For people with spinal cord injuries, finding and maintaining employment is a 
real challenge, as it is for most people with disabilities. Today, more than two 
thirds of people with disabilities are unemployed and more than half of those 
want to find a job. They're actively seeking employment. More and more, however, 
we're becoming successful in our quest for work. For people with spinal cord 
injuries, in fact, there are probably three main classes of barriers that 
challenge us in our search for gainful employment. The first of those is 
psychological. They lie within us. 

It's our own desire to work that can overcome the psychological barriers we 
face. It's our own motivation for employment that will help us to get past some 
of the questions that we have, and self doubts that we may have as a result of 
our experience with disabilities. Attitudinal barriers are another class of 
barriers that we have to overcome. Discrimination is real, and many employers 
actually did practice discrimination in the past. But since the Americans with 
Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, most employers are sensitive to the issues 
of discrimination on the basis of disability, and most employers try as they 
might not to discriminate. 

In fact, more and more people with disabilities are being employed since the ADA 
as a result of the nondiscrimination provisions in that law. So I think that the 
issues associated with attitudinal barriers, as a result of the ADA and other 
awareness raising that's occurred will dissolve over time. The third class of 
barriers are physical barriers, and those are environmental, to a large extent. 
They involve difficulties finding transportation, personal assistance, adapted 
workplaces, and so on. These barriers can be dealt with, and our society is 
dealing with them. 

More and more transportation systems are accessible but people with physical 
impairments still have difficulty finding transportation to and from work as 
they need it. Personal assistance barriers are common to many people, 
particularly those with spinal cord injuries, who need assistance at home 
dressing and undressing, and sometimes on the job. Again, these are issues that 
confront us that will be dealt with in the future but we have to find solutions 
to those problems today. I think that for people with spinal cord injuries, the 
future is a good one. Because of innovations in technology and because of the 
expanding workplace in the technological fields, which are primary primarily 
sedentary, people with spinal cord injuries have more and more opportunities. 

The key to finding and maintaining employment is having a good education, and 
for those people with spinal cord injuries who have the opportunity to go to 
school, to improve their education, I think that's the first thing that we have 
to do to improve our workforce opportunities, and I think that counselors ought 
to encourage and family members ought to encourage people with spinal cord 
injuries to expand their education and to improve their educational resumes. I 
think that workforce experience is important as well, and I think internships, 
voluntary work experiences, summer jobs, and so on, help to build a resume and 
help to prove to employers that people with spinal cord injuries who are looking 
for work can actually maintain the job and won't have their health conditions 
interfere with their ability to work and be successful employees. 

I think that in addition to the opportunities and education and the 
opportunities in terms of practice employment, I think that just getting on the 
job and proving one's acumen, proving one's ability, proving one's desire to 
work, and motivation is the most important thing. And most employers will 
recognize that motivation and desire and do what they can to keep people with 
spinal cord injuries in the workplace working hard. Many employers make great 
accommodations for people with disabilities, including those of us with spinal 
cord injuries.  I've been happily employed for 30 years, and thank goodness I 
have a job that I love to do. I like to get up to work and go every day, and to 
engage with my colleagues in productive activities. 

I think that my employer has been very supportive during this time, and I 
appreciate that. But I think it's becoming more and more common in the 
workplace, and I encourage people with spinal cord injuries to be assertive, to 
practice their skills, to actually go out and expand their quality of life by, 
in many respects, expanding their income and their productivity. I think family 
members need to support that. I think counselors need to support it. I think our 
public policymakers need to support employment by people with disabilities and 
spinal cord injuries by assuring that the ADA is followed and by expanding 
opportunities to improve the work environment for people with disabilities. 

Thank you all for watching. Good luck in the future.