NewView Oklahoma offers meaningful employment and encourages others during National Disability Employment Awareness Month

Did you know that October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month? With inclusion at its core, this national initiative encourages us all to reflect on the importance of ensuring that individuals living with disabilities have access to employment and community involvement opportunities. This year’s theme for NDEAM, created by the U.S. Department of Labor, is “America’s Recovery: Powered by Inclusion.”  

It’s undeniable that the pandemic exposed inequalities on a local and global scale, which encouraged some to dive deeper into their own understanding of how we can better serve members of our community. Chamber Member NewView Oklahoma does a great job of supporting these efforts—and has since 1949. They are our state’s largest employer of blind and low-vision individuals, modeling the way for other businesses and organizations to follow suit.

“The community may know us for our state-of-the-art vision Clinic and Rehab programs, but we are also the largest employer of blind and low-vision workers in the state…and we’re hiring,” said director of marketing, Avery Oden. “With all that happens this month to direct America’s attention to the capabilities of the low-vison and blind community, October is the right time to be having this discussion.”  

Some may be surprised by the type of work blind and low-vision employees are capable of, a misconception that organizations like NewView help mitigate. NewView breaks down the barriers to employment access through providing job opportunities, training, encouragement, and independence to blind and low-vision individuals within Oklahoma and around the nation. Though the organization is based in Oklahoma, their organization is expansive, with operations and employees in California, Utah, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

Early on, NewView Oklahoma employed the blind exclusively in manufacturing. One of their original contracts was with the federal government to manufacture aircraft wheel chocks. The contract began 70 years ago, and still exists today. This contract makes NewView the sole supplier of aircraft wheel chocks for the U.S. Air Force. Over time, the contract was adjusted for additional production. Now, they also make wheel chocks for track vehicles like tanks and other large military equipment. Their facilities in Oklahoma City are full of chocks of varying sizes and stages of completion, soon ready for use in securing wheels.  

“Like any other business, we have to continue look for and develop new opportunities to refresh, develop, and modernize,” said NewView Oklahoma CEO, Lauren Branch.  “We’ve developed relationships with subject matter experts in these industries who help us navigate training, assembly and testing of products, and have supported our team to build up experts internally.”

Over the past couple of years, new opportunities have come to fruition for NewView. During the pandemic, they supplied all the personal protective equipment for the U.S. Census. They packaged gloves, masks, and sanitizer for census takers to use as they followed CDC and local public health guidelines while collecting data. What made this contract even more special? The hand sanitizer was created through a partnership with local Guthrie-based distillery, Prairie Wolf, so the work was a win for Oklahoma’s economy in multiple ways.

NewView’s work for the U.S. Forest Service has also increased due to the intensification in wildfires out west. NewView Oklahoma is the sole supplier of fire hoses to the U.S. Forest Service, whose job is to order equipment for wildland firefighters across California. NewView has manufactured over 2 million hoses, and by the end of the contract, NewView expects to manufacture four thousand miles of hoses—a welcomed addition for California crews on the ground.

Though they’ve had a contract with the Forest Service for 20 years, the contract looks different from where it began. There used to be short seasons of increased demand around drier months of the year, followed by many slower months. “There are no breaks anymore,” said Branch. “Not only the length of fire season, but also the magnitude and destruction of the fires has become more significant. We’ve seen our business increase quite a bit.”

Due to this increase in need and the Biden Administration’s enactment of the Defense Production Act to address the shortage in fire hoses there’s recently been a national spotlight on NewView Oklahoma. With that growth, they’ve added new jobs, increasing their headcount to nearly 200 employees.

NewView does not only supply jobs within manufacturing, they also have jobs for individuals in call and mail centers. Additionally, they are continuing to build out options for careers in technology and other fields. “This month, we’re launching READable, a digital accessibility service line, unique because it’s staffed by low-vision and blind employees, for low-vision and blind end-users,” said Branch.  

“READable is an exciting pivot from providing jobs in manual labor to providing jobs in technology,” said Oden.

“Increasingly we became aware that websites are not always accessible or usable,” said Jack McMahan, Chief Innovation and Accessible Technology Officer at NewView. “We have developed a way to scan websites for accessibility and usability. It’s allowed us to provide remarkably accurate services to entities in remediating their web content.”

READable provides a flat fee to conduct a readability audit for a business or organization’s website, which is the first step in creating a plan for an organization to increase their accessibility to blind or low vision folks. It’s an essential service for healthcare, education, banks, state and local government entities, and anyone else who wants to live out their commitment to inclusivity and accessibility.

A recent study by the World Blind Union suggests that people in the U.S. who are blind or low-vision are interested in building meaningful careers, and are well-educated, well-prepared, and well-suited for the workforce. NewView Oklahoma encourages companies to look at the low-vision and blind community as capable and competitive. NewView offers employment and vocational training for meaningful jobs in manufacturing, management and administration, with a starting pay well above minimum wage, and service contracts with major employers at the state and federal levels.  

NewView’s mission is to help overcome the statistic that over 70% of visually impaired Americans are unemployed. They are making great strides towards this mission and making Oklahoma proud with the impact they’ve created.

ABOUT NEWVIEW OKLAHOMA  

NewView Oklahoma, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that seeks to empower blind and low-vision individuals to achieve their maximum potential through rehabilitation, employment, and community outreach. We seek to accomplish this mission through our two comprehensive low vision centers, which provide one-of-a-kind vision rehabilitation services for individuals living with blindness and vision loss. The clinics offer assessments and low vision solutions and devices to people with impaired vision that cannot be corrected with glasses, surgery, or medication. Through low vision rehabilitation, NewView works to keep children in school, adults at work, and senior citizens living independently in their homes. 

NewView Oklahoma is the state's leading employer of individuals who are blind and visually impaired, providing nearly 150 jobs through in-house manufacturing positions, administrative, management, rehabilitation professionals, and a growing number of service contracts. We also offer community programs for people of all ages living with blindness and visual impairments including art classes, a dragon boating team, summer camps, and support groups. Since 1949, NewView Oklahoma has empowered individuals facing vision loss, maximizing their opportunities to live life without limits through all stages of life. NewView is an NIB partner agency, an AbilityOne contractor, and AERBVI-accredited employer.