[music]
Sheryl: My name is Sheryl Burgstahler
and I'm the director of Accessible Technology Services
here at the University of Washington.
And part of my role is to direct the DO-IT Center
where DO-IT stands for Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking and Technology.
The first program we funded started in 1992.
It's called the DO-IT Scholars program.
The DO-IT Scholars program is where
we work with teens with disabilities,
get them ready for college and careers.
Randy was in our first group of DO-IT Scholars and
now he's an adult and moved on,
but he's still engaged in the program.
He's still giving back to the DO-IT Scholars program by mentoring younger people,
but also sharing with the world how to make this place a more accessible place.
Randy: I'm Randy Hammer.
I was one of the first DO-IT Scholars.
I started with DO-IT in 1993.
We were one of the first summer programs.
I believe there were 16 of us that came to the University of Washington.
We spent two weeks on campus living in the dorms
and experiencing different types of science, technology, engineering.
All of us had disabilities.
I, for example, am completely blind.
Both of my eyes are prosthetics.
Other folks that were in the group,
we had some that were hearing impaired.
We had some with mobility impairments.
A very good friend of mine had, has cerebral palsy.
I specifically remember one of the the Saturday night that we were up here
and we all sat in the common room of the dorm.
We had TV going. We were all just being kids,
all being teens and we were existing with each other
in the way that all teens normally do.
And it was so, looking back at it now,
very special, even though at the time
it was, it was just, you know, another night.
But thinking about the context of that night now with my perspective is,
it's actually a very special memory. I'm glad I brought that up.
Randy: Through DO-IT, I found an internship at Weyerhaeuser.
Weyerhaeuser is a forestry company.
And through that internship I got on with their IT department.
I had already started to think about computers as my eventual career
and so this kind of meshed very well for me.
And I worked through that internship
and not only came out of that internship with a permanent position at Weyerhaeuser
but ultimately became a senior member of the team that I was on,
was promoted multiple times.
And it was all due to the fact that I got my foot in the door
and DO-IT got that for me.
The mentorship that I had early on from DO-IT
was sufficient to show me how to actually mentor people
and that has specifically influenced my career because I manage people now,
but it also has allowed me to be a functional mentor
for existing or new DO-IT Scholars,
the ones that are coming into the program now.
The only way to become a leader
is to observe other leaders in the field.
And sometimes those leaders are successful
and you learn from how they do it successfully.
Being a leader is so key to what I do today
that I, it's difficult for me to break that down
but if I go back in my own history
and think about the things that I have done in my life,
all of that rolls back to the idea
of how do I take the people that are around me and
through my own actions make them better.
And that really is the idea of mentorship.
And that's what DO-IT does.
Sheryl: We started the DO-IT program
with funding from the National Science Foundation.
And now it s grown to a collection of activities
that are sponsored by many groups including the National Science Foundation,
the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Labor,
the State of Washington, Microsoft, Boeing, many other funders.
All of our projects are centered around increasing the success
of people with disabilities in college and careers using technology as an empowering tool.