Hiring the Blind To Make Aerospace Parts? This Machine Shop is Doing Just That
It’s giving those with disabilities a new lease on life and independence.
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LearningTranscript
00:00Losing your vision changes the way you might interact with the world forever, and losing
00:08another sense, like hearing, makes everyday activities even harder.
00:11But at a more than 100-year-old machining shop just outside Seattle, one man who has
00:15lost both his eyesight and his hearing is not letting adversity stop him from working.
00:20This is 59-year-old John Romesh.
00:22He's been working at the lighthouse for the blind for 25 years, doing heavy-duty machining.
00:27So what is he making?
00:28Well, everything from bespoke items to canteens to aerospace equipment.
00:32Romesh says that as his vision degraded, he was fired from his other jobs, finally finding
00:36lighthouse, and he's been there ever since.
00:38Pat O'Hara, the company's COO, says they employ the highest number of legally blind people
00:42west of the Mississippi, which is good news, as he also says that some 70% of blind, blind
00:48and deaf, and blind people with other disabilities remain unemployed.
00:51It's given them an opportunity to hold their head high and do something that, you know,
00:56not everybody would expect you to be able to do as a blind person, manufacturing airplane parts.