oh, my God, how are you going to do that?” It’s okay.

Rebekah: Showing them the little things that help, like when I bought a washer and dryer, I made sure that I bought a washer and dryer that had black buttons with white writing.

Hoby: Yes.

Rebekah: And my sister is a dentist, so I know she’s got a steady hand. So I’m going to have her come over with some puff paint and put some Braille on things. And it’s just been eye opening, I think, for all of us.

Hoby: And I just want to make one quick comment about the washing machine and dryer that you mentioned. We are only as disabled as technology and appliances and everything in this world make us.

Rebekah: Right.

Hoby: I would not say that we are disabled, but we can’t sometimes use our washer because they don’t think about that in the manufacturing process.

Rebekah: Right.

Hoby: So think of us.

Rebekah: Exactly. And it is, it’s amazing how much it is getting better. But right now, I think another challenge in that area is, okay, that’s awesome and thank you for making it better. But could you not make it also twice as expensive?

Hoby: Exactly.

Rebekah: So I had the option between a smart washer dryer and what I refer to as a dumb washer and dryer. And I was like, you know what? I can deal with the dumb ones, because it’s twice as expensive. And that’s where the correct use of supplemental government programs is. It’s to make up for that gap so that you can get the smart washer and dryer and make your life just a little bit easier.

Hoby: 100%. Well, we are right at time, but I want to ask you, what have I not asked that you want the listeners of the Heard and Empowered podcast to know?

Rebekah: Just that it’s an old cliche saying, but it’s still true that where there is a will, there is a way. Your way just might be different, and that’s okay.

Hoby: And, Rebecca, is it okay if we put your contact information up on the episode in the show notes just so that if someone has a question or if someone needs a little assistance, they can reach out to you by email?

Rebekah: Absolutely, yeah. And just also, they’re out there, as I said, coming from a family that had no vision impairment, no issues like that, we never had to know about the services that are out there. So I didn’t even know, I’ve lived in the Kansas City area my entire life and had no idea Alphapointe was there. And so it’s getting the word out there.
And that’s what being an advocate is, because even just through theater I had a friend whose dad had a stroke and lost his vision due to it. And so he was able to come to me and say, hey, he’s depressed. How can we get him up and going and out of the house and make him more independent? Because losing vision as an adult is so hard. It’s so hard because you just, it’s that frustration of knowing what you’re missing out on and knowing what you used to be able to do. You have to motivate yourself. You can still do it, you’re just going to do it differently.

Hoby: I feel so lucky that I was born totally blind, I’ve got to be honest.

Rebekah: I know, sometimes I wonder. I’m like, do I wish I didn’t know what I was missing out on? But yeah.

Hoby: Right. Well, Rebekah, thank you so much for your time today.

Rebekah: Yeah, thank you.

Hoby: You have just opened so many eyes and so many doors with your words of wisdom and thoughts. This is the Heard and Empowered podcast and we’ve been chatting with Rebekah Grieb.
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