Page 23 - ABILITY Magazine - Best Practices Employment

State of
Equality
Connecticut's
Gift of Opportunity Symposium
Joe Stromondo was born with dwarfism. But dwarfism doesn’t define who he is; it is simply the name of his disability. It doesn’t take more than a five-minute conversation with the 24-year-old Stromondo, who works full time as a career advisor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, to realize how bright and energetic he is.
Upon graduating from Trinity with a BA in philosophy two years ago, Stromondo had hoped to pursue a PhD in bioethics, with a specific focus in disability bioethics. He applied for entry to nine different PhD programs, only to be rejected by all of them. Never one to be easily discouraged, Stromondo switched his emphasis. At the urging of one of his undergraduate advisors, he applied for a position in the career services
Ted Kenndey Jr., Keynote speaker during last years symposium with Joe Stramondo
department at Trinity. He jokes that he was a perfect fit for the job because “I had a lot of experience applying to graduate schools!”
These days Stromondo spends his time helping Trinity’s students make informed choices about their educational and career goals, reviewing their applications for educa- tional programs and critiquing their resumes and cover letters. At the end of the day, he switches focus from his students’ goals to his own as he pursues his master’s degree in public policy. In the little spare time he has, he serves as the chairman of the state independent living council’s committee on higher education outreach, and also chairs the advocacy committee for the national organization Little People of America.
“Employment is a huge issue for people with disabili- ties,” says Stromondo. “Understanding how employ- ment issues work for most people enables me to form opinions on policy and to advocate more effectively for myself and others with disabilities.” He feels that if people with dwarfism are seen performing successfully in the workplace, common misperceptions will change.
Stromondo was fortunate to find an employer who did not focus on his disability, but instead saw his enormous potential. Many other job seekers with disabilities are not so lucky. It is this reality that led the Connecticut Department of Labor to launch the Gift of Opportunity Symposium.
In 2004, representatives from the Connecticut Busi- ness Leadership Network, the Governor’s Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities and the Youth Leadership Forum met with the Connecticut Commissioner of Labor. They had all experienced dif- ficulty getting employers interested in even talking about hiring workers with disabilities, never mind actually doing so. All parties agreed that people with disabilities are frequently overlooked as a valuable,