Maurice: In order to make a change, you’re going to have to make a sacrifice and be brave. So to tell job seekers who may be on the fence you have to make a sacrifice. You have to be brave. You have to step out of your comfort zone because your comfort zone has gotten you to this point, and to move out of it, you have to challenge yourself.

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: Happy Wednesday, folks, and welcome back to the Heard & Empowered podcast. I just want to start out by thanking you so much for loving our show, for giving us, if we so deserve it, a five-star review. And if you can write even just a one-word comment in that review it would be so helpful.

And if you really like our show, tell your friends to listen to it. Anyone who’s interested in what blind people can do, how we can get jobs and what opportunities are out there. Whether you happen to be blind yourself, you know someone who is blind, or you just are plain interested in how we do what we do, listen to the show, follow us on all platforms and tell your friends about it. Hey, and if you don’t like it, tell your enemies about it. But I think telling your friends about it is the way to go.

This week I am so excited, we’re actually here at the Public Policy Forum in Washington DC, celebrating many years of public policy and lobbying and all the amazing work done by the NIB at the government level. And we are sitting here in beautiful Washington DC. I have the pleasure of having a very distinguished guest on the show. Today I’m chatting with none other than the great Maurice Crittendon, who is here with us. He actually is an employee at NIB and he has an amazing story to tell. Maurice, welcome to the show.

Maurice: Thank you, Hoby. Glad to be here. Thank you.

Hoby: Honor to be here with you. And I’m totally blind myself, but I was told that Maurice is a very snazzy dresser with a beautiful checkerboard shirt on and a nice jacket with a beautiful peacock pin, I believe. So he’s much more snazzy and fashionable than I am, I can say that.

Maurice, I love to get to know the person behind the mission, the person behind all the amazing work that we’re doing here at NIB. So can you tell me just a little bit about your background, kind of starting with growing up and your family and whether or not you were born with or without eyesight? Can you just tell us?

Maurice: Sure.

Hoby: Tell us your story.

Maurice: Sure. I’ve been around for some time, so my story might be a little longer than others.

Hoby: That’s okay.

Maurice: I’m not a spring chicken.

Hoby: You don’t look a day over 40 to me.

Maurice: Neither do you.

Hoby: Thank you.

Maurice: Hoby, So both of my parents were in the Air Force, that’s where they met. And I was actually born in Spain. So I spent about two years in Spain and then they were both stationed as their final duty station to the Pentagon.

Hoby: I love it.

Maurice: So for most of my life, I spent in the DC, Maryland, Virginia suburbs.

Hoby: Nice.

Maurice: So I went to school, high school here. I went to college at George Mason University.

Hoby: Very cool.

Maurice: And just stayed around locally up until the point I lost my sight in 08. So when I lost my sight in 08 due to diabetic retinopathy, I chose to go to Blind Incorporated in Minneapolis.

Hoby: Great program.

Maurice: It is a great program. And I wanted to go there because I figured that I would want to live in a more urban area. And if I went to a new urban area, especially one like Minneapolis with snow and ice, I’d be able to make it anywhere. So I went there.

Hoby: So you’re always about the challenge.

Maurice: Always about the challenge. Well, the challenge at the start, too. I wanted to challenge myself and not rest on any laurels or feel sorry for myself.

Hoby: Oh, I love that.

Maurice: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Hoby: It’s important to challenge ourselves and push ourselves all the time.

Maurice: It is.

Hoby: And let’s go back to your early life a little bit. So growing up with your parents in the military, did you experience things differently than maybe your friends did? Because they were in the military, they served our country. I mean, did you have a pretty fun childhood learning about what they did on a day-to-day basis?

Maurice: I did. And most everybody growing up in my suburb, it seemed like their parents were former military or government as well.

Hoby: Nice. So you had a connection there.

Maurice: Definite community connection.

Hoby: That’s fantastic. And let’s move on to college. You went to George Mason University. What did you study?

Maurice: Wow, so I had to change my major a couple of times. I ended up with a major in integrative studies with a focus in public relations, specializing in special event management.

Hoby: I love it. So event management is something you’ve always been fascinated by, ever since college.

Maurice: Always. Yes.

Hoby: Up until the point when you, we’ll get here in a second, when you did event planning and event management with NIB.

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: And was it something before college that triggered your love and interest for putting on really good events?

Maurice: You can say that in part. So I’ve always loved sports and activities. My last year in high school, I played football, of course. I love football.

Hoby: Very cool.

Maurice: And I was also a cheerleader.

Hoby: I love it.

Maurice: So as a cheerleader, I went to George Mason and I cheered on the junior varsity team. And then I actually coached the team as well.

Hoby: Really?

Maurice: Sat at the scorer’s table and worked with the staff on court. So yeah.

Hoby: Oh, that’s awesome.

Maurice: So I like production.

Hoby: You like to put on a show and put on an event and make people feel glad to be there.

Maurice: Mm-hmm.

Hoby: Now I mentioned, or I heard through our little pre-conversation that you actually were a recruiter.

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: Tell me about that.

Maurice: So recruiting. Recruiting started off at George Mason as well. I went to a career fair and an individual, her name was Peggy Bagley. She worked for a staffing organization. She said that she could see me in that role. So I started off and I started temping for a local consulting firm. And then from that consulting, from that temporary job, I got hired on full-time and became a diversity recruiter about two years out of college.

Hoby: Wow. Diversity recruiter, meaning looking for talent from a diverse background.

Maurice: An underserved population. So at that time we were looking for black and Hispanic MBAs to serve on commercial products, remembering that this was in the late nineties.

Hoby: Right. No, that’s awesome. I love that. And the mission of being a diversity recruiter is such an important one, you know, to help people who have been previously underserved, find great work that they’re more than capable of doing. And you know what’s funny about that is it’s not different at all, in my opinion, to the amazing work done by NIB.

Maurice: Exactly correct. It was a great transition into the position I’m currently in.

Hoby: So you lost your sight in 2008.

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: And where did life take you there? So you went to Blind Inc, tell me about that journey. So Blind Inc is what we call a training center. So it’s somewhere where you can go when you’re somewhat new to sight loss, or you just want a little extra training to learn some of the important skills to go out and conquer life as a blind person in a sighted world. Tell me about your experience there.

Maurice: I chose to go there, like I said, because I wanted to definitely be challenged. I wanted to go someplace new to really be able to figure it out, to land wherever I would after that. So I found it a bit of a challenge, one, to really get around the city at first. But after a couple of days, I felt comfortable with that. We took classes in the Pillsbury mansion, which is a huge mansion in the middle of Minneapolis.

Hoby: And a very confusing mansion, right?

Maurice: It is very confusing at times. So it took about a month to get totally around and used to the mansion. But after that, things just started to click. Learning the base skills, practicing them all the time. Having to go to the grocery store. I like to eat.

Hoby: So do I. And if you like to eat, you got to learn to cook.

Maurice: And you have to learn to cook. And that’s something that I found out that I had a bit of a love for.

Hoby: What are some of your favorite things to cook?

Maurice: Ooh. One thing I made when I was there was, and which still remains one of my favorites is bacon wrapped scallops.

Hoby: Oh, that’s so good. Yeah.

Maurice: They were delicious.

Hoby: I’m a bit of a nerd in the kitchen myself. I acquired a big green egg a few years ago and I love smoking things and cooking things in every which way.

Maurice: Really?

Hoby: Yeah, it’s a clay smoker.

Maurice: What’s the last thing you smoked?

Hoby: The last thing I smoked was a pork shoulder and it was so good. So I, in another life, started a spice company and made two products. The one that we used on the pork is called “Happy Paprika.” So it’s a blend of paprika, coconut, sugar, some really coarsely ground pepper, a little bit of salt, onion, and garlic, a little cayenne too. And man, that on a pork shoulder smoked for about 16 hours was crazy.

Maurice: That sounds delicious.

Hoby: It was good. It worked out. It all comes out good in the end, right?

Maurice: It sure does.

Hoby: Yeah. So Blind Inc taught you to travel, taught you to shop, taught you to cook.

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: All these things that are so important. So you probably left there in what, 09?

Maurice: I did.

Hoby: Okay.

Maurice: I did leave there in 09, but I left in 09 with a bit of a twist. So I was planning to stay in Minneapolis and become, and I actually became a resident of the state. Minnesota is one of the states that pay for secondary education. And I was looking to get a master’s at that time.

Hoby: Nice.

Maurice: While I was studying a tutor noticed that I wasn’t really as focused and happened to circle back around and check on me. At that time it was a good thing he did because I went into a bit of a low blood sugar type of moment where I was really totally out. That happened and it led to me coming back, getting checked out and learning that my kidney was, I was in renal failure.

So shortly after coming back, being hired on by NIB, I found out that I was in renal failure and I spent thereafter about six and a half years going to dialysis three times a week.

Hoby: Wow. And what was the light at the end of that tunnel? Were you able to stop going to dialysis?

Maurice: Absolutely. The light through the tunnel was the fact that I knew I felt better.

Hoby: Yeah.

Maurice: I knew that I wasn’t having low blood sugar reactions out of no place now, there was a reason for everything. And the light at the end of the tunnel, because I really never missed any of my treatments because it was a commitment because I want to be here. The light was that I got a transplant in 2017. So it was a dual transplant, kidney/pancreas. So that solved the diabetes and the end stage renal disease.

Hoby: Congratulations. That’s incredible. And that just totally brought your health back.

Maurice: It did.

Hoby: I love that. And I can hear it in your voice, you’re a new person with new goals and new aspirations all over the place.

So you started at NIB when you got done with Blind Inc, is that right?

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: And how did you hear about NIB?

Maurice: I heard about NIB actually from our CMS program. And I say ours, it started off with NIB and their workforce development department with Billy Parker.

Hoby: Sure.

Maurice: Billy started the CMS program and I must’ve seen it someplace advertised. And then I reached out to NIB and I also came across Karen Powell’s information. I randomly called her and she spoke about her program, which was the Fellowship for Leadership Development.

Hoby: I love it.

Maurice: When I read the description, I loved it too. So I chose to apply and was fortunate enough to make it in.

Hoby: Congratulations. You know, I love something you’ve done. I just want to circle back on a very specific point here. You’ve mentioned two names. You’ve mentioned Karen Powell’s name and the name of the recruiter you met at George Mason University. What was her name again?

Maurice: Peg Bagley

Hoby: Peg Bagley.

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: And Peg and Karen are total mentors, were total mentors in your life. You mentioned them and I’m sure you’ll never forget those names because aren’t mentors important?

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: They help us see a future for ourselves before we necessarily see that future in our own mind.

Maurice: We do. And mentorships don’t really have to be formalized. They can be formal and very much informal.

Hoby: Totally. I’m sure you have some folks right now that you’re mentoring.

Maurice: Mentoring in the fact that we stay in regular contact, make updates on things and try to help people down a pathway, sure.

Hoby: Love that.

Maurice: And it works both ways too, Hoby.

Hoby: Oh, it’s a both way, it’s a two way street.

Maurice: Yeah, absolutely.

Hoby: Everything is, there are two sides to every story there. You know, if we can help someone do something, I’m sure there’s a way they can help us.

Maurice: How many mentors do you have currently?

Hoby: Oh man, I’ll just say that I would not be where I am if I didn’t have great mentors in my life. My graduate school mentor, the person who was my graduate advisor, Dean Tantillo, saw that I should study organic chemistry before I thought it was possible and offered me a position in his graduate computational chemistry lab. And boy, if it wasn’t for him seeing a vision for me before I saw it for myself, there’s no way I would have done that and would have been there.

I actually transitioned out of academia into industry when I earned my PhD in 2016 and have had so many amazing business mentors along the way. I can think of a couple of great mentors right off the top of my head that have just helped me and still are right there for me that I bounce information off of all the time. One’s a great friend by the name of Kevin Eastman who runs a manufacturing company out of Tennessee. And it’s just great to have someone who’s not only a great friend, but someone who you can call and say, “Hey, you know, you’ve been doing this thing of running your own business longer than I have. What do you recommend here? So mentors are amazing.

Maurice: Exactly.

Hoby: They’re what give us the strength to keep on going every day, you know?

So you started at NIB, like you said, in 2010, you worked with Karen Powell.

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: And then ended up leaving for medical stuff, right? Because you were getting a transplant and all that.

Maurice: Yes. Right.

Hoby: And then you ended up back at NIB.

Maurice: Ended up back at NIB.

Hoby: What year?

Maurice: Ended up back in NIB in 2018, the fall of 2018.

Hoby: Wow. And did you have some friends here from 2010?

Maurice: I did have some friends from 2010, but one of the main people who helped me get back, again, was Karen Powell.

Hoby: Is Karen still here?

Maurice: Karen is unfortunately no longer with us. She passed away a couple of years ago.

Hoby: I’m sorry to hear that.

Maurice: That’s all right, her memory clearly still lives on.

Hoby: Oh, it lives on for sure. And what was your work when you first came back to NIB?

Maurice: When I first came back to NIB I fell back on work, similar work that I was doing in the past. So I came in as an HR intern.

Hoby: Nice. So looking to hire people and grow the workforce.

Maurice: Absolutely.

Hoby: What were some of your responsibilities other than the ones that I mentioned?

Maurice: Well, you know I like event management. So I was able to help plan a couple of HR events. And that was really cool. So not only working in HR where I had experience, then tying that in with event management, where I really had a passion for at that time. And it all really seemed to blend. So I was helping people connect with jobs and so forth, and I was also helping internally by putting on these events and then therefore nourishing myself.

Hoby: Totally.

Maurice: So do what you, you know, it’s kind of like do what you love type of things.

Hoby: Do what you love and then you’ll be good at it, right?

Maurice: And then you’ll be good at it.

Hoby: If you find something that you like, it’s really easy to be consistent and put in all the time that it needs to not only survive, but thrive.

Maurice: That’s it.

Hoby: So were your events that you would put on at the office, at headquarters?

Maurice: Yes, they were.

Hoby: I love it. I love it. So that brings us perfectly to the segue to the next part of your career with NIB, which was actually in event management, right?

Maurice: Yes, it was.

Hoby: Tell me about that.

Maurice: Well, it was a great experience because at the time that I started back, NIB moved into a brand new building. So the building has, the whole second floor of our current building is an event center.

Hoby: Really?

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: I did not know that.

Maurice: It is. It is a great event center. So working to stand that space up, help run events, try to book events in the space. It was really a dream come true, really getting back and getting hands on. And I was also afforded the opportunity to get a graduate certificate in event management from George Washington university.

Hoby: Really?

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: Wow. And that’s kind of like a master’s, right, in event management? And you can take that and use it to show any employer, “Hey, I’ve got the street cred, right? I’ve got the experience.”

Maurice: Somewhat, yes.

Hoby: I love that. I love that. Didn’t you help with organizing some of these conferences, like the one that we’re at now?

Maurice: Like the one we’re at now, yes. One of my biggest accomplishments, I think, and one that I’m most proud of was in 2020. We had our virtual conference.

Hoby: Wow.

Maurice: So the virtual conference, before that, was always held in person.

Hoby: Yes.

Maurice: Always in person, big event, big deal.

Hoby: Since NIB’s creation.

Maurice: Since NIB’s creation, exactly. So as we couldn’t meet in person that year, we decided to go virtual. So again, I wanted to challenge myself. I chose to volunteer to help out and lead the technical efforts on NIB’s side. And that was really great. Really formed our run of show, worked with our production teams, our speakers and so forth. And that was maybe like a two, three day event. I really felt great afterwards. I was tired, very tired, but I felt really accomplished.

Hoby: That’s amazing. Putting something on that engages people and keeps them motivated and keeps them coming back in a virtual setting is such a cool thing.

Maurice: Fulfilling.

Hoby: Yeah. Fulfilling and it’s something you can hang your hat on.

Maurice: It is.

Hoby: What do you do now for NIB?

Maurice: Well, so for NIB –

Hoby: We can go as deep as you want here.

Maurice: I’ve been pretty lucky working at NIB, coming back into HR, having the opportunity to work HR events, then move explicitly into event management. And then now back into, full circle back to diversity recruiting. So now I work with NSITE as their senior specialist for talent acquisition.

Hoby: Oh my gosh. So tell me what a day in the life of Maurice acquiring talent looks like right about now.

Maurice: Busy.

Hoby: Busy?

Maurice: Busy. There’s always something to do. There’s always somebody to reach out to, to research. My job is a lot of research, trying to –

Hoby: Reading LinkedIn profiles.

Maurice: Reading LinkedIn profiles, looking for employers really willing to, and are open to hiring BVI talent. I really look at it like the BVI community, we have a lot of skills that we bring to the table.

Hoby: We sure do.

Maurice: You have a PhD, a wealth of experience along with that. I have a wealth of professional experience.

Hoby: And you know what else we have? We know how to work hard.

Maurice: We do.

Hoby: Because to be successful in a sighted world means hard work.

Maurice: It does.

Hoby: Right? It means we need to step up and get it done.

Maurice: Resilience.

Hoby: You know it.

Maurice: Yep.

Hoby: So are you more recruiting, Maurice, for the BVI folks themselves, or are you more finding the companies for us to work at?

Maurice: Both.

Hoby: Very cool.

Maurice: Both.

Hoby: Does your recruiting ever stem into the agency program? Like you find someone and you can say, “This person would be just right for such and such agency.”

Maurice: Absolutely. So we work closely with our agencies, and a number of our agencies post on our job board, NSITE Connect.

Hoby: Yeah.

Maurice: So a little bit about NSITE Connect.

Hoby: Tell us.

Maurice: It’s our job board, it’s curated for the BVI community. So you won’t get on the job board and see jobs like truck drivers.

Hoby: That’s good.

Maurice: So the list is curated. There are some remote jobs on there and there are a lot of jobs at the agencies in varying levels. So really working to, one, get the position out there first. And then, two, whenever possible, try to go through our talent pool to recommend candidates.

Hoby: Nice. Nice. So really looking at what opportunities are out there and then using the job board to figure out, okay, who would be the right fit?

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: And do you oftentimes find someone and say, “Hey, I don’t have a job for you now, but we’re going to put your information up on our job board and someone will come recruit you.”

Maurice: Well, that’s the beauty of it. So a person can only see the full list of jobs if they create a profile. So once they create a profile on the job board, which is a very easy process, filling out your name, address, and rest of that information. If you have a resume, it’s easy just to attach it there and just make any adjustments to your experience, you know, adjusting dates as the auto-paste doesn’t always work correctly.

Hoby: Right, adjusting work experience, all that stuff.

Maurice: Right, and just saving that. And then there’s your profile. If that doesn’t happen, you can also paste a profile there or reach out to us. Particularly we’d like it if you’d reach out to us to get a little help with creating a resume, because a resume is something you’ll always need.

Hoby: I want to do another episode on resume writing. I think it would be super important.

Maurice: It is.

Hoby: Yeah. So would you say that most people who have profiles on the job board end up getting placed?

Maurice: I say that there is a good placement rate, particularly out of some of our programs as well.

Hoby: Amazing. So when you go sit down with a company that may be new to blindness, what are some of the ways that you like to explain to them why the blind or BVI workforce is such a valuable one? It’s maybe a really well-kept secret.

Maurice: I like to point out the points that we went over in general. You know, the fact that a person has limited vision or no vision really is just a minor, not even barrier, it’s just a minor fact, right?

Hoby: Totally. Just like having brown eyes.

Maurice: Just like having brown eyes. I really try to sell that. I really tried to sell the diverse skills. I run into candidates every day that it just, they amaze me with their backgrounds. I ran into a master’s of fine art in film editing from the BVI community. Amazing.

Hoby: Really?

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: How do they do that?

Maurice: I mean, I run into great stories all the time.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Maurice: Yeah, I interview great people and these are really fantastic. So there’s a great skill set and it’s available.

Hoby: And it’s a diverse skill set.

Maurice: Very much so.

Hoby: That is just awesome. That is awesome. What is just a specific story you can tell us about a placement that maybe you’ve made in the past year that you just feel so excited about and proud of that we can dig into a little bit?

Maurice: Yes, we had a graduate from one of our major programs. It’s our Cisco CCNA program. This graduate came from our first cohort and he tested, and this Cisco CCNA examination or this certification is pretty difficult. He stayed in class for 40 weeks along with his other cohort members and sat for this exam and passed it on the first try.

Now, knowing that the unemployment and underemployment rate for our community is really high, it’s always going to be a bit of a grind trying to find a job. It turned out to be very successful and this young man was able to be hired based on his credentials, his experience primarily, and he is doing quite well in this position.

Hoby: I love it. I love it. And he put in the time and had the tenacity and did what he needed to do to get the CCNA training.

Maurice: Because that’s what’s necessary. We all have to make sacrifices in order to succeed.

Hoby: How does NSITE work? Basically you offer classes and courses to folks so they can gain certificates and gain skills?

Maurice: Gain skills, gain professional certificates or are on the path to certification, industry certification. And then we also provide a complete suite of employment services. Again, helping individuals with their resume through our partnership with the American Printing House for the Blind. We help folks with their LinkedIn profiles. It’s one of our newer courses with Tanner Gers and it’s creating and improving your LinkedIn profile because, of course, LinkedIn is one of the largest, it is the largest employment network in the world. So if you’re looking for a job, that’s a great place to start and to have a profile.

Hoby: And having a good LinkedIn presence is important for anyone.

Maurice: Very much.

Hoby: Totally. Were you with NSITE when Cisco came on board and said, “Hey, we want network specialists from the Blind and BVI community?”

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: That must’ve been an exciting day.

Maurice: It was. It was.

Hoby: And they have not been let down. I’m sure they’re more than excited about what we offer and what we bring to the table every day.

Maurice: Absolutely. And this is just another great example of the talent and skill of our job seekers. The talent and skill is there. You have to be able to use your access technology well. You have to know just the general concepts and then put it in a way where you can translate it necessarily with your hands, with keyboard shortcuts, moving around things, putting things in the proper place, always knowing where you are. That’s very much a strength.

Hoby: I love it. I love it. So what’s next for Maurice? Are you going to continue recruiting, continue on this path that you set forth for yourself many years ago in college?

Maurice: Yes. I would like to move more into some career coaching, getting deeper with helping individuals out, serving as more of a bridge between our talent pools and then employers. That is probably my primary focus moving forward, to try to garner more of those partnerships. Knowing that the more partnerships we are able to engage with, the more jobs we can produce, the more people we can get hired.

Hoby: The lower we can force that unemployment rate because that’s what we’re all, that’s the end goal that we’re all after, right?

Maurice: One job seeker at a time.

Hoby: You know it. Build the careers, build the skills, find the jobs, get people placed, allow them to live on their own. That not only helps them, but it helps the government because now people are paying taxes.

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: It’s just amazing. It’s a snowball of goodness.

Maurice, we’re running a little bit short on time, but I’ve got a couple of questions that I just want to ask you.

Maurice: Please.

Hoby: The first one is I want you to put yourself in the shoes of a Fortune 500 company and we’re interested in hiring people, we need folks to do work. That’s the bottom line.

Maurice: Yes.

Hoby: But we’re on the fence about whether we should or can hire blind people. We look at them crossing streets and think, “Oh, I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know if I could use this workforce in my company.” What would you tell me to get me across the line?

Maurice: That this workforce is an untapped gem. Not hiring individuals from this community would be a downfall, and would not benefit your organization in any way. Not only does hiring BVI candidates serve to broaden the experience and skill of your organization, it adds different perspectives. We all know an organization isn’t made up of just everybody, just one type of person. Hiring somebody from the community who has different life perspectives, who bring different skills and experiences to the table only strengthens the organization.

And you have an employee who is going to be very thankful and typically be very loyal, as an employee staying there. Retention is one thing that all employers really take a look at, and retention in this case should be quite high.

Hoby: And if you are on the fence, give it a try. Just go for it.

Maurice: Go for it.

Hoby: And you will be impressed.

Maurice: And we’re here to help. A lot of employers don’t have experience working with blind or visually impaired employees.

Hoby: Right.

Maurice: NSITE serves as a bridge. We have a great team member, his name is Douglas Goist, he helps out individuals do some consulting.

Hoby: You all have heard Doug on the podcast.

Maurice: We all have heard Doug. Helping to work those systems into the existing infrastructure to make working seamless.

Hoby: To make working what?

Maurice: Seamless. I’m sorry.

Hoby: Seamless. Yeah, no.

Maurice: The transition to working –

Hoby: To make that transition totally seamless.

Maurice: Absolutely. Let’s flip the situation around and let’s say we were counseling someone who is part of our BVI community who’s really close to saying, I want to go out and get work for myself, but they’re just not quite sure. They’re really nervous about entering that larger world. What would you tell them?

Maurice: A gentleman from APH, American Printing House for the Blind, told me that he works on a project for blind and low vision individuals living in rural communities. And he often tells the folks he speaks with that in order to make a change, you’re going to have to make a sacrifice and be brave. So to tell job seekers who may be on the fence, you have to make a sacrifice. You have to be brave. You have to step out of your comfort zone because your comfort zone has gotten you to this point, and to move out of it you have to challenge yourself.

So I would always challenge anyone to challenge themselves. To really push forward towards your goal because no one else is going to do it for you.

Hoby: Think about how good we feel. Think about that adrenaline rush that we feel when we succeed after challenging ourselves.

Maurice: It does. You get a lift and it makes me want to keep on going.

Hoby: Me too.

Maurice: So I hope it makes everybody feel that way.

Hoby: That is the goal. Challenge yourself and you will be rewarded. And you know what? Along those lines, I always tell people, make mistakes because if you don’t make mistakes, you don’t learn anything.

Maurice: You have to. Yep. You do.

Hoby: You’ve got to do something wrong and realize that you did it wrong and not do it again.

Maurice: Learn how to correct the actions that made you have or make a mistake.

Hoby: Maurice, it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you, and I have a question for you. How can people get a hold of you? Because anyone that’s listening to this, they’re going to be as inspired as I am and I’m sure they’re going to want to reach out.

Maurice: I would love for people to reach out to me. I have a bit of a long last name, but the best way to reach me is by email. It is my first initial, which is M, my last name, Crittendon, at N-S-I-T-E.org.

Hoby: Go ahead and spell your last name for us, if you don’t mind.

Maurice: So that whole email address is M, C as in Charlie, R-I, T as in tango, T as in tango, E, N is a Nancy, D-O, N as in Nancy, at N-S-I-T-E.org.

Hoby: Maurice, I have learned so much. I’ve been given a total lift in my attitude, my desire to go out and keep challenging myself. You are just an infectious inspiration.

Maurice: You’re pretty infectious too, Hoby, I haven’t stopped smiling this whole interview.

Hoby: Maurice, thanks for your time today.

Maurice: Thank you.

Hoby: And let’s have a good conference together, okay?

Maurice: Absolutely.

Hoby: You’re someone who I consider a good friend and I’ll definitely be in touch.

Maurice: Thank you, Hoby.

Hoby: Thank you. Cheers.

Maurice: Cheers.

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