Lee: I believe it can always be better. I don’t care how hard it is, I believe that things can change if we work together on them. And my passion is to see that the same opportunities that exist for people who are sighted, will exist for people who are blind and visually impaired. And that’s what I’m fighting for.

Welcome to the Heard & 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.

Hoby: Hello and welcome back to the Heard & Empowered podcast. Today, I am beyond honored and it’s my distinct pleasure to welcome someone who’s been doing work in this industry for a long time and has done so much great work. I’d like to introduce you all to Lee Nasehi. Lee, welcome to the show.

Lee: Thank you, Hoby. Thanks for having me.

Hoby: Well, it’s an absolute pleasure to be able to chat with you. I feel very privileged myself, and I know that our listeners are going to get a lot out of what you have to say. Tell me, just so that we have a good understanding of it, what do you currently do and for which company?

Lee: I am the president and CEO of VisionServe Alliance, which is a national association. We’re a nonprofit too, an association of primarily other nonprofits, all of whom have a primary mission of serving people who are blind and visually impaired in some way.

Hoby: That’s incredible. That’s incredible. We’re going to get into that and all of your career in this field a little bit later, but one aspect of this discussion that we have that I think really adds some context and some depth and some understanding is just to understand the person behind what you do. So if you don’t mind just taking me back to sort of the beginning of your career or your upbringing or wherever you want to start and just if I could have some information on your background and sort of how you came to be a wealth of knowledge and a veteran in this space of helping blind folks get jobs and so much more.

Lee: Okay. Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve thought about that, really. Who is Lee Nasehi? How did this all happen? Well, my background, I grew up the eldest of five children, a very Catholic family, but a very progressive Catholic family. And my parents were involved in civil rights and social justice with the Catholic church. I was always very proud of that.

And at an early age I came to believe everybody had a reason to be here. Everybody had a purpose. And I needed to find mine and I, I wanted to help people and change the world. And so I started out in college thinking I was going to become a music therapist. Yeah, I went to Florida State University, which has a very fine music school. And if you want to major in music therapy, you have to be a real musician. And apparently I was not. I love music.

Hoby: That’s my problem too.

Lee: Yeah, I can make a joyful noise, but I wasn’t quite up to their standards, I don’t think.

Hoby: I love music and I love theory of music, but I’m not much of a musician.

Lee: Yeah.

Hoby: Florida State is a great program, by the way.

Lee: Yeah.

Hoby: It’s really good.

Lee: Yes. And in hindsight, I think the reason I was drawn to that music therapy program is because it is actually where I met my husband, who is a real musician and graduated from the school of music there. And if I hadn’t taken that little turn, I don’t know that I would have met him. So maybe that’s the reason.

Hoby: That’s fantastic.

Lee: But I ended up majoring in psychology and social work. And I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with that. Actually, when I graduated, I knew I didn’t want to be a clinician. I’m a sap and I just couldn’t handle it emotionally to be involved in direct services. So I got my master’s degree in social work administration and program evaluation. And my first career path out of college was in alcohol, drug abuse, and mental health.

I worked at a couple of mental health centers and then ended up working for the state of Florida’s Department of Rehabilitation Services, which doesn’t exist as that anymore. It’s been reorganized. But I oversaw alcohol, drug abuse and mental health programs for a four-county region. And it was mind blowing. Yeah, I learned a lot.

And lovely people, but right before I graduated from college I gave birth to our first child. So Joe was born very prematurely. He weighed 1 pound, 14 ounces. I was only 25 weeks pregnant. And he’s 42 years old now, almost 43. And that was a pretty big deal back then.

We happened to live – actually, I said “Before I graduated from college”, that’s not true, we graduated and we had moved to Atlanta. He was born in Atlanta. And I really think if he’d not been born there, he may not have survived because they had some really first – cutting-edge technology and interventions that they were doing with babies born that young. So he did survive. We brought him home from the hospital when he weighed five pounds. He was still before his due date. He was born on February 10th but he wasn’t due until June 15th or something. He came home on Mother’s Day in May.

We thought everything was okay, but went back for his routine checkup a month later with the ophthalmologist at the hospital, and he was even too afraid to tell us. I just knew there was something wrong and he referred us to another doctor.

So long story short, because that could take forever, Joe is blind. He has no sight. His retina is detached. It’s retrolental fibroplasia, there’s different levels of that, but Joe got it all. And he’s also cognitively impaired, he has cerebral palsy. He does walk, but it’s difficult for him to do so. And on the spectrum a little bit.

Hoby: But it’s just fascinating, you know, so much serendipity happens in our careers and in our choices of, first of all, your son surviving, probably because you were in Atlanta near that very state-of-the-art natal facility, which is incredible. And then the fact that your son, Joe, was born blind, really helped to shape a career path. And that really resonates for me.

I haven’t shared this with listeners yet. So I think it’s a great opportunity to share that my mom was looking for what her next career move would be when I was born. I was born with bilateral microphthalmia, which is basically a very small eye that never had light perception. And she was a regular ed teacher and did not like the discipline side of things at all. And then after considering a career in nursing, after I was born she said, “You know, I’ve got to look into this and see if I can get a master’s degree and actually become a teacher of the visually impaired.”

And granted, I’d be curious to hear about what your husband and your situation was when Joe was born… my parents did not know any blind people.

Lee: Yeah, we didn’t either.

Hoby: Someone they saw crossing the street maybe, that was sort of it. My mom’s cousin’s husband, or boyfriend at that time, was blind. And I think that really helped them. But they had to step up so quickly. And I think they had a choice to make. You know, “Do we want to have low expectations and not learn that blindness really isn’t such a big problem? Or do we want to hold Hoby to the same standards as his sighted brother and never lower the bar?” And I’m so thankful that they chose the latter of those two options. And it sounds like you guys did that with Joe as well.

Lee: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Joe has more than just blindness going on, but we included him in everything. And no, we didn’t know anybody who was blind before that. He was our first child, so we didn’t really have anything to compare to. And fortunately, when he was still pretty young, we found help here in central Florida.

So we lived in Atlanta, then we moved to LA. He actually attended the Blind Children’s Center in LA for a little while, but that was just kind of a crazy place for us to live just starting our careers. And as things started to sink in with me about Joe, I decided I needed my mother and my family around me. So we moved back to Orlando, the central Florida area, and contacted the Division of Blind Services. And they referred us to what was then a very brand new program. It became Lighthouse Central Florida, it was called something else.

And so my husband and I really were going through a parenting course on how to be the best parents we could for our child. And, Hoby, I’ll tell you, the first probably 10 years of Joe’s life, I was grieving and angry and frustrated with the lack of services that we could find for him and support. And I didn’t know what to do with that. I’m sure there are people who worked at these organizations that helped us that would see us coming and were like, “Oh, God, lock the doors. Here she comes, that crazy mom.” I just didn’t know what to do at that point.

Ultimately I learned and I was mentored by so many other parents and adults who were blind and visually impaired and just found this wonderful community and everything changed. But I’ve never wanted to forget those first years that were difficult and wanted to create a safe place and resources and support for other families going through that.

Hoby: Wow. I find that just so impactful and somewhat similar to the journey that my parents went on. I’ll tell you, it was because of an organization during the time of my infancy called the Blind Babies Foundation in Northern California, which is now –

Lee: Oh, yes, I know that.

Hoby: Yeah. Now part of Lighthouse for the Blind of San Francisco, they acquired it about a year and a half ago and changed the name to Little Learners. But it was incredible what the counselors from then Blind Babies Foundation did to basically explain to my parents time and time again, this isn’t a horrible, detrimental, life changing problem. It’s a nuisance. It sucks. It’s frustrating. It’s not easy, but everything’s going to be okay.

And they did struggle with services, for sure. And I think that’s ultimately what made my mom say, I want to go help other kids fix this. And I think that’s, in many ways, what you did with your career. You said, “Okay, if the system that I need, that other parents need as well, doesn’t exist, we need to create it.” How much accuracy does that hold?

Lee: Oh yeah, a lot.

Hoby: Yeah.

Lee: So before I started working at Lighthouse, I was in alcohol, drug abuse and mental health. And then we ended up –

Hoby: And by the way, Joe was – I’m sorry to interrupt, but Joe was born when you were in alcohol, drugs and mental health?

Lee: Yes.

Hoby: Okay.

Lee: And then we moved to Tallahassee and I became what was then called Part H of IDEA, now it’s Part C, Program Coordinator for the Panhandle of Florida. So Part C is the legislation that covers services for infants and toddlers.

Hoby: That’s a perfect fit.

Lee: Yeah, it was. It was just awesome. So I was working for Children’s Home Society in that capacity and had the opportunity and the privilege of helping design the early intervention system as it was just becoming a thing in all the states. And in fact, was part of a group of women, mostly young moms, who were all advocates. Lawton Chiles was the governor of Florida, that’s how long ago this was. One of the pieces of legislation that I helped pass was Healthy Start.

Hoby: Wow.

Lee: Healthy Start didn’t exist back then.

Hoby: Wow. And you probably got to know Lawton pretty well.

Lee: A little bit. I don’t know how well, but I do have a picture holding my third child by then. She wasn’t a year old when Lawton signed, when Governor Chiles signed that into law. And there were many other things that we did around early intervention that were just awesome, you know?

Hoby: Oh, and so important.

Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Hoby: And when you think back on that, it must feel so good to know that your work really did change the status quo for the better in that regard.

Lee: Yeah, it does feel good. Although I feel like we’ve taken steps back now. So I think services for children in need were better 15 years ago than they are now. I hate to say it, but I do feel like we’re backsliding there. There’s just not enough support and funding.

So after I did that, we moved back to Central Florida after Tallahassee again and became involved. I was still working with early intervention, did some consulting. And I went by Lighthouse Central Florida, who had helped us when Joe was younger, to see what was going on. And the executive director offered me to come work and help write grants.

And she and I were friends. She had been Joe’s, really, instructor, and now she was co-executive director of the organization. And so she said, “Oh, come, it’ll be fun. We’ll write grants. We’ll have lunch.” And I said, “Okay, great.” So I started working part time and it wasn’t fun.

Hoby: Grant writing is work.

Lee: Oh, well, I don’t mind the grant writing, but I wasn’t there five minutes when I realized the organization had a lot of issues.

Hoby: Oh, man.

Lee: And I tried to work through that with her over a period of about a year and a half, and we just were not making progress. I quit and suggested that they go through an organizational 360, which they did. And shortly after that, they asked if I would come back as interim while they conducted a national search.

Hoby: For a new executive director?

Lee: Yes, which they needed.

Hoby: Sure.

Lee: She was a lovely person, but she was in the wrong seat.

Hoby: I know the feeling.

Lee: And they didn’t find anybody and offered me the position. And so I was there for 20 years.

Hoby: Wow. And you took over really shortly after, you know, a year or two. It sounds like a year and a half went by where you tried to change the strategic way that the organization ran. And then probably not long after that, you were brought on as interim.

Lee: That’s correct.

Hoby: Wow.

Lee: And I had no intention of doing it long-term because I’d never been an executive director before. I didn’t have the confidence to do it, but I knew I could be the interim because I already knew all the issues. Nothing was going to scare me. I loved the organization and I wanted it to thrive and was willing to do whatever it took and thought I would only be there a little while.

When they offered me the position, I was nervous because I was still pretty young and, like I said, hadn’t done this before. But yeah, it was destiny. And I had a lot of people with us who, you know, the board was great, a lot of people around us. We had some rough years in the beginning.

Hoby: Yeah, every organization, for profit or nonprofit, goes through ups and downs.

Lee: Yeah, we did that.

Hoby: But ultimately you have such a legacy and a tenure at Lighthouse Central Florida. I really want to hear about some of the highlights of your time there. One that I read about that I just find very inspiring is the foundation of Lighthouse Works, your creating Lighthouse Works. Tell us about sort of the vision behind that and what Lighthouse Works is.

Lee: Yeah, well the inspiration for it came from one of our strategic planning sessions at Lighthouse Central Florida. I remember it being a pretty awesome process where we had staff, board volunteers, a lot of community members, staff from the Division of Blind Services there, and all the stakeholders who cared about what we were doing there. And we were frustrated with the lack of employment opportunities, quite frankly, for the folks we were putting through our employment programs, because by then we had vocational training as part of what we were doing.

We had stood up, we had the opportunity while President Obama was there to stand up some fabulous employment services. And we were very proud of it. And we felt like people got a lot of great training and they still couldn’t get hired in anything that mattered to them. And in some respects, Hoby, that’s even worse. Now you’ve been through training, you know you can do it and you just can’t get anything.

Hoby: I tried to apply for a job at one of the largest food companies in the world because I had tremendous allies there after earning my PhD in organic chemistry, only to get told that I was underqualified. And then I will not mention the company name, but my ally there called me and said, “It’s not actually that you were underqualified, it’s that you’re very qualified and we all wanted to hire you at the exact salary you requested. HR was just too scared of getting sued by you.” And that hurt.

When you realize that we’re up against such a stigma, such a – blindness, for whatever reason is such a… people think of us as so differently than what we really are, you know? So you had this vision and this understanding that this needed to change for the blind community.

Lee: Yes. My whole organization did. And we weren’t sure what we were going to do about it. Did a little investigation though, and were led to NIB. And fortunately at the time that we reached out to NIB, they had a very robust outreach program for new organizations and new markets and they were eager to have us. So we all held hands. And the hardest thing I ever did, but it was so worth it.

We just really believed in developing this organization that would produce a double bottom line. First we were there to employ people who are blind and visually impaired, but we also wanted to generate net re-deployable revenue for Lighthouse Central Florida, because there’s not enough money for vision rehabilitation services. It’s woefully underfunded. That’s what I’m working on now at VisionServe Alliance.

Hoby: Exactly, exactly. And that’s something, to me, that’s just such a shame. And the Departments of Rehabilitation, the Veterans Association, all the organizations that tend to purchase services, purchase might be the wrong word, but identify services for blind and visually impaired folks, that their budgets just are so small. And like you say, it’s just not there.

And that’s the brilliant part of the AbilityOne program, in my opinion, is that it really does allow for reallocation of funds to pay it forward to the programs that might lose money otherwise.

Lee: Yeah, that’s right. We developed some social enterprises. I think Lighthouse Works still doesn’t have too many federal contracts, but the call center that they have stood up and all their digital work, they have a lot of commercial work, and that produces re-deployable revenue to enhance/expand their reach with vision rehabilitation and early intervention and all the stuff they do for kids.

I couldn’t be prouder of them. I’m so proud of Kyle and Kaleb and everybody there. You know, I’ve been in this business long enough where I have watched colleagues of mine retire, when they were there the organization was great and a few years later things fall apart.

Hoby: The legacy dissolves.

Lee: Oh yeah, it has to be heartbreaking.

Hoby: Right.

Lee: And I don’t see that happening at Lighthouse.

Hoby: Well, no, and you did such a good job of recruiting Kyle. For folks who are listening, we actually did an interview with Kyle Johnson, which is out there. And I highly encourage you to listen to that because Lee gets a great plug from Kyle, by the way, there too.

Lee: Well, I’ll give him one right back. He’s one of my favorite people.

Hoby: Well, he’s the real deal.

So I want to go back and understand, you said that really holding hands with NIB and building this collaboration and this workforce was one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. Describe the difficulties, describe the challenges involved with it.

Lee: Well, gosh, there’s a bunch. So first of all, we were a small, traditional vision rehabilitation, community-based organization. The sort of mindset that we had as an organization was not what we needed, really, to stand up Lighthouse Works. I knew what got us to that point wasn’t going to get us to the next. And I love to read management books and leadership books and yeah, so I had been searching through those trying to find an answer with our management team, so what are we going to do?

One of our manager’s husbands was reading the book Traction by Gino Wickman and going through the system that he put forth from that, called EOS, with his company. And she read the book for moral support because he hated it. But she read it for moral support and she liked it. And she came back and she said, “You know what? Let’s take a look at this. This might be what we want.”

And so we did, we all read it on the management team. We had a retreat at my house, about 30 people, to talk about what we wanted to do, where we wanted to go, the impact we wanted to make in the community and agreed that this is what we were going to do. We hired a facilitator, someone who is certified in it happened to live in Orlando, thanks to one of my board chairs, who was a successful entrepreneur. To me it was going to be expensive to hire this person, but I went to him to talk about it.

And he said “This is the investment we need to make in this organization.” If you try to do it yourself, it’ll be hard at points and you may be tempted to give up. I don’t want that to happen. Let’s pay the money, get the guy here. And so we went through a two-year implementation with EOS and it transformed Lighthouse Central Florida and Lighthouse Works and gave us the framework that we needed to help us to think differently, to think more business-minded, to be able to develop business plans, entrepreneurial.

Now that wasn’t the only hurdle we had, but that really helped. And they’re still operating on that. And I loved it so much that now I became a certified implementer in EOS. I’ve moved on to another system now called System and Soul, but I really, really believe in having an operating system like that for nonprofits, especially.

Hoby: It’s so important. And one of the things that I often talk about as a businessman myself, is that nonprofits are often thought about as, “Oh, these organizations that are altruistic, doing this great work, they don’t have to operate like a business.” But the truth is that they’re businesses, they’re corporations that happen to have a different tax status.

Lee: Yeah, exactly right. But that was another hurdle as we stood up Lighthouse Works, is trying to get business, trying to convince other businesses to hire us because they thought just what you said, “You know, oh, they’re a little nonprofit. What do they know?” So that was another hurdle we had to overcome.

We needed investment. We didn’t have venture capital available to us, so we had to raise a lot of money to get started, but we did. And then we had to believe and we had to work really hard. And we had to find the right people. It was a journey, and I credit us being blessed with people like Kyle and Kaleb Stunkard and others on our team, and several of our board members who were phenomenal and –

Hoby: And visionary.

Lee: And visionary, absolutely. Yeah.

Hoby: Yeah. No, it’s amazing. We can’t do things alone. And I think you and I tend to be very forward thinkers and almost visionaries in our own right. But if we don’t have the people around us to support that thinking, it becomes very difficult to do anything.

Lee: Yeah, absolutely. NIB helped us too. And I also want to give a shout out to the other NIB affiliates, the NPAs. Many of those CEOs at other organizations were my mentors and supporters and believed in us too. And we did a lot of things together and it was a wonderful time.

Hoby: That’s just incredible. Thank you for telling me a little more of that story. So most of the contracts currently held, or at least when you left, held by Lighthouse Works were, and this is unusual, that’s the reason I’m asking, were actually private and not AbilityOne®. Is that right?

Lee: That is right. They have contracts with the state of Florida through their preferred purchase program, I can’t think of the name of it right now. So they do have state contracts. I have to say, I think it was the State that really gave us our lift and our start because they believed in us and hired our call center to do some of their work. When one department did it and saw what a great job that we could do, others were willing to do it.

Hoby: Everybody stepped up.

Lee: Right, exactly. And then there are some commercial contracts. We had one AbilityOne contract, I think they still have, right from the get go. But it was pretty small and maybe that was good because it compelled us to look elsewhere. And we did and got a foothold in those other arenas.

Hoby: There it is. There you go. And I suppose even though you were primarily not AbilityOne, NIB was still able to help you tremendously in building that commercial network.

Lee: Oh, yes. Yes, they were very helpful. And we, I mean, I’ve always been active. I attended everything, every training I could get my hands on, me and my team. I went and visited lots of other organizations. And like you said, you can’t do anything by yourself. So I just took advantage of what I could learn from everybody else.

And through VisionServe Alliance, a lot of the NIB affiliates were then, and still now, VisionServe Alliance members, as was I. And so I got a lot of love and assistance through those relationships too.

Hoby: Wow. And is there a strategy behind not holding onto a lot of AbilityOne work and really trying to go out and, you know, pave your own road?

Lee: I think, you know, the world has changed. Early on there was probably no reason to do that. If you had AbilityOne contracts, you could count on them and you could make a living and not really experience a lot of ups and downs. But it hasn’t been that way for a while. And so commercial work is not easy either, and neither is state work, but I think you need to diversify your customer base and your opportunities.

Hoby: Well, and diversify income streams as well, for sure. Thank you so much. Let’s pivot to VisionServe Alliance now and your time there and sort of what prompted you to say, hey, this is my next big step. This is what I want to do in my career after Lighthouse Works and Lighthouse Central Florida.

And for those people who don’t know, maybe you can explain a little bit, you did at the very beginning of the show, but maybe you can explain just a little bit of why VisionServe Alliance is there and what you all do.

Lee: Yeah, sure. I’ll start there. So VisionServe Alliance was incorporated in 1987. It had existed, I think, a little bit before that informally, but it started out as a group of chief executives of nonprofits in this field who got together to whine and wine, W-H-I-N-E and W-I-N-E.

Hoby: Right.

Lee: And many of those founders are still with us today and were my mentors, and I can’t thank them enough. They got together to try to help each other, just be a support group. What I was told is that they looked at the model that the state agencies have, the CSAVR and NCSAB are the national associations of state agencies of VR and those of blind services.

Hoby: VR being vocational rehabilitation?

Lee: Yes. Thank you for that. And they were sort of jealous, like, wow, they have this organization. They get together two conferences a year. They support each other. We should put something together like that for private agencies. And so that is what happened. For a good long while it was just a volunteer group. They did incorporate, but there was no paid staff. They would get together once or twice a year and they would help each other out.

And then they started thinking, you know, we can do more than this. We can continue to help each other, but we can also try to do more things for our fields. And so the first executive director was part-time, Roxanne Mayros, a good friend of mine. Came from the field, had been a CEO of several of our organizations. And she served in that position for 14 years, really getting us moving on national issues. We would have two conferences a year, national conferences.

And I became a member of it early in my career at Lighthouse Works and Lighthouse Central Florida. Someone told me about it and I joined, and I am so glad I did because I learned so much. Being a brand new chief executive, I had a lot to learn. And it’s not just the technical side of it, it’s the emotional support when it’s lonely at the top, right?

Hoby: It is, very much.

Lee: And as much as you want to be able to trust your board and your other staff members to talk about things, there’s some things you really can’t talk with them about it, you need another –

Hoby: You need other ears.

Lee: Yeah, absolutely. So I participated in VisionServe and learned a lot. When Roxanne was ready to retire she put a bug in my ear, we were in cahoots on a lot of things, and was like, why don’t you think about it? And wasn’t sure if I was ready to leave Lighthouse the first time she mentioned it, but it took a little bit longer for them to do the search. And by then we had stood up Lighthouse Works, Kyle was on board. We had a good team. We were rocking on EOS. And I still didn’t think they were going to offer me the position when they did.

But when they did, it just felt right. It happened at the conference and we were in Portland, Oregon in 2018. They finished the interviews and offered me the position. Fortunately, my husband was with me. Fortunately, Kyle and another staff person were with me.

Hoby: That’s incredible.

Lee: Yeah.

Hoby: So you had the people around and serendipitously were able to take the role.

Lee: Yep, decided it was time. It was time for Lighthouse to have new leadership and it was time for me to focus on –

Hoby: Time for you to have something else.

Lee: Yeah, on national issues.

Hoby: Well, Lee, this is just phenomenal. We don’t have a whole lot of time left, but I just want to ask you a couple of questions if I may. What, to you, is most inspiring about your career? I mean that very much in general about the work that you do. What excites you and inspires you?

Lee: Well, I’m a change agent and I believe it can always be better. I don’t care how hard it is, I believe that things can change if we work together on them. And my passion is to see that the same opportunities that exist for people who are sighted, will exist for people who are blind and visually impaired. And that’s what I’m fighting for.

I probably won’t get to walk into that promised land of all the things that are part of my vision, but I feel like we’re changing some of those things. And if I’m a part of it and others can build on the work that I lay down, I’m good with that.

Hoby: Amen to that. That is my mission and goal as well, and together we can make this happen. All of us who are working at NIB, all the NPAs, movers and shakers like you, we can do this.

What advice would you give someone who’s listening to this show who’s fairly newly blind? And I don’t ask the same questions to everybody here at the end, so this is just, I think, very fitting for our conversation. What advice would you give someone who’s newly blind, who’s on the precipice of going out there and starting to either get work or get the skills they need for work, but they’re just not sure they can do it? What would you tell them?

Lee: Well, maybe look for a mentor through one of the consumer organizations first. The American Council for the Blind, the National Federation for the Blind or Blind Veterans Association all offer those opportunities and have fabulous networks all across the country.

So I might do that first, but then I would strongly encourage them to see if there’s a community-based nonprofit organization, a Lighthouse or something else that they can go and talk to and probably meet lots of other people who have started on that same journey. It doesn’t look quite as daunting when you’re doing it with a group of people.

Hoby: When it’s not as lonely, right?

Lee: Yeah.

Hoby: Your story of your career and the work that you’ve done is inspiring. You are an agent of change. You’re a visionary and a dreamer. It’s been an absolute joy talking to you.

Lee: Thanks, Hoby.

Lee: I’d also like to ask you, if you don’t mind, it’d be a real gift to our audience when people listen to this episode and are inspired by your incredible work and all that you’ve done and people want to get in touch, do you mind if I include your email in the show notes?

Lee: Oh yeah, please do.

Hoby: Thank you.

Lee: I would love them to get in touch and especially learn more about VisionServe.

Hoby: There you go. I love it. Lee, thank you for your time today. It really has been a joy and I think we’ll be reaching out to you at some point in the future for a second appearance.

Lee: Okay, Hoby. And I hope I get to meet you in person sometime.

Hoby: I hope to meet you too. Let’s do a whole show all about VisionServe in the next few months, okay?

Lee: Oh, sounds great.

Hoby: All right you take care.

Lee: All right, you too.

Hoby: I appreciate you.

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