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About

Our mission

Creating and delivering one-of-a-kind training experiences for businesses, organizations, governments and people with disabilities focused on promoting employment and disability inclusion.   

Our master trainers, motivational speakers, and disability employment experts offer opportunities to practice power-packed life skills such as:  

* Projecting a positive personal image  * Successful networking  * Communication skills  * Informational interviewing  * Business etiquette  * Volunteerism  * Community engagement 

Our Team
Founder & President 

Eileen Rivera Ley 

An innovative leader in the disability inclusion space, Eileen has she led the national advocacy efforts for the National Federation of the Blind’s Diabetes Action Network and served as the Founding Administrator for the John Hopkins Vision Research and Rehabilitation Center of the Wilmer Eye Institute.   

Legally blind since birth, Ms. Ley earned a BA in Economics from Harvard College, and an MBA in Healthcare from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. In 2021, she was featured as International Woman of the Year by the Maryland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Blind Savvy USA was selected as one of Maryland’s Top 100 minority business enterprises in 2013 and Ms. Ley was honored as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women in 2011. She serves as a board member of the Maryland State Boychoir; a member of Employment Committee of the National Federation of the Blind; and as a Trustee of the Friends of Maryland Library for the Blind and Print Disabled. She resides in Baltimore MD. 

Trainers & Partners

David DeNotaris, MA

David DeNotaris, MA , An inspirational speaker, author, trainer, and executive coach, for over 25 years, David has empowered individuals and organizations to transform obstacles into opportunities. David delivers captivating and uplifting messages for teams and audiences of all sizes. David is also the author of Feeling Your Way through Life. He creates customized workshops and trainings for government agencies, colleges and universities, community-based organizations, and Fortune 500 Companies nationally.   

Legally blind since birth, David is a nationally recognized expert in vocational rehabilitation for people with disabilities. He earned his MA in Educational Leadership and Administration and his undergraduate degree from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. He is an elected school board director of the Lower Dauphin County School board since 2019. David has had leadership roles in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Most recently, serving as Executive Director of the PA Office of Vocational Rehabilitation. 

Dr. Rob Gilbert is one of the world’s leading authorities on sport psychology and peak performance. As a professor at Montclair State University, he has spent the last 40 years researching the mental strategies used by the world’s top athletes, business leaders, sales  people and students.  

For seven years, Dr. Gilbert edited “Bits & Pieces,” the world’s most popular motivational magazine. Dr. Gilbert’s Success Hotline has given daily motivational messages to millions of  callers since 1992.  

Dr. Gilbert has appeared on hundreds of radio and television talks shows and he has  given speeches to companies like IBM, I.T.T., Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Wireless,  Madison Square Garden and Nabisco. Among the academic institutions he has spoken at  are the United States Military Academy, UMass Amherst, University of Wisconsin, and Brown University.  

Dr. Gilbert personally coaches athletes, performers, executives and sales people. These  one-on-one sessions conducted by phone have produced dramatic performance shifts. His four most recent books are, “How to Have Fun without Failing Out” about college success, “Good to Great Golf” on the psychology of winning golf, “105 Great Stories” and “Thank God You’re Lazy.”  

Want to hear Dr. Gilbert motivate you right now? Just call Success Hotline at (973) 743-4690. 

Dr. Rob Gilbert, PhD

JP Williams

JP Williams is an accomplished singer, workshop leader, LifeCoach, and public speaker based in Nashville, Tennessee. Blindsince age 10, he brings a unique, seasoned perspective to everyopportunity. He has an innate gift for connecting with audiencesthrough humorand music to share wisdom and inspiration.JP isa co-writer on the three-week no. 1 hit single “Best Shot”—the song that launched the career of country music artist JimmieAllen.He’s performed on the Grand Ole Opry (a stunning soloacoustic performanceco-written with Bobby Tomberlin), as well ascountless other notable stages throughout his career in the music industry.He writes under hisown publishing company, Blonde Leading Blind Music. Previously, he was signed as a staffwriter with Major Bob Music from 2011 to 2018.To keep up with JP, follow @blindmangram on Instagram or visit jpwilliams.net.

 

J.J. Meddaugh is the owner of A. T. Guys, a technology sales, training, and consultancy company based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Since 2008, A T Guys has developed and distributed products and services to benefit people who are blind and visually impaired, and has partnered with numerous companies including Fortune 500 businesses on accessibility and usability projects. 
J.J. is an advanced Android user and has participated in a variety of trainings, seminars, and events over the past decade. He has provided his expertise to assist developers in making their apps accessible and has participated on a variety of Android-based projects. He has twice attended Google’s developer conference in California. He is also a certified NVDA Expert. 
He cohosts the Blind Bargains Qast, a podcast focused on access technology and lifestyle topics, and formerly was a cohost of That Android Show, a podcast focusing on Android apps and news. Other interests include tactile graphics, audio production, and goalball. A graduate of Western Michigan University, he enjoys playing the keyboard, travel, and trying new cuisines.  

 

 

J.J. Meddaugh

Matt Vollbrecht

Matt Vollbrecht “would be totally blind by the age of three and would eventually need prosthetic eyes.”  This diagnosis, rather than defining him, inspired him to unleash his true potential. Matt was discovered to have an incredible interest and tremendous natural talent for singing and playing the piano. Having “absolute perfect pitch” Matthew began studying piano at age 4 and voice at age 6.  Matt studied classical vocal training at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University. He has performed for and shared the stage with many well-known musicians, actors, dignitaries, and political figures. He has received many awards such as: at the age of 10, he became the youngest recipient of the VSA Arts National Young Soloist Award, the youngest in history to win that award. He went on to represent VSA Arts in several performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as well as at the VSA Arts International Festival in Brussels, Belgium. His life experiences and the many opportunities afforded him have helped him to gain a unique understanding of diversity, human emotions, and problem solving.  

Through his own creativity and unique ability, Matthew combined spoken messages with musical performance. Matt officially began motivational speaking in 2006. Matt shares many of his life experiences in his first book entitled “Blind Faith”. In 2012,  released his second book entitled, “Titanic – the Most Complete Story Ever Told”. 

Sandy Jones, M.S. Ed., is a Professor Emeritus from CCBC (Community College of Baltimore County), Baltimore, MD, where she taught a special needs population in the Developmental Education department. Sandy has a strong belief that each student has the right to college and she has served for 25 years to provide the kind of support that will help every student be successful in college. In many different ways she has dedicated her career to serve special needs students. Sandy taught various offerings of English and Reading, closely working with Disability Support Services. She tutored students with special learning needs in the Tutorial Center throughout her career. Sandy has presented at numerous educational conferences, including: MACRA (Mid Atlantic College Reading Association), Board President; DEAM (Developmental Education Association of Maryland) Board member, and Project Access at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). Sandy traveled with representatives of CCBC to the United Kingdom to explore common interests in special needs education at Rotherham College of Arts and Technology. Recently, Sandy has enjoyed working as an independent contractor for Blind Savvy USA in developing curriculum and facilitating workshops for blind and low vision transition-age students. 

Sandy Jones

Team Members

Iris Anderson

Communications Mgr

Sandy Jones

Curriculum Designer

Maria Harris

Curriculum Development

Sarah Ellis

Program Assistant

Janet Johnson

Accounting

Iris Anderson

Communications Mgr

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Sandy Jones

Curriculum Designer

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Maria Harris

Logistics

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Sarah Ellis

Program Assistant

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Janet Johnson

Accounting

Contact

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Privacy Policy

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We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or enter, submit, or access your personal information. We offer the use of a secure server. All supplied sensitive/credit information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into our Payment gateway providers database only to be accessible by those authorized with special access rights to such systems, and are required to?keep the information confidential. After a transaction, your private information (credit cards, social security numbers, financials, etc.) will not be kept on file for more than 60 days.

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We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Registration

The minimum information we need to register you is your name, email address and a password. We will ask you more questions for different services, including sales promotions. Unless we say otherwise, you have to answer all the registration questions. We may also ask some other, voluntary questions during registration for certain services (for example, professional networks) so we can gain a clearer understanding of who you are. This also allows us to personalise services for you. To assist us in our marketing, in addition to the data that you provide to us if you register, we may also obtain data from trusted third parties to help us understand what you might be interested in. This ‘profiling’ information is produced from a variety of sources, including publicly available data (such as the electoral roll) or from sources such as surveys and polls where you have given your permission for your data to be shared. You can choose not to have such data shared with the Guardian from these sources by logging into your account and changing the settings in the privacy section. After you have registered, and with your permission, we may send you emails we think may interest you. Newsletters may be personalised based on what you have been reading on theguardian.com. At any time you can decide not to receive these emails and will be able to ‘unsubscribe’. Logging in using social networking credentials If you log-in to our sites using a Facebook log-in, you are granting permission to Facebook to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth and location which will then be used to form a Guardian identity. You can also use your picture from Facebook as part of your profile. This will also allow us and Facebook to share your, networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Facebook account settings. If you remove the Guardian app from your Facebook settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a Google log-in, you grant permission to Google to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth, sex and location which we will then use to form a Guardian identity. You may use your picture from Google as part of your profile. This also allows us to share your networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Google account settings. If you remove the Guardian from your Google settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a twitter log-in, we receive your avatar (the small picture that appears next to your tweets) and twitter username.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.

Updating your personal information

We offer a ‘My details’ page (also known as Dashboard), where you can update your personal information at any time, and change your marketing preferences. You can get to this page from most pages on the site – simply click on the ‘My details’ link at the top of the screen when you are signed in.

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This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to information collected offline.

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Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.
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