Able willing

Cover Story
Able
and
willing
Brett Carmody, an employee
at Tesla Motors in Palo Alto,
prepares to drive a new car
into the garage for detailing. At
bottom: Software company SAP
has an initiative to hire people
with autism such as Joe Cintas,
a quality specialist.
Employees with disabilities are slowly gaining greater entry
into Silicon Valley companies, but still have far to go
by Sue Dremann | photos by Veronica Weber
Twenty-five years after the
federal enactment of the
Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA), the law that was
created to end discrimination
against people with disabilities
has failed to produce more employment,
according to a U.S.
Department of Labor Statistics
report.
In 1989, the year before the ADA
went into effect, a Harris poll found
that only 29 percent of persons 18
to 64 years old who had disabilities
worked full or part time compared
with 79 percent of working-age
people without disabilities.
But 25 years later, a dismal 17.1
percent of persons with a disability
who want to work were employed
in 2014, compared with 64.6 percent
for persons without a disability,
according to the June 16 Department
of Labor report. The majority
of jobs for persons with a disability
are also still low paying, the report
noted. And persons with a disability
were nearly twice as liking as
their non-disabled counterparts to
be working only part time.
But despite the discouraging statistics,
some Palo Alto companies
are making strides in hiring people
with disabilities, with the help of
Palo Alto area nonprofits.
Software giant SAP is at the
forefront. By 2020, the company
plans to hire people with an autism
spectrum disorder to make up one
percent of its worldwide workforce,
about 650 people. SAP has even
changed the way it interviews and
trains to accommodate people with
a disability.
Both SAP and electric-vehicle
maker Tesla Motors are using disability
advocates to guide programs
that will make the hires successful
for the employee and employer.
That partnership often includes
recruitment, company sensitivity
awareness and job coaching with
follow-ups to troubleshoot issues as
they arise.
Palo Alto-based Abilities United
is one of the agencies working with
companies to hire employees with
disabilities. The nonprofit organization
opened its Employment
Services program in 1991, shortly
after the 1990 ADA enactment.
Since then, it has placed more than
400 people in Bay Area jobs. The
clients’ salaries range from minimum
wage to more than $100,000
annually, according to Sohelia Razban,
director of adult services and
respite.
Abilities United now partners
with about 120 employers, including
Cisco, Homewood Suites, Safeway,
Stanford University and Tesla
Motors.
Brett Carmody, who has autism,
works in Tesla Motors’
auto-detailing department.
Carmody, who has worked
for the company for two years and
11 months, is an Abilities United
client. He was detailing for other
auto dealers, but he really wanted
to work for Tesla, Razban said.
His supervisor, Greg MacDonald,
said that Carmody is excellent
at preparing the new cars for
customers. He cleans the vehicles
inside and out, and then adds a
Page 22 • September 25, 2015 • Palo Alto Weekly • www.PaloAltoOnline.com
‘Everybody has
different abilities.
You’re just a big
coach on a big team
trying to figure out
each person.’
— Gary Nakasu,
services manager, Tesla Motors
large bow to the roof. When the
car is driven out to the customer,
it’s Carmody who most often finds
the appropriate keys. Because he
remembers numbers in series so
well, he can find anything in the
mound of tags and keys. It’s a job
nobody wants, and it’s one he enjoys,
MacDonald said.
“It’ll take me twice as long to do
it, and he’s right on it,” MacDonald
added.
Tall and gentle, Carmody has
an infectious sense of humor and
greets visitors with a large grin.
He loves the detailing, and he’ll
remove a speck of lint that no one
else would notice, Services Manager
Gary Nakasu said.
Sometimes his disability can
be challenging, Nakasu admitted.
Carmody has an aversion to white
cars, and it can be difficult for him
to work on them. He is also improving
his focus and practicing
techniques to calm himself from
time to time.
To help him stay motivated and
on task, the department started an
incentive program. Co-workers cut
a laminated photo of a metallicblue
Tesla sedan into three pieces.
Each day, Carmody must perform
three tasks satisfactorily to receive
a part of the car: arrive at work by
8:45 a.m.; complete his daily tasks;
and stay productive with a good
attitude.
When he receives all three
parts, he gets to put a small image
of the whole vehicle on a chart. If
Carmody has whole cars for the
entire week, he gets 15 minutes
of extra time at lunch. If he racks
up two good weeks in a row, he
gets to take a real Tesla car and a
co-worker to lunch. So far, the rewards
program is effective, Mac-
Donald said.
Before hiring Carmody, Nakasu
didn’t have any idea of what
it would take to accommodate a
person with a disability. And he
admitted, he had preconceived
ideas that proved to be wrong.
“Before meeting Brett, I thought
of people with disabilities only on
the mental disability side. I didn’t
think they would be able to communicate.
I always felt they can do
only certain tasks, and it can’t be
too complex,” he said.
It’s important to find the employee’s
specialty but not pigeonhole
the person, he said.
“If somebody’s good with numbers,
maybe you put them in the
parts department,” he said.
But with the proper training,
someone such as Carmody could
potentially become a manager,
Nakasu said. Tesla has many departments
in which a person with
a disability can work.
Over time, Nakasu has altered
how he manages Carmody, who
will take what people say very literally.
If Nakasu asked him not to
place a bottle of water on the edge
of a desk, Carmody would think
Nakasu was only referring to that
particular corner, and he would
just move it to another corner. Nakasu
learned to explain why one
wouldn’t put the bottle on a corner
where it could be knocked over
and spilled, he said.
Abilities United has supplied a
job coach, Hanh Nguyen, to help
train Carmody and troubleshoot
any issues that arise.
Nakasu said the relationship has
worked out well — so well that he
did not hesitate to take part in a
promotional video for the Abilities
United Employment Services
program.
“I plan to make Abilities United
a regular hiring source,” he
said, adding that he has been approached
by regional managers
at other Tesla service centers who
want to try out the program.
The biggest thing he has learned
while working with Carmody is
patience, he added.
To bosses who might think they
don’t have the time for an employee
who doesn’t fit the mold,
Nakasu says he has a philosophy