Intro: 00:01  

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

Dean Thompson: 00:36

Hey there! Thanks again for listening to the Heard & Empowered podcast. I’m your host, Dean Thompson. Our guest today is Matt Koch, who is the general manager of the Virginia Industries for the Blind. Matt, thanks for joining us today.

How are you doing?

Matthew Koch: 00:48  

I’m doing well and I’m looking forward to answering some questions and telling some success stories here.

Dean Thompson: 00:55  

Cool. Let’s go back about you a little tiny bit, if you don’t mind me – when did you lose your sight? And how did you lose your sight? And how much do you have left?

Matthew Koch: 01:01  

Sure. It was about 20 or 25 years ago now. I was a pilot in the Navy, flew helicopters for 15 years. I was out at sea on a deployment, and I was the officer in charge of our helicopter detachment on a small ship. We had no medical facilities on the ship, and I just started losing my peripheral vision.

And I thought it was stress, you know, and I was mad at myself because I thought I was always a calm, cool, collected guy, I thought. And here it was, I was letting my body react to the situation. So, I made it through the six-month deployment. We had a great time out there, very successful. But when I got back to San Diego, I thought I should go over to medical pretty quickly, and as soon as I did, they started dusting off machines that they hadn’t used in a long time.

And I had visual fields, and within a week I was in surgery for a pituitary tumor that was pressing up against my optic nerves and cutting off the blood supply. So long story short, after several surgeries, I woke up one time, instead of being better, I had lost all my vision in my left eye and I still did not have my peripheral vision in my right eye. So right now I’m about, you know, partial vision in my right eye. So that meant I couldn’t fly anymore. The Navy couldn’t deploy me as normal. And so I was medically retired at 18 years.

Dean Thompson: 02:37

Wow. That had to be tough.

Matthew Koch: 02:39  

It was. I mean, I was doing very well. I was loving my career. I was having great opportunities.

I’d had a chance to lead folks out at sea on three deployments, long deployments. I had had a chance to work at the Pentagon and very different offices, all at senior levels, and then even had a chance to work at the White House as a social aide, which for a single guy in D.C., it’s great. You get to go to all the parties. And it was, I was flying high.  And so this was a very rude awakening at that point.

Dean Thompson: 03:14  

I’d be less than remiss than to ask you what a social aide of the White House does. Can you tell us?

Matthew Koch: 03:20 

We represent the military services at official functions. So state dinners, you know, dignitaries, Christmas parties, all that sort of thing. You normally see people in uniform standing in the background, and we help answer guests’ questions and kind of keep the flow on a social side. Secret Service takes care of all the security side, but we’re window dressing there, and it was a fun time.

Dean Thompson: 03:49

Sounds like very tough duty, right?

Matthew Koch: 03:51  

That was collateral duty. So that was on top of my normal job at the Pentagon.

Dean Thompson: 03:56  

I’ve always said, and I lost my vision when I was very young. You were in your 30s, I guess, correct?

Matthew Koch: 04:02

Yes, I was 32, 33.

Dean Thompson: 04:06  

Okay. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you deal with that? Because a real sudden change in your life and your lifestyle.

Matthew Koch: 04:11  

Well, I’ll tell you. When I woke up in the Intensive Care Unit and I looked at the clock and I noticed that I couldn’t see out of my left eye, it was a big shock, because just the night before, my wife and I had learned that she was pregnant with our second child. And the first thing that went through my mind was, how am I going to support my family? I mean, that was devastating. I could not imagine. I’d never experienced anything like this, and so it was very devastating. The Navy was very good. They took care of me. You know, they gave me plenty of time to go through the multiple surgeries, and do the rehab and get back on my feet. But then it became obvious that I wasn’t going to get any better. And so my career was over at that point. And so, you know, I have confidence, I have a supportive family, I’ve got the education and whatnot, and I was able to transition to a very nice job with Capital One in the private sector, and did great things there for 10 years. Loved it. They were growing and I was achieving new heights. But I was missing something bigger than chasing the dollar. And so I spoke to my wife about coming back to public service.

And since we were in Virginia and our kids were in school and we loved it here, I looked at state government and there were, there was an opportunity in another state agency for the first few years. And then an opportunity opened up at the Department for the Blind and Vision impaired. And I thought, okay, this is what was meant to happen. You know, I, I could do something here. And I like the business aspect of this work with the AbilityOne Program and with Virginia Industries for the Blind, and so I’ve, I’ve been thrilled at the job that I’ve had for the past 11 years.

Dean Thompson: 06:14 

How many jobs, how many positions have you held at the VIB since you’ve been there?

Matthew Koch: 06:18  

I’ve only been the lead here, so I was hired in as the general manager, and I have a great team. You know, over those 11 years, there were people who I inherited who retired, and I’ve been able to replace them with really strong folks who work tirelessly to advance our mission of providing quality careers for people who are blind.

Dean Thompson: 06:45

Well, let me ask you the elevator question, 20 seconds or so. What is VIB? What does it do?

Matthew Koch: 06:51

VIB is a Virginia state agency, which is very different from any other AbilityOne organization. There are only four of us out of the entire family of AbilityOne nonprofits that are state agencies, and we provide direct employment for people who are blind. We have two manufacturing facilities, we have 13 retail outlets. We have seven, eight, nine, we keep growing the number of service contracts, professional services that we provide to the federal government and to state government. And we’re 160 people strong with 80 people who are blind and a budget close to $55, $60 million a year.

Dean Thompson: 07:34  

Wow, that’s good for you guys.

Matthew Koch: 07:37  

And, if I may, we’re fully self-supporting. So even though we’re a state agency, we get no tax dollars for our operations. Everything is supported by the money that we make, that our employees earn through the goods and services that they provide.

Dean Thompson: 07:53  

That’s even more amazing. Good for you.

Let’s look on the positive side. Outside of mattresses for the Navy, what else does what else does, what else do you guys make?

Matthew Koch: 08:02  

So, that is the only product that we make for the federal government. We are, since we are a state agency, we are a source of goods for the executive branch of Virginia. And so we make everything from reflective gear for the Department of Transportation, to spices for the Department of Corrections, to exam gloves and writing instruments, pillows and shower curtains. We make most of the state college mattresses, state hospital mattresses, state parks mattresses. So, one of our plants is focused on textiles and the other one is on smaller, hand assembly and distribution, warehouse and distribution work.

But most of our employees are in service contracts, and I’ll say the largest team that we have is 40 people. Thirty-two people, I’m sorry, 32 people serving the Defense Contract Management Agency. They provide what’s called contract management support. So every contract that DOD puts out, the Department of Defense puts out, eventually delivers a good or service. And eventually all the bills are paid.

And many times there’s money left over on that contract. And our team’s responsibility, working with our government colleagues, is to make sure that all the vendors have been paid. They all agree that everything’s delivered and squared away. And once we’ve confirmed all that, which is accounting work, sitting at a computer, looking at spreadsheets, having conversations with people. Once that’s documented, we can close that contract and all the leftover money can be reallocated back to the federal government.

And so they capture that money back. And it’s a tremendous opportunity, as I said, many people have moved on to professional careers with the government after getting two or three years experience with us. And that’s tremendous. We were the first agency, first nonprofit agency, doing contract management closeout who had an employee who was blind, who was a manager.

She used ZoomText, which is a magnification tool on computers. She has since left, but we got another employee who started with us. He’s totally blind. He started with us, moved to the federal government, so he left the contractor ranks, was hired by the federal government, and then we had a manager position open up, and he chose to come back to us. So he is the first completely blind manager for CMS, and he actually worked with NSITE in order to mentor a recent cohort, a recent class of students going through the CMS 101 class that NSITE offers.

So Zach Shifflett is his name. I’ll call him out here. He’s done wonderfully well for himself and for us. And I was very proud to offer him up to NSITE, to act as a mentor for that class which completed recently, you know, in the last month or so, they completed their training.

Dean Thompson: 11:28  

Give me your reaction so far to the NSITE initiative, the NSITE program at NIB. Can you talk about that a bit?

Matthew Koch: 11:34 

NSITE is, it’s filling a void, or it has filled a void, between people seeking jobs, people who are blind seeking jobs, and employers who are open to employing people who are blind. When they first started off, I certainly wished them well. The first year or two they had some growing pains, but in the last couple of years, Jonathan Lucus, his team at NSITE, have, they’ve heard the feedback, they’ve made significant strides. In his last quarterly report to the NIB board, I believe 85%, 82% of the people that they place in employment came to nonprofit agencies. I mean, that’s tremendous, right?

And they just, in the last two weeks, said that the job board that used to cost NPAs money to post our jobs on, is now free to NPAs. And I think that’s a tremendous attribute or accomplishment. And so I think NSITE has matured. They’ve listened to the feedback. After having a fantastic vision of what it could be, they modified it a little bit to fit in well with those of us who are closely related to them. And, as I said, I supported them enough to say one of my employees who, you know, who we have work for him to do, could spend time working with NSITE to help the next group of people coming through that training. So it’s a very valuable resource. I certainly hope that they continue to fill the void, and that we can continue getting more people who are blind connected with great careers.

Dean Thompson: 13:23

Do you hear from other people like yourself, agencies, and they are wondering about NSITE? How do you present NSITE and its abilities to folks like yourself with other agencies?

Matthew Koch: 13:32  

As I said, Jonathan has focused the organization to make sure that they’re delivering great value for the NPAs. I will ask those leaders if they’re taking advantage of posting their jobs on the job board. It’s, while there was a fee in the past, now it’s free. So I would hope that every NPA posts their jobs.

We post all of our positions when they become available. We have a state recruitment website that they go on, and NSITE, are two of the favorite locations because we know that it’s seen by people. So I encourage them to use the job board to put their jobs out there. And obviously the more you exercise a muscle, the stronger it gets, the more reliable it gets. And I think that can bring more value to folks.

Every state has a VR, or a vocational rehabilitation function, in their state government. They are charged with helping people of working age get jobs and NSITE has strong relationships with a growing number of state VR agencies across the country. So as the vocational rehabilitation counselors working with the individual, when the individual says, I’d like to learn about call center operations, I’d like to learn about contract management services, I’d like to learn about sourcing, about procurement, or logistics. NSITE has courses for those functions, those disciplines. And that VR counselor can refer their client to NSITE, and it doesn’t cost the client anything. The VR organization pays the enrollment fee and pays NSITE. That’s NSITE’s income, their revenue stream.

And so a lot of VR agencies have very strong relationships with NSITE. I must admit that Virginia is building our relationship. So, I’d like to see us use more of the training that’s available at NSITE for our VR clients. Virginia Industries for the Blind doesn’t handle VR directly, but my mother agency, the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired, does. So hopefully we’ll get a tighter relationship. The relationship that we have at VIB with our state VR agency is that we offer work-based training experiences. And so that’s extremely valuable to career seekers. They, you know, they want to try on jobs, and we want to try on possible employees. They need to learn the soft skills as well as the hard skills. And so we’ve had, in the last year, I think, six folks who have been referred to us for work-based training experience; four or five of them have now been hired full time. And so I’m very proud that we’ve gotten this training program put in place, working very closely with our vocational rehabilitation counselors.

And we are celebrating the progression, the advancement of folks who went from not working at all to having full-time career with benefits. One of the things that I point out every year to my state customer base is a value that we bring to the workforce and the value we bring to the Commonwealth of Virginia. It’s not just the jobs that we provide; it’s the tax revenue that those jobs produce, and it’s the reduction in public assistance that those employees now get from the state. So National Industries for the Blind had a consultant come in a few years ago, Mathematica, and Mathematica found that for every dollar spent on the AbilityOne Program, $2.66 comes back in return.

And so that’s a compilation of obviously the income and the income tax as well as the reduction in public service. And so, I thought that was very important to relay in real terms in Virginia dollars, Virginia numbers to our buying public on the state side. And folks were impressed. They should be. You know, it’s a good program.

Dean Thompson: 18:07 

It’s hard to find that kind of return on investment anywhere in business or in government. It’s amazing.

Matthew Koch: 18:12  

And the confidence that you give people right? We’ve all noticed people, and they don’t have to be people with any disabilities, but we all notice people who are kind of looking down, you know, their heads tilted toward the ground and they’re not standing up tall. They’re not professing their presence.

You know, they’re just kind of going through the motions. And we don’t have that in our workforce. Our workforce is proud of what they’re accomplishing. They’re proud of being members of the community and the way you can, we like to call independence, that’s one of our goals, and the easiest way to gain independence is to have a paycheck. Doing honorable work with, you know, supportive colleagues. And that’s what our employees enjoy.

Dean Thompson: 19:06

That’s really neat. Do you have a favorite? And you don’t have to talk about the person by name if you don’t want to. Is there a favorite example, favorite success story you’ve had over the past 10, 12 years you’ve been there?

Matthew Koch: 19:17  

I’d say they’re all individual, and there are so many success stories I can think of. Obviously, our long-term employee who’s spent more time working here than I’ve been alive. And then I can think of two individuals who work for us, who met going through rehabilitation training. They were both single at the time. Now they’re married. They both used to be on public assistance. They bought their own house.

I will tell you that when I joined 11 years ago – I’ve got goosebumps right now, okay – when I joined 11 years ago, and I traveled around to our two dozen locations, I was in awe of them saying how thrilled they were to be paying taxes. And I’ve never heard that from any other population, right? But our employees who are blind said, I am so thrilled that I’m not taking, I’m not receiving from the public. I’m not receiving government funds. I’m contributing public funds. And it was a matter of pride, which I can understand, and I’m sure you can understand, of contributing back to your society. And I just thought that was the end-all. You know, that was a tremendous compliment to their character and to the way that they carry themselves.

So, and I would be remiss if I did not mention that we have a ton of employees who are sighted, who are just as dedicated in order to support this mission. Since we’re in state government, we don’t make a lot of money, okay, because we are government employees. But the value that, the satisfaction of the work that we do makes up for the lack in the paycheck. I’ve never had anyone say that they’re not satisfied with their work, that they don’t find a sense of purpose. In fact, our agency just did a survey, a climate survey, and the number of, the percentage of respondents who said that they felt satisfied at work, they felt that their mission and value was high, was in the 94% range.

You know, I mean, the pollsters, the folks who did the survey said they’ve never seen numbers like that. And yet we’ve done two surveys over the last five years, and both of them turned in those sorts of results. And that’s what makes this work so valuable. And so, so rewarding.

Dean Thompson: 21:47 

It’s gotta make you and the management team feel really good about yourself, about what you’re doing, does it not?

Matthew Koch: 21:50

It’s nice to feel good about yourself.

Dean Thompson: 21:54  

If somebody listening to this is in the state of Virginia, I hope there are some people, how do they get in touch with you? If they didn’t know the VIB existed until today, how do they follow up with you guys to look for, look for work?

Matthew Koch: 22:04 

Well, thank you very much for asking that question, because we’re always in search of good folks. They can go to the Commonwealth of Virginia website and look for the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired, and we are on that website. Or even easier, just ask your AI tool, you know, take me to Virginia Industries for the Blind and it will take you there. Our site has all of our jobs listed there that people can look for. It talks about all of our business units so people can learn more about us. And so, I think the easiest thing is just search for Virginia Industries for the Blind, and you’ll get information. If they’re interested in a job, and certainly if they’re in Virginia, they should reach out to us. Thank you for asking that.

Dean Thompson: 22:57 

You’re welcome. Matt, this has been wonderful. Thank you ever so much. And best of luck to you and the VIB going forward,okay?

Matthew Koch: 23:03  

Thank you.

Outro: 23:04  

Thank you for listening to the Heard & Empowered podcast. Please make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more information, visit heardandempowered.org. That’s heardandempowered.org. Join us again next time.