Rey: Both my parents are working class American individuals.

Hoby: Sure.

Rey: And yes, I am visually impaired, but they never let that stop me. And I tell that to clients, it’s like your blindness is just an inconvenience, it’s not a barrier to success.

Welcome to the Heard & Empowered podcast presented by the 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. And this week, I am beyond thrilled to be talking to my good friend, Reynaldo Villarreal, who likes to be called Rey. Rey, how are you?

Rey: I’m doing well, Hoby. Thank you very much.

Hoby: Well, welcome to Heard & Empowered, where we celebrate the careers of folks who are blind or visually impaired, or folks who are helping us find careers and really lower that 70% unemployment rate. And I know you do a lot of that yourself. Rey, tell me just what your current position is and at what company.

Rey: Yeah, so thank you very much. So I am the Director of Workforce Development here at Valley Center for the Blind in Central California. We cover a couple of counties, so I always say Central California, but my primary location is in Fresno, myself.

Hoby: Awesome, and Valley Center for the Blind is a nonprofit agency served by the National Industries for the Blind, or NIB. So fantastic to know a little bit about you and where you work, and we’re going to get much more into that. One of my favorite parts of talking to great people like yourself is getting to know a little bit about the stories of the people that we’re talking to that are doing this amazing work to find employment for people who are blind or visually impaired.

So, Rey, if you don’t mind sharing with me a little bit about yourself, your background, where you’re from, how you got to Fresno and your sort of relationship with blindness or visual impairment.

Rey: Yeah, thank you. So, for me, I always consider myself just like an average blind guy. I am legally blind. I have a condition called retinitis pigmentosa (RP), which when I was very young, I thought it was a rare condition. And that’s what the doctors told me, this is not common. But before that, I originally was born in Texas, a small town in Alton. And then my mother moved us to California for herself to be able to be more successful in employment. It’s kind of funny because that’s kind of what I do now, is try to help people with employment and success.

Hoby: I love it.

Rey: So I moved here primarily speaking Spanish and entered into the education system here. And my mother believed really strongly in the American dream and adopting the American language, which is English. So I was in school learning English in kindergarten, first grade. During that period of time, we are all known that we do a vision and hearing screening every year as you go through. And at first my parents thought I was just a little clumsy, ran into things, just normal kid, toddler kind of things. And then as I went through school and had those screenings and eventually they’re like, we have a little concern with Rey and his vision. We feel like he might need to see an eye doctor.

So that’s what happened. I went to see a local eye doctor, had some tests run and eventually got diagnosed with, at the time what I was told is a special condition called retinitis pigmentosa. And at that time I was told, most likely you’ll lose your entire vision at 13. And at that time, I received the news when I was five or six years old.

Hoby: And how did that make you feel as a young kid, at that age? Do you remember kind of what went through your mind? Was it like, okay, I can live with this. I’m a kid and I’m resilient and all this or was it a blow? Was it like, oh no, what am I going to do?

Rey: It was very traumatic, I could tell you that. I can remember the time they were running tests where they needed to insert liquid dye to take imaging of my eyes. And that’s when, as a child, I knew it’s like, something’s going on. This is more severe than just, can you see the big E on the chart kind of thing.

Hoby: Right.

Rey: And I can remember, and I feel like I can relate to other people too now of listening to other people’s stories and interactions of learning about their RP at their ages. Like when I remember coming out of that eye doctor’s, it was traumatic. I didn’t know what was going to be next for me as a child.

Hoby: Right. Let’s fast forward just a little bit to going through school and continuing that process once you knew that you had an eye condition. How did school go and did you feel like you were well accommodated? And I think one of the things for me, I know one of the things for me that was so empowering is that my parents didn’t know anyone who was blind before I was born, barely at all. They’d seen people cross the street and they’ve maybe helped someone out who was walking up and down the sidewalk or something.

But the thought of having a blind child or having to train a blind child to be a good, hardworking adult was challenging for them. And then I was born blind and they rose to the occasion and had ultra high expectations. But how did you, sort of from a school and a family perspective, how did it go as you progressively lost some of your eyesight?

Rey: So for me, the biggest thing as a child you think of is like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do anything now knowing this.” And I always consider myself lucky and blessed for all the opportunities that have come my way. I don’t take it lightly.

The school district that I was in, it was very accommodating. They provided me with an orientational mobility instructor right away. There was a teacher for the visually impaired that would come visit me at my home school at the time. They allowed me to go through my third, fourth year of schooling at my home school because that was my thing, I didn’t want to leave my home school to go to another school that had integrated programs for individuals that are blind and visually impaired. I was like, I want to stay here with my friends.

Hoby: Stay with your friends, yeah.

Rey: Yeah.

Hoby: And when you say home school, you mean the school close to your home?

Rey: Yes, yes.

Hoby: Got it.

Rey: In my local neighborhood there was a school. And so what they did to accommodate me is they provided that teacher for the visually impaired. They would come in on either twice a week or a weekly basis to provide me with my large print accommodations. They taught me right away Braille on a Perkins Brailler. I love it so much. I still use it.

Hoby: I love it too. Oh, I got my 1950 machine right here on my desk.

Rey: There you go, yes. So I felt like, again, at the time now looking back at it, I had a really good support system. My parents, again, didn’t know anything about blindness either. And I explained, my mother, she worked her way into receiving a work visa and being able to work here in the States. So she represented hard work and being able to not allow things to knock you down. My dad, I always call him my dad, he’s my stepdad in a sense, but he’s the one that raised me.

Hoby: Your dad, yeah.

Rey: Yeah, so he’s my dad. And he didn’t allow any type of excuses and he always encouraged me. So again, my support system was always there. Eventually, I understood the purpose of moving myself to a different school because the services would be able to be more available to me on a day-to-day basis versus a week-to-week.

Hoby: Sure.

Rey: So I ended up moving to a different school site and making some new friends. It still integrated with the general population, so it wasn’t just a blind school. But I was able to be introduced to other individuals that had visual impairments or blindness. And I can remember my first teacher when I moved into this new school, she was very understanding of my condition and worked so much with me.

Hoby: Part of our success is finding those people, whether they’re super familiar with blindness or not, who are accommodating, who say, “Hey, you know, your blindness…”  One person said to me, “Look, my blindness to my spouse is just like me having brown eyes, like it’s no big deal.” And to me, that’s the sort of thing that just sets it apart and makes it so that we know that we can do whatever it is we want when people are understanding and they don’t treat us like different or second-class people, right?

Rey: Exactly. Exactly.

Hoby: Let’s take a minute to talk a little bit about one of the things that I loved reading your bio that all of our listeners are going to get to read, of course, as well, is your deep connection with the Valley Center for the Blind in Fresno, where you work currently. But before we talk about what you do for the Valley Center, how did the Valley Center impact you as an individual? It sounds like maybe you went there as a client before becoming employed there.

Rey: So, yes, the story about the way I found Valley Center for the Blind, I love it. I didn’t know that I knew about the Valley Center for the Blind until I came as a client. There was, and there still is an instructor there that is a mentor to me, a role model to me. He’s been with the organization for a very long time and he’s a staple to this community. His name is Tom Randall. And I say this because in middle school, there was a summer program offered to individuals with visual impairments to work readiness, you know, help them prepare for time after high school.

And one of those programs that they had was assistive technology training. And this program was taught at a local vendor store. Unfortunately, the individual has passed away, but I can still remember going to this business. And Tom would meet me there and he would teach me about JAWS and SuperNova, if people know that, remember that program.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Rey: He would teach me everything, Window-Eyes.

Hoby: Tell us what SuperNova is. JAWS, by the way, is a screen reader.

Rey: So, with retinitis pigmentosa, I still had some very usable vision when I was younger. So, as I age, the condition is more effective as I age. But SuperNova is similar, it’s like ZoomText and JAWS combined. It was, at the time, what we know as Fusion now, in a sense. So, ZoomText Fusion.

Hoby: Okay, so, it basically reads aloud what’s on the screen and also displays what you can read and print.

Rey: Exactly. So, my biggest thing is it’s like I’m just learning about all this new wonderful technology through Tom, which I found out later, as I got older, he was a volunteer at Valley Center for the Blind. And he was doing this work to help the clients at Valley Center for the Blind. I didn’t understand that at my younger age. But when I got older, finished high school, I entered college, community college. I studied IT and computing. And my vision started to be affected tremendously more in college versus my K-12 years.

Hoby: And that’s a hard time to lose significant vision.

Rey: Definitely. And I won’t lie, it was a hard time for me. I’m pretty sure a lot of our listeners out there can relate. It’s like at high school, sometimes using a cane was a challenge or something that you weren’t favored to do. With retinitis pigmentosa I had the mobility training, but when I didn’t need to use my cane or I didn’t feel like I needed to use a cane, I didn’t use it because it was, at the time, it identified me as someone with a disability and I didn’t want that. What I’m finding out, and we all find out later, it’s a symbol of independence.

I say that because in college I was walking around in these buildings and lighting is very important for someone with retinitis pigmentosa. So I can remember running into people in college and just struggling. And my education was being affected. The grades, I was not getting the grades that I should have been getting. Yeah, it was a challenge. So we call it here in California, the Department of Rehabilitation Counselor, or other states call it Vocational Rehab Counselor, suggested that I get an assessment, go visit Valley Center for the Blind and see what they could do for me.

Hoby: And meanwhile you had already been working with Tom in high school.

Rey: Yeah, so I worked with Tom. At the time he went back to working with Valley Center for the Blind, I continued to do my work in school and tried just to graduate.

Hoby: Yeah.

Rey: But being suggested and getting an assessment through Valley Center for the Blind, I ran back into Tom.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Rey: I was like, “Oh, Tom, how’s it been?” He’s like, “Yeah, I remember you as a little lad.” And he’s like, “What can I do for you?” And I was like, “I’m just struggling.” And he’s like, “We got you. We got you.” And he took me in, and everyone at Valley Center for the Blind took me in and pumped me back up to where I needed to be so I could continue my journey as someone with visual impairment and trying to do something with my life.

Hoby: I love that. So they, of course, gave you the emotional support, but also deeper assistive technology. What about more orientation mobility, independent living skills, that type of stuff?

Rey: Oh, definitely. Orientation mobility, getting my cane skills up and running more efficiently, independent living. Cooking, that’s something that I was like, oh my gosh, I’m able to cook now. I tell people now, I’m actually barbecuing. Someone that’s blind that’s barbecuing, that’s always a very cool thing to watch, I’ll say it that way.

Hoby: Careful what you tell me, I live just up the road in Northern California. I might be coming down for a burger or something.

Rey: Well, yeah, definitely welcome.

Hoby: Well thank you.

Rey: So it was something with Valley Center for the Blind, they were always willing to support the individual, which was me at this time, and continue to support our clients through whatever their journey is. Even if they’re down for the time being, they’ll help you get back on your feet and get you through wherever you need to go at the time in your life. And I feel like that is still our mission here.

Hoby: So important. I love learning about so many agencies just like Valley Center for the Blind that help people live the lives that they know they can live. Or maybe they don’t know they can live, and someone like Valley Center comes in or someone like Tom did for you and says, we got you. This is okay. You might be losing vision, you might be totally blind, you might be new to blindness. But the essence of it is that’s okay.

Rey: And with that, Tom, again, continues to be that support for me, even here where I’m at in my age now and with the organization. He was the one that suggested, “Hey, Rey, we have an opening for an assistive technology instructor.”

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Rey: “You want to put your name in the hat? Because I feel like you can do this.” And at the time, I was like, “I don’t know yet, Tom. I really want to focus on my studies or see where I’m going.” But he was like, “Okay, that’s fine. No pressure.” But I always had that thought in the back of my head. It’s like assistive technology instructor was a new term to me, I didn’t think about it. Tom taught it. He was the one that taught me in middle school. And he’s teaching it here right now in college. But my whole mindset was IT, general IT work, networking. I got a Cisco certification.

But then it got me thinking. It’s like, “You know what? I love what Tom is doing. I love what Valley Center for the Blind is doing. Maybe I can consider this as an opportunity for me.”

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Rey: And just the way things lined up is I graduated through my courses at Valley Center for the Blind and I wanted to give back. And I got an opportunity, and I continue to listen to the podcast that you are producing here, Hoby. And people say the same thing, volunteer.

Hoby: Amen.

Rey: Volunteer is the way to open those doors. And it is very true because that’s what I did. I said, “Hey, is there anything I can do to give back to this organization?” And they said, “You know what, Rey? Let’s give it a shot.” I tell our receptionist now, it’s like I have a small part in my heart for the receptionist, front desk receptionist because that’s where I started at the agency.

Hoby: I love it. I love it.

Rey: Every Friday, I would come after school, I would go and help answer the phones, help clients, tell them about the organization and show them where they could go or what’s possible. And I worked my way from that –

Hoby: You helped them navigate that transition to blindness.

Rey: Yes. Yes, because I wanted to show them that it is possible to do something. You are capable of living that American dream, because my parents taught me that. Both my parents are working class American individuals.

Hoby: Sure.

Rey: And yes, I am visually impaired, but they never let that stop me. And I tell that to clients now, it’s like your blindness is just an inconvenience. It’s not a barrier to success and independence.

Hoby: I love that. This is just so important. And everyone who’s heard this show has heard me say this before. But what a brilliant way, Rey, to get into the workforce. To say, “I’m not asking you to pay me right now, I just want to show you what I’m made of, what I’m capable of.” And then when people see that, when people see our tenacity and they see your desire and ganas, if you will, in Spanish, and push to take that first step and be that person, that’s who they want.

Rey: Right, right.

Hoby: And I think blind or sighted doesn’t really matter, people want someone who’s motivated. And I think in many ways, and I want to hear what you think of this, those of us who are blind or visually impaired are actually better employees because we’re so motivated. If we’ve taken the extra mile, gone the extra mile to learn the skills that we’ve learned and be successful, and if we want to work, chances are we’re going to be even harder working than our sighted counterparts because we get what it takes.

Rey: Oh, definitely. I 100% agree, 110% agree to that. Part of my job is to help bring more opportunities to our community. And that’s one of our selling points to people that are interested in hearing about us. It’s like we have a very low turnaround at the agency, we have a high retention. People want to work here. They want to work.

Hoby: They come and they stay.

Rey: Yeah, they come and stay and they work their way up the ladder and become these wonderful leaders that I get to say that I work alongside with. And even if they are not working at our organization, they’re working at, you know, I have individuals that are working directly at the counties, working as a paralegal. You’re getting very motivated individuals and hard workers when it comes to the blind and visually impaired community.

Hoby: Rey, tell me what you do. What is your role with Valley Center currently? I know you started as a receptionist volunteering, but what is your current employment there?

Rey: I’m the Director of Workforce Development. So I oversee all of the current contracts that we have, making sure that we’re performing and looking at other ways of bringing opportunities to the organization to be able to employ individuals that are blind and visually impaired. And so going out there, I always say turning every stone and at least saying, can you hear us out a little bit? Let’s just see if this is even viable. And I’ve been doing this for about three years now as the director.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Rey: And I’ve been able to at least say I’ve stood up about eight programs. At the agency originally, when I first started as a volunteer receptionist, there was about eight staff members. I am proud to say that we are at 55 staff members now.

Hoby: 55 employees.

Rey: 55 employees. I know there’s a lot of organizations out there that are larger and I –

Hoby: Oh, come on, that’s huge.

Rey: I thrive to be those organizations. Our agencies want to get there. We’ll get there. We promise.

Hoby: You will. You will, I’ve got faith.

Rey: Additionally, what I’m proud about our organization that I get to help along with is that of 55 staff employees here, 80% of those are blind and visually impaired.

Hoby: That’s amazing.

Rey: That is something that I am very proud to work at an organization that has that, where the environment is we are all on the same playing field. We all know the struggles. We are able to understand each other and be able to support one another. Our organization is a training center too. So like I said, Tom, he is my AT instructor. He’s still our AT instructor here. He’s been blind since birth.

Hoby: I love that.

Rey: So when somebody comes into our organization and says, I don’t know if I could do this, Tom says –

Hoby: There’s a role model.

Rey: And that’s our organization, we have role models everywhere. On our employment side of it, customer service is our thing that we’re really good at right at this moment, and we want to continue to grow. We have agents that are totally blind, entering the information for the health departments, taking calls and helping customers with ordering products and whatnot. That 80% is important because what we hear is that the average of individuals that are blind or visually impaired that are unemployed is 70%.

Hoby: 70%.

Rey: To me, it empowers me to make change to that percentage.

Hoby: Yes. And what I’m understanding is that Valley Center doesn’t only perform training for blind folks, like the training that you received. You guys also, like many of the other agencies, offer jobs to blind folks.

Rey: Yes sir.

Hoby: And what are some of the contracts that you guys have? It sounds like mostly customer service and call center work.

Rey: I got to be a little careful on some of the confidentiality on some of the contracts.

Hoby: Oh, for sure. I’m not asking you to say names.

Rey: But some of the contracts, we do work with the federal government.

Hoby: Great.

Rey: And taking information and providing it to the government that somebody needs to report something that’s going on. So we handle those types of call centers. We have individuals that are Fresno County operators that if you call in and you don’t know exactly what department you need to get a hold of, you can ask them and they’ll transfer you to the correct department. We have individuals doing that. We have people on our team that are helping out with the 508 compliance, making sure that websites and documents are accessible.

Hoby: That’s so important.

Rey: That is very important. And we have call center representatives that are helping with purchases of basic office supplies, papers.

Hoby: Things that are needed every day for people to do their job.

Rey: Exactly.

Hoby: And is your role more – I’m just trying to make sure that I and the listeners understand as well as possible. Is your role to build the programs that you guys offer, the contracts that you have so that you can hire more people? Or are you more in an HR capacity?

Rey: I am the one, I am there building. Helping build, helping find those leads.

Hoby: So important.

Rey: Get those leads into the door and introduce them to the capabilities. And then when they say, yes, we would like to have Valley Center for the Blind help us with our customer service or whatever the role is, or the work is, then I help establish that team.

Hoby: I love it.

Rey: That management team, the infrastructure of that contract. I help with the hiring process and making sure that we get the right individuals in the right seats. And then it goes from there. Those management teams, those individuals that we have here at the agency, they continue to do the work. And we’ve been doing it for almost four years now, the employment side of it.

Hoby: That’s awesome. Kudos to you.

Rey: No, thank you. And it’s a funny way of how we got into this, Hoby. It started during the pandemic where everyone was unemployed. Everyone was at home.

Hoby: Blind and sighted.

Rey: Blind and sighted, yes. Everyone was at home, sheltering in place. And we got an opportunity where one of our partner agencies out there, Beyond Vision, I always thank Beyond Vision for allowing us to get our feet in the door.

Hoby: They’re in Milwaukee.

Rey: Yeah, they are.

Hoby: They’re an amazing group.

Rey: They had an opportunity to help with the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program, which they needed some call center reps. And we had originally, we were just, again, we’re a training agency. We had individuals that we felt that were suitable for call center positions. So they said, “You know what? Let’s give it a shot.”

Prior to working at Valley Center for the Blind, I had done some internship for a local call center here in Fresno. And I had the IT background. So they said, hey, Rey, you want to stand up a call center? And I was like, sure, why not?

Hoby: That’s incredible.

Rey: So we did, we started off with five agents. We grew that contract up to 15 employees. And that was our first contract. And then that’s where it started coming. The county started reaching out with, “Hey, we need some contact tracers to help make sure that we’re seeing where Covid cases are and how to help support the community.” So we did that.

We had another opportunity to work with a wonderful agency, Goodwill of the Finger Lakes as well in Rochester, New York. Helped them with some customer service work as well. And the list can continue. But my point is that we wouldn’t be here without opportunities from other organizations and support. And we’re not stopping, this is just the beginning.

Hoby: Rey, there are two things that you’ve said in the past little bit that have just totally tickled me, and I’ll tell you what they are. The first one is that you personally can rest assured that you are lowering, with the work that you do—with your own two hands and your wonderful mind—you are lowering the unemployment rate because you’re hiring blind people. That’s amazing. So first of all, my hat is off to you for that. I think it’s absolutely incredible.

And the second thing is sort of a metaphor that we like to talk about on Heard &Empowered, which is that if you’re lost or if you have a family member who’s lost, just start with the first step. Because once you take that first step into the unknown, everything falls into place and it’s just infectious. It’s so much fun to work or to get training or to do whatever you do.

Your first step was them saying, “Rey, do you want to put up a call center?” And you saying “Sure,” and getting those first five agents. And now how many do you have? You have 55 employees. You’ve got to start somewhere. And you did.

Rey: Exactly. And again, like I said, I appreciate that, Hoby. And I don’t take any of my opportunities lightly. I always thank the individuals that have helped me and our organization get to where we are. And the same thing when, again, I was an assistive technology instructor before I became the director of workforce development. I tell the clients, I appreciate you taking the effort to walk through those doors. I’m going to help carry you from here and support you to reach your goal of independence, whatever that looks like.

Hoby: And eventually, if they so desire, employment.

Rey: Exactly.

Hoby: And this is the thing about every agency that NIB serves, is that it’s an environment where people want us to thrive as blind and visually impaired people. The number of times when you or I or any of the thousands of people that we know who are blind or visually impaired as well, run into that brick wall where someone says, “We don’t want to hire you. The risk, the liability is too high.” Whatever the case may be, folks like what you’re doing at Valley Center, folks like Valley Center, folks like these agencies all across the country should hang billboards out in front of their building saying, “If you’re blind, we want you.”

Rey, I love what you’re working on. And unfortunately, our time is fairly short here, but I have a couple more questions for you. And the first one that I would love to hear your opinion on is, what do you think the most important thing is for folks who don’t know what’s possible and don’t know if they can really get out there and succeed? What should they do?

Rey: What I believe, you know, someone that doesn’t know is to help or educate yourself a little bit. Go and see or find someone and just ask the questions. Because if you don’t ask the questions, you’re not going to learn. You’re just going to have your own questions and your own hand and not have the facts. So just give it a shot.

Look for your local agency or just see if there’s someone that is in your situation because more than not, there’s someone out there. You’re not alone. Like I said originally, I thought I was the only one with RP. I can laugh at myself now because the amount of people that I know that have retinitis pigmentosa, you know, the list can go on. But for me, I just say just give it a shot. Ask the questions.

Hoby: Ask some questions.

Rey: Put yourself out there.

Hoby: Yeah.

Rey: Because when you do that, I promise you there’s something good that’s going to come out of it.

Hoby: Wow. What’s your favorite part about living your independent life, your American dream? What do you love about it? Just organically.

Rey: My life right now is my family that I’m building here. I have two amazing children and I have an amazing wife that supports me. She is fully sighted, but she understands what it is to live the life as someone that’s visually impaired because I know we’re short on time, but my wife is my high school sweetheart. We met in high school. I promise you, and she can vouch for this, one day she says, “Rey, I want to know what it’s like to be blind all day. And she went under a blindfold all day in high school.”

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Rey: I helped her get around school and got her to classes. She even braved, and I had some friends help us out, she braved crossing the street one day under a blindfold.

Hoby: Oh my gosh. That is an amazing person. And talk about someone who’s dedicated to us and our community.

Rey: She is my support. I think she coined this: “You’re blind, but you’re not broken.” She coined that motto. She told me, “Rey, you’re blind, but you’re not broken”.

Hoby: Amen to that.

Rey: Your question, I apologize. Your question is I do this work at Valley Center for the Blind. I don’t even consider it work. It’s my mission, my goal, what I give.

Hoby: That’s the best kind of work, is the stuff that doesn’t feel like work.

Rey: Yeah. What Valley Center for the Blind is doing and the work that we’re doing has allowed me to live that American dream. I have my house, a wonderful wife, and two amazing children.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Rey: And we’re just starting with our life. There’s a lot more. My kids are in preschool, so I have a whole – And I know there’s parents out there that are saying, “Oh, you got 18 more years just ahead of you, 18 plus.”

Hoby: Right.

Rey: So I’m excited to see where my life takes me with my family and the work that I’m doing with the agency.

Hoby: Well, and you’re where you are because of the amazing community and amazing people around you. And I say the same thing about my partner. They’re just so understanding and so appreciative of what I can do and do not focus on what I can’t do. And those partners, those parents, and the amazing mentorship that we receive from agencies like Valley Center is what helps us live our best lives and live lives that we only could have dreamed of years ago.

Rey, people are going to be so inspired by what you had to say today. I just love it. Do you mind if I put your contact info, your email address in the show notes?

Rey: Oh, no, of course. Like I said, I am always here to help anyone that needs support or anything. It doesn’t matter what the question is or what the issue is, I’m always willing to support and help.

Hoby: Well, I can’t wait to get a lot more people in touch with you. And you are a guide and a mentor and a builder for so many of us, Rey. Thank you so much for your time today.

Rey: Thank you.

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