The Tryout: Part 3 | Doug Stites Q&A, An Employer’s Perspective

Doug Stites

As the next installment in our multi-part blog series about whether or not to disclose a disability to a current or prospective employer, I caught up with one of my old employers, and friend, Doug Stites, Former CEO of  Capital Area Michigan Works! (CAMW!) to get his perspective on this topic.

After spending some time catching up on how Doug has been spending retirement—staying safe, doing a little (socially distanced) fishing on the Muskegon River, and patiently waiting out the current health crisis until he can resume his annual fly fishing trips out west to the mountains, or get back up to the U.P. to do some bird hunting—we jumped right in to a conversation about this complex, yet extremely important topic. This is how the rest of our conversation went… 

Chris Knapp: First and foremost, thanks for doing this, I really appreciate it. So, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to look at those blog posts that I sent you the links to, but I can just kind of summarize them if you didn’t have a chance to read through them, but this is a series of blog posts that I wanted to introduce the topic of how to disclose, or not disclose, a disability to a current or prospective employer.

Doug Stites: Yeah, I read them.

CK: Okay, so the second one was just kind of my looking back and talking about some of the thought process that went into why I did or did not disclose my disability, or aspects of my disability, or discuss accommodations, so on and so forth, when I was applying for different jobs throughout my career. I didn’t want it to be too deep of a dive. It was just really kind of starting to frame the topic from my perspective. But what I wanted to be able to do is follow-up with some of my former employers, and find out what you recall as your first impressions of me. You know, weigh in on this topic from when I had applied, interviewed and worked for you. And so I guess I’ll just kick it off with, what is your recollection of when you first remember me being an applicant for the IT Council position, and did you at the time have any inkling that I had a visual disability when I had applied for the position?

DS: My recollection is that I did know that you had a vision issue, I don’t recall how I knew it, but I did, and it didn’t give me any pause. We looked back at your work history, and I think someone, Edee or somebody, had contacted your employer or we looked back and saw your job history -- but it didn’t enter into it. We just knew you were a qualified applicant, but I think I was aware of it.

CK: Okay.

DS: But it didn’t – it just didn’t enter into it. So, I think I knew of it, but it was going to depend on how well you did in the interview. As you may recall, it was a panel of folks from the IT community who were going to make the decision. Even though “we”, Capital Area Michigan Works!, was going to be, technically, the employer, I was going to let the “Council”, which was not going to be a legal entity, as you well know, drive the process -- as we did with all of the councils. I was going to let them make the determination, even though the actual offer and hiring, and legal relationship was going to be with CAMW!, I wanted them to feel like they were going to really run the show. I thought that it was a necessary part of how you establish any of these Councils, that they had to have ownership.

CK: Sure, sure.

DS: Even though I had to be comfortable with the person too, because, you know, if anything went wrong we were going to be legally on the hook, I wanted them to feel like whoever we hired -- man, woman, whatever -- that they had to feel like that person was working for them in every way possible, except the legal part.

CK: Okay. Then let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about the interview process. I touch on this in my blog, but I would just be curious, you know, to hear your recollection of how that went, in terms of how you remember me carrying myself during the interview, how I engaged with the members of the interview panel -- just generally, your memory of what that whole process was like?

DS: Yeah. Well, we interviewed three or four people, something like that. I never want to do interviews with something like 10 people, that’s just ridiculous. So, three or four. And I don’t recall where you were in that order, whether you were first, middle, last -- I can’t recall. But you came in, you had your -- I don’t know the right term -- your cane, or however you refer to it. Yours breaks down, bundles so to speak, and you had it in your hand and you sat down on the side of the table, so you would be facing the windows. What did we have, probably four or five members from the IT Council there, or something like that?

CK: Yeah, I think it was four or five members, and then Dave Hollister was kind of leading the interview.

DS: Yeah, and even though Dave wasn’t going to be part of the IT Council I thought he was a good person to kind of mentor them through this.

CK: Oh yeah, he is the best. Absolute best.

DS: Yeah, and the Chair of the Council at that time, I had kind of conned him into doing this whole thing… (laughs)

CK: (Laughs)       

DS: Which is what I do with everybody.

CK: We are talking about Bill Hamilton from TechSmith?

DS: Yeah, yeah. He was gracious about it, as all of the Chairs for all of these Councils were, once they figured out that I had hoodwinked them into working on these things. And you went through the interview, you did a terrific job, I just can’t remember all of the details of it. You presented yourself well. You were on point with your answers, you had great command and understanding of what we wanted to do, you researched it well. You understood the report we had done on Information Technology, which the other interviewers had not -- they could not, they had not done their homework -- which made you stand out among the other candidates. So that’s what I recall about the interview, that part of it, which made you heads and shoulders above the other candidates, because they wanted to say how they could be a good director, but they didn’t have the ability to understand what the report that we had just done, in detail, said about what the challenges were. And that’s what I recall.

So, then the interview finished, you got up, excused yourself, and out the door you went. I can’t remember whether it was at that moment, or later that evening at dinner, because we went out, and again, I can’t exactly recall, too many years have passed, and I’m old and retired now, but at some point, it was clear that they wanted to hire you. Either Bill brought it up at dinner, or we did it right at the interview. And I said, “Well I think that’d be terrific, because I have never had the opportunity to have an employee who’s legally blind,” and they were all like “What? He’s not blind,” and I said, “Yes he is, didn’t you see his cane that he had broken apart and was carrying with him?” 

They all looked at each other, and were like “no way”, though they didn’t actually say no way. But nevertheless, I said, “Oh yeah, but that’s neither here nor there. He’s clearly the most qualified candidate," And Bill’s looking at me, (laughs) they were all taken aback, they had not realized that you had a disability, and getting back to your blog, you had no reason to disclose it. I had no reason, being the official employer, to disclose it to them. If you had failed in the interview, weren’t the best candidate, you would have failed and not been selected, but it wouldn’t have been because you were blind, it would have just been because you weren’t the best candidate.

CK: Sure, and it’s awesome to hear your perspective on that because going through that process, it was always in the back of my mind -- how much you knew, or didn’t know, or how much of it was discussed, or factored into any of the decisions that were made. I think that’s just the nature of the beast, when you are trying to navigate through that process and you know that you have this, you know, albatross there in the background.

DS: I didn’t see it as an albatross at all. Remember, from my perspective, again, I can’t say what’s in everybody else’s heads, but from all my years at the state when Michigan Rehab was one of the entities under my purview, and all of their directors and so forth, and I had to learn all about that -- I’m no expert, my background was in workforce and Michigan Rehab was a new thing and I had to learn all about it. Anyway, I became good friends with, and had been before even, with Pat Cannon who was heading up the Michigan Commission for the Blind, and Pat frequently had meetings in the building there. You know when I read your blog that you sent, I was struck by the fact that your disability, your challenge, you can get by in circumstances like we just discussed, and decide whether to reveal your challenge or not. But other people -- like wheelchair users -- people know right away. They don’t get that chance to decide whether or not to disclose their disability, or somebody who’s a double amputee, and so forth. There are many people with disabilities that don’t get a choice. Their disability is so obvious that it’s not a matter of do I talk about it or not. It’s readily apparent to anybody, unless that person’s blind, I mean that you can see it, people coming back from the war that lost limbs, the answer is that they don’t get to not disclose it. So I think you’re in a unique niche that you kind of, maybe, sometimes, don’t have to disclose it, and that might play out as it did in this case. But I think a lot of people with disabilities don't get that yes or no decision point. The answer is it’s disclosed immediately. We had another person on staff who had a disability, and she didn’t get the choice about disclosing it or not.

CK: Yeah, well and that’s an interesting point because, think about how that process plays out. You're an individual with, not a hidden disability like I have, but you know a severe physical disability, and you show up for the interview and the building isn’t accessible.

DS: Right. Or people who show up who have closed head injuries, I mean there are significant disabilities that can’t exactly be concealed. When Rehab was under me, I went around to the centers that deal with young people that have had severe disabilities, trying to see if we could get them ready with life skills and stuff. The range is so immense with disability, there just isn’t a niche in it, it’s just such a wide range. Pretty amazing.

CK: Yeah, and even within the visual disability spectrum, there are folks like myself that have a little bit of useable vision that I can kind of cheat my way through some situations, and there are people who are completely blind, and they don’t have that luxury of, you know, just even how you engage with people in conversation, or what have you.

So, I had a moment where you shared some stuff with me that I look back on and it was an impactful moment, that I think back about from time to time, and I don’t know if you’ll remember this, or if you can weigh in on it. Just so folks who are reading this know, Capital Area Michigan Works!, the whole entire second floor was the administrative suite. So your office, and Edee who was our Chief Operating Officer, and Kate, our Chief Communications Officer, and all of us Council Directors, and finance and accounting staff, we were all up on the second floor, and there were two rows of cubicles. So from time to time, you would stroll down one of the aisles of cubicles, and I’d be cranking away on some emails and all of a sudden you’d just kind of slither into my cubicle, and kind of plop yourself down in one of my guest chairs (laughs).

DS: If I slither, how do I plop?

CK: (Laughs) Well, you slither, and then you plop, it’s like a two-part process.

DS: I never thought of myself as slithering.

CK: (Laughs) Well, maybe that was just me, just kind of noticing something in my periphery and trying to make sense of what it was that I thought I was seeing. But yeah, you had dropped into my office one day and sat down and we were just talking about all sorts of different things related to the Council, just providing updates, and answers to your questions and talking about some of the ideas you had, and then at one point you just kind of, I don’t even remember how you inserted it into the conversation, but you told me, kind of similar to what you just summarized in the first part of this conversation, that the decision to hire me was based on me being the most qualified applicant for the position, and had nothing to do with the fact that I had any sort of disability, and you know, I know it’s more on me, and my psyche and all. That was a huge shot in the arm and just made me feel like, I can quit second guessing myself, I know that I can do this job. I don’t have to necessarily dwell on that always being in the background or hanging over my head. I guess I just wanted to thank you for that, and ask whether you actually remember having that conversation?

DS: Kind of. I mean, here is the way I looked at it. Your challenge, lack of vision, I saw it having nothing to do with our decision to hire or not hire you. We saw you as the most, in fact, even the employers that night I said, “He uses -- what I’d call IT more broadly, I mean there’s probably a better word for it, but -- technology to help him maneuver through life. Absent IT, you go back 50 years ago, his life would be much harder.”

CK: Oh yeah, for sure.

DS: And so they all kind of looked at each other, and somewhere way down the line after you had been with them for a while, one of the employers said to me, “I don’t know why my HR people aren’t looking for people with disabilities,” because they never imagined someone who was blind using technology, cause they’d never hired anybody blind.

CK: Yeah, and it’s funny, because I have friends, people who I know from when I used to take SpecTran into work when I was working downtown for the state. There’s a guy who lived out here in Holt by me, I mean, he’s almost completely blind, he has a little bit of light sensitivity, but he’s a database administrator for HP and works as contract staff for the State of Michigan. That guy blows me away when I think about his mastery of technology. And technology is a huge leveling force in terms of providing access to folks, which is a big reason why I have gotten into doing some of the stuff that I’m doing with this Accessiversity initiative, cause it’s really important and it’s going to provide opportunities and open doors.

DS: A lot of people, and I say this because I believe it, I think (IT has been a great opening for people who are blind. Without IT, I think their lives would be limited, you know. So anyway, I meant that, whether I said those exact words, I don’t remember it as distinctively as you do, but I just meant it. I just think it was absolutely true, that you were the most qualified candidate and we hired you. Your lack of vision had nothing to do with it one way or the other.

CK: Now you remember how there were two rows of cubicles right? And since I was the last man in, because the other three Councils had already been established, they were over in the other row together, Bob Sherer, Julianne Rose and Brindley Byrd, and I was kind of off by myself, and was over in the other row. From time to time, you’d get your dander up, and you’d come out to get on us Council Directors about something, and you’d go down their row because there was a critical mass of Council Directors over there vs. mine, so I started referring to their row of cubicles as “Battleship row” in reference to the attack on Pearl Harbor when all of the U.S. fleet, the battleships and destroyers that were still  docked, were essentially trapped and got destroyed during the attack on the naval base...

DS: (Laughs)

CK: (Laughs) ...while I was like this lone frigate that was out to sea, and was somehow spared from the attack. You’d be over there ranting and raving, and I’d just kind of lower my head (laughs) and try not to be noticed, and hope that I could escape your wrath.

DS: Well, my bark was worse than my bite.

CK: I know, I agree. You were hard-nosed, but you were fair. I absolutely thrived working under you, you were not a micromanager, you just got out of our way and let us do our jobs, and as long as we were performing well, then we had nothing to worry about. For the most part, we had the freedom and latitude to do what we needed to do to run those Councils, and again it was a great experience, and I just really appreciate everything you did for me and my career.

So, just getting back to this concept, and talking about technology and how it can be a leveling force for individuals with disabilities like myself who have to rely on that assistive technology. You were always very forthcoming in offering any accommodations that you felt I might need. As you may recall, I used a screen reader software on my computer called JAWS, which I didn’t even realize at the time, but at Capital Area Michigan Works!, you already had an enterprise license of JAWS because you needed it for the public computers down in the service center. But you pretty much gave me carte blanche, telling me “whatever it is that you need, just let me know and we’ll make it happen for you.” That was an important part of this, since, as someone who is having to constantly work to overcome your disability,  you don’t want to create any other undue obstacles or barriers. So, I was just wondering if you have any thoughts about that?

DS: Well, number one, the answer was, whatever you needed we were going to buy it, and same thing for any other person on staff. But my comment for most employers, and it’s all over my whole career, I had other people, when I was in the U.P. -- one of the ladies that worked for me had disabilities -- the cost of accommodation is so minor. I know employers seem to kind of blanch when they think about hiring persons who have disabilities, whether they are hidden like yours, or more apparent like others, but the cost to accommodate somebody is so minimal in the grand scheme of things. It’s just so minimal, that I never have given it a thought. And the same thing about in a building, unless you move into a building, and you know, you’re on the third floor and it’s steps all the way up -- then you have a problem, but as we were constructing the building, I don’t think you were there when it fell down the first time.

CK: I was living in the neighborhood at the time, and my wife and I were actually having breakfast at the diner the day that the roof collapsed, but no, that was before I was actually under the employ of CAMW!

DS: So, as we got ready to build the second floor, we kept looking around the building and were constantly trying to make sure, can we accommodate people in all of the places, and so for me, it’s just not that complicated or expensive to do. And the more you get your lather worked up about it, thinking, “Well, jeez I can’t hire people with disabilities because it’s so expensive”. The answer is, well, one that’s illegal, I mean that’s just one. And besides the fact that you’re just leaving out a huge part of the work pool that you want to bring in if they’re highly talented. So for me, it’s just such a no brainer over my whole career, the 40-some years that I have worked, it’s just you got to hire the right people. If they have a disability, just tell them whatever you need to do to accommodate them, you’re going to do it. It’s just a no brainer.

CK: Yeah.

DS: It’s so minimal, the cost. I mean, you couldn’t even find it on our budget, we didn’t have a line for it.

CK: And obviously, folks don’t have a choice when they acquire a disability, that would be interesting if that was the way it all worked, but it doesn’t. So think about if one of your current employees had a situation where they started experiencing health issues or whatever, and were starting to find themselves with a disability, obviously you’d want to know about that, right? I mean, your philosophy doesn’t change whether it’s a new employee coming in and wanting those accommodations up front vs. someone who has been working for you that has had a set of circumstances pop up that’s going to potentially impact their ability to perform their job.

DS: Right. I mean, they don’t have to tell us anything they don’t want to about their own health, but at the point at which something’s occurring that’s impinging their ability to do their job, and they need an accommodation, they’re a current employee and they want to disclose it, sure, but we’re not going to go pry into their private stuff. But if they want to say, “Look, this is going on with me and I can’t do this task this way anymore,” or “I’m losing my sight” or whatever, well okay, whatever it is, yeah, we’d just treat them as we would anyone else.

CK: Yeah, and it seems silly to even have to talk about this, because there are a lot of employers that get it, obviously, CAMW! is one of them, and there are many more out there. But this is something that is still out there, there are still employers, you know, who maybe aren’t as progressive when it comes to this sort of thing, and folks worry about stuff like that, which is hard to imagine. It’s hard to believe in 2020 with all of the strides that we have made in terms of protected classes, and so on and so forth, that this type of stuff still goes on in some of these dark corners.

DS: Well, I mean look at what’s happened in the last three months. We’re just getting to where we’re having an honest conversation about, not equality, but equity with races.

CK: Yup.

DS: So, it’s not hard to believe. (laughs) I mean, I don’t find it hard to believe at all.

CK: Yeah, that we’re not maybe as far along as we thought we were, or…

DS: I don’t think we’re that far along at all. I mean, there’s a big difference between equality and equity. So, no, I don’t think we’re that far, we’re finally, maybe, cracking it open a little bit on racial issues, finally getting to understand  what white privilege is really about.

CK: Yeah. Well, this has been great, I really appreciate you taking the time to go back in time with me and revisit this. Is there anything else you would like to add or contribute to the conversation?

DS: I would say that the most important thing, I think, for any employee who has a disability in a workplace is -- and I think we’ve talked about this before -- to not ever use that disability as an excuse about performance. That’s something you never did. I mean, I never viewed your disability as anything, I never even thought about it, and you never failed to perform, ever. I have seen people in a workplace with a disability who use the disability as the reason they can’t perform. And just like any other employee who would use a reason, their dog ate their homework, and that makes for some employers to then start to classify people with disabilities as, “Ah, they’re going to use that excuse for why they can’t succeed.” I think it’s just on that individual using it, and employers shouldn’t then transfer that, nor should they then, like any other employee who fails to perform, think, well that’s just like all employees. That’s just not true, that’s one person doing it. So, I just think that one of the things that someone with a disability has got to make sure they never do, is if they can’t get something done, they don’t lean on their disability as a reason that it didn’t get done. In your case, of course that never happened. You were excellent and went on to other things and are still being very successful, but I have seen it occur.

CK: Yeah, well I agree 100 percent. As long as the employer is providing those accommodations and supports, and so on and so forth, you know, we want to be held accountable just like everyone else. I mean, that’s one of the greatest compliments that you can pay to an individual with a disability that is competing. I mean, the types of jobs that we’re talking about, like this job with the IT Council, that was a really, high level, competitive, professional position…

DS: Absolutely.

CK: And it was a cutthroat environment where we were, you know. Whether we liked it or not, we were being judged against one another for what we were being asked to do for the Councils that we were in charge of…

DS: Absolutely.

CK: And, I didn’t have any issues with being held accountable, and in some ways I appreciated very much that, you know, that was just a non-negotiable for you, too.

DS: I wasn’t going to hold you to a lesser standard just because you had a disability. Why would I do that? “Oh, poor Chris, he only has to come up with 50% because he’s blind,” bullshit. I would never do that to you, that would be humiliating.

CK: I agree 100 percent.

DS: “You only have to do half as much because you have a disability,” that would be just patronizing as all get out. You’d never do that to another person, that would  be, it’d be just pathetic. Well, I’d say, “Chris, because you’re not as good as the rest of them, you don’t have to do as much.” No, that would be just terrible. My answer is, he has a disability -- so what. We’ve accommodated you with everything you need, and now you have to perform. You’re one of the team, you get treated like everybody else gets treated.

CK: I love it, it’s so refreshing .

DS: Right, because otherwise, what would it say to you, “Oh, you’re not as good as everybody else because you’re disabled.” What kind of bullshit would that be?

CK: Well, on an unrelated note, my wife has perfected that whole concept… (laughs)

DS: Right, good. Otherwise, you would have no respect for yourself if she was patronizing you, “Oh, don’t get up honey because you can’t see, I will get your water for you…”

CK: (Laughs)

DS: What kind of crap would that be?

CK: (Laughs)

DS: And what would your kids think if they heard her talk to you like that? And you wouldn’t want to be treated that way in a workplace. You’d lose all of your self-respect and you’d know all the people around you, you’d think, “Oh they pity me,” you don’t want that. You would never want that.

CK: Nope, not at all.

DS: Right, so, my answer is, whoever’s in a workplace, you want to have them. Once you’ve leveled up, if they need a taller chair or a special something or a JAWS screen reader or whatever it is, okay, now you got it, now perform.

CK: Well, that is a great way to end this conversation. I have really enjoyed reconnecting with you, for folks who are reading this, we had a whole additional hour long conversation a week ago, when I first connected with you to see if you would be willing to do this, and we talked about everything but this topic (laughs) so, it’s been great. I’m glad to hear that you’re doing well, despite all the crap that’s going on with this COVID pandemic, and I hope you stay safe and healthy and you can get back out there and start fishing and hunting and doing all of the other things that you love to do soon.

DS: Yeah, you and your family stay safe too.

*This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity*