National Disability Employment Awareness Month

With the passage of the new ADA Ammendments and October being National Disability Employment Awareness month this is an interesting time in American history! ( Not to mention the economic crisis that is breathing down our neck) As we as a nation bthink about how to deal with this overall crisis we must also think about the nature of work and the value of our workers. As the columnist Thomas Freidman so aptly puts it, we are at a crossroads in the sense that we need to rethink the future of our economy and look at "Green Jobs" as a viable future that can help create a major economic rebound. That being said, we must also consider the future of the American workforce and the future of how we work. With a shifting demographic, larger numbers of veterans returning from the middle east dealing with disabilities and a greater number of aging baby boomers who will be dealing with there own disability due to age and needing to work it is vital that we as a nation think about the workplace issues and disability as critical to the health of our future economy.

I am a firm believer in creating public/private partnerships that will focus on educating the 21st Century workforce and developing new ways to work that leverage and retain the valuable talents of the current and future workers with disabilities.