SECRETARY BEATTY: Good morning everyone. I’m Carol Beatty, the Secretary of the Maryland Department of Disabilities, and it is to wonderful to be here in person this year, for the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, commonly known as the ADA.
Thank you all for joining us here today.
Let me acknowledge, first of all, that we have many secretaries here in the room, first of all, I will be introducing the Governor in just a moment!
But I thank you, my colleagues, for being here, and being here for this celebration.
Along with that, we want to thank the Governor for inviting us to his reception area for recognizing the importance of the ADA, which is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation, and acknowledging the work that still needs to be done to provide access and equality for Marylanders with disabilities.
Earlier this month, the Governor announced the new state disabilities plan, which is our guide to creating change in our state. I’d like to thank the members of the Inter Agency Disabilities Board, many of the members are here today, for your input and work on this plan. We are very proud in Maryland to be the only state with a cabinet level department focused on cross disability issues. Our department works very closely with the Governor and sister state agencies to improve the delivery of services to individuals with disabilities in the state of Maryland. We are guided by the Maryland Commission on Disabilities, and again, many of the members are here today, so thank you for being here.
It is my honor to introduce the 62nd Governor of the state of Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan. He is recognized both statewide and nationally as a strong independent leader who consistently delivers results and achieves commonsense bipartisan solutions.
The disability community in Maryland has benefitted greatly from Governor Hogan’s support and strong leadership, both before and during the COVID pandemic. And we are grateful that he always attends to the diverse needs of the citizens of the state that he governs. Please help me welcome Governor Larry Hogan.
(Applause.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Madame Secretary. It’s great to have all of you here with us in our historic State House. Secretary Beatty, thank you not only for that introduction and welcoming everybody to the State House, but hasn’t she been an amazing Secretary of the Department of Disabilities?
(Applause.)
I want to thank all our other cabinet secretaries for being here today, I want to thank Secretary Beatty and her amazing team and her department and all the folks that sponsored our event here this morning. It really is an honor to be able to join with you to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which brought about a shift in attitudes in America and brought new opportunities for many more of our citizens to gain equal access to communication, transportation, and for better access to their communities.
For six and a half years now, as governor, I’ve traveled all across the state from one corner of the state to the other, had the amazing opportunity to meet countless people from all walks of life, including so many Marylanders with disabilities and their families. And having those opportunities has only deepened my belief that Maryland is stronger when all of our citizens are able to contribute to their communities and reap the rewards of those contributions.
Our administration remains committed to doing everything we can to make sure that adults with disabilities can obtain meaningful work, that our schools and public places are examples of inclusion in both attitude and action. That is our vision, and together with all of you, we have been working hard to make it a reality.
We eliminated sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities, with the full implementation of the Ken Capone Act. Statewide IT accessibility initiative has worked to make our state’s websites, including our COVID response and recovery pages, accessible to all Marylanders. And earlier this month, I was pleased, as the Secretary mentioned, to announce the release of our new state disabilities plan, which provides a framework for delivering, monitoring, and improving our state services. We truly are making incredible strides to improve access for everyone, but there’s still so much more left to be done. Today, the State of Maryland is taking another step forward to ensure that all our citizens are confident in their ability to contribute to their communities, and assure that those contributions are valued by all. In just a moment, I will be signing an executive order making everybody July Disability Culture and Achievements Month in the State of Maryland.
Throughout the month, we will promote and enhance events and activities all across the state focused on disability pride, culture, and contributions to society.
I want to thank each and every one of you for the incredible work that you do in our communities, and for truly embodying what it means to be Maryland Strong.
Before I enact the Executive Order, I want to take a moment to recognize a very special guest who is joining with us today. Six-time Paralympic medal winning swimmer and Maryland native Becca Meyers.
(Applause.)
Becca won a silver and bronze medal for competing in the 2012 London Games, three gold medals and a silver medal at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and she was very much looking forward to competing once again this year, where I think she was going to bring home several more gold medals to Maryland. Unfortunately, last week she was forced to make a very difficult decision to withdraw from the 2021 Tokyo Games, when her request to bring her personal care assistant was denied.
I was one of many who immediately called on the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee to reverse that decision. Becca deserved to be able to compete and while we’re all so disappointed for her, I got the chance to tell her just a moment before this started that I’m unbelievably proud of her for having the courage to speak up and to speak out about this injustice.
Aren’t you proud of her?
(Applause.)
So at this time, I’m going to ask Becca Meyers to please come forward. It’s not nearly as good as a gold medal.
(Laughter.)
But I’m going to present her with a governor’s citation recognizing her many contributions to the disability community both here in Maryland, across the country, and around the world. And we’re so proud of you, Becca. Come on.
(Laughter.)
Let me just take a moment to read this. It’s made today, signed by myself and Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State of Maryland. It says, be it known that on behalf of the citizens of this state, in recognition of your athletic ability and exceptional talents, including winning six medals in 2012, 2016 Paralympic Games, and your bravery for highlighting the issues of inequality in access for people with disabilities, Maryland is very proud to support your efforts throughout the world, that accommodations are not optional, and that people with disabilities deserve access to participate and compete in the pool and in life.
On behalf of state of Maryland, thank you.
(Applause.)
I would have been really proud of those gold medals, but I could not be any more proud of her. Just an amazing young woman. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
Now I’d like to ask — it may be a surprise to her, I don’t know — but Secretary Beatty, please come forward so I can present her with a proclamation officially recognizing July 26, 2021, as a day of observance of the progress made in the 31 years since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and to thank her for all her amazing work. Just come on over here.
(Applause.)
And now, I’m going to sit down and sign this Executive Order!
(Laughter.)
(Applause.)
SECRETARY BEATTY: Thank you, Governor. That is so exciting, all of it. Becca, thank you for being here. Thank you for recognizing her talent as well as her bravery, and thank you for the Executive Order! We will do some really cool things with that. So thanks so much.
I’d like to ask Katherine Breen to please come up. We’re pleased to have Katherine today, she’s the policy manager representing the Governor’s Office for Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and thank you for joining us, Katherine.
KATHERINE BREEN: Thank you for the introduction. 31 years since the establishment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, really, it’s been almost 50 years since the enforcement of policies related to the Deaf and hard of hearing, starting with the Rehab Act of 1973, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Video Communications Accessibility Act, and now the Americans with Disabilities Act, all of which have immense impact on the Deaf and hard of hearing. It’s been 20 years since the establishment of the governor’s office in 2001, in May of that year. We are the ONLY state that has an office that reports directly to the governor for issues relating to the Deaf and hard of hearing. In addition to that, the legislature passed a bill recognizing the need for that.
Now, the Office of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing works with the principles of the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide services to the Deaf and hard of hearing people of Maryland, ensuring that people know they have the same abilities as anyone else in the state of Maryland. In addition, we’re working on things like an interpreter bill relating to the need for interpreters, and certified Deaf interpreters like the one you just saw providing more accessibility to Deaf and hard of hearing constituents, and I’m pleased to report that research recently found that Maryland is one of the top states in the nation in terms of providing accessibility to COVID-related policies. So we want to recognize the work of the administration, as well as the director of the Governor’s Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Kelby Brick, who couldn’t be here today. We’ve seen discrimination in housing and increased isolation, as well as situations of health care, where Deaf and hard of hearing people had limited access to reading people’s lips with the requirements of masking and so on. We very much hope toward the end of the pandemic that we see an end to the disparities in health care.
Now, I’m very excited to introduce David Bahar, director of the Telecommunications Access of Maryland Program, also known as TAM. Prior to joining us two years ago, he comes from the Virginia Department of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, he was the manager there, and previous to that he has a wealth of experience in legislation. He was critical to the establishment of the 21st Century Communication Video Accessibility Act. Without further ado, Director David Bahar.
(Applause.)
DIRECTOR BAHAR: Thank you, Katherine, I appreciate those nice words. Thank you, Governor, and thank you Secretary Beatty. It’s a pleasure to be here with you this morning.
31 years after the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are still people in the state of Maryland who remember when the telephone itself was novel technology. However, it was completely inaccessible to those Deaf and hard of hearing constituents in the state of Maryland. Unlike other options and ways of communicating where they could find other ways or avenues, the telephone did not allow for that. It created a significant barrier to a variety of different aspects of life. This was a way of communication that took over day-to-day living, and became a significant and substantial barrier to things like employment, learning, commerce, the ability to simply catch up with family and friends, and also the ability to access emergency services, as well as many others.
160 years after the phone was invented, the ADA was codified into law. That really put us leaps and bounds ahead of where we were. It created 24/7 telecommunication relay service and access, the ability to connect through an operator who would serve as the ears and voice of the caller on the line. That autonomy and empowerment had huge results in the Deaf and hard of hearing community, really transformational.
Now, of course, it was limited by the technologies of the time. The first TTY only worked at 45 words per minute, if you can imagine trying to communicate that way!
We are fortunate that relay services have kept up with the times. Part of the ADA mandate was the recognition by the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, that both encouraged not only using existing technology, but also the development of any new technology — which means that current relay services can be used on things like your smartphones, other mobile devices, or your laptop at home. Now, if you compare that to 31 years ago, relay technologies, which were extremely costly at that time, even by today’s standards, now you have off-the-shelf technologies that you can access very easily at any electronic store at a very reasonable cost. Telecommunications Access of Maryland has also changed with the current times. We are providing more specialized services now for Maryland constituents who have difficulties using a standard telephone.
Our most recent services are relay conference captioning, known as RCC, and this was developed and launched, ironically, at the same time the pandemic hit in March of 2020. And we’ve seen exponential growth of that service, because of course it came online at the same time people started to utilize teleconferencing for their everyday work and personal activities.
To close, Maryland is proud to be leading other states in the acquiring of real-time text, or RTT, another relay service, which is a digital replacement to the antiquated TTY technology, which was only 45 words per minute and unidirectional, could — only one person could communicate at a time, now they can communicate in real time. It is compatible with TTY technology and in line with the current standards we have. We’re working with our colleagues at the Maryland Department of Disabilities to ensure that real-time text and 911 accessibility for real-time text are available and come on board at the same time.
As we push for Maryland to meet a more diverse range of needs for our constituents, we’re encouraging other states to do the same by example. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
SECRETARY BEATTY: Thank you, David.
It’s now my pleasure to introduce our second guest speaker, Mark Riccobono. Mark was diagnosed with glaucoma and aniridia at age 5 and nevertheless attended public schools and graduated with honors, and after graduating college became the director of the Wisconsin Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and later earned a master’s degree of educational studies. While serving as educational director at the National Federation of the Blind’s Jernigan Institute, this is a little tidbit about him, he navigated a car at the Daytona Speedway. He was elected president of the National Federation of the Blind and has been reelected ever since, and lives with his wife Melissa and their three children in Baltimore. Mark.
(Applause.)
MARK RICCOBONO: Thank you very much, Madame Secretary, for that introduction, and it is truly an honor to be here.
Governor Hogan, thank you very much for your leadership, and those in this room, in addition to the secretary that worked on these issues every day.
The National Federation of the Blind is proud to be here today, and we know in our organization that blindness is not the characteristic, or I would say, disability is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. And every day, we work on raising the expectations for blind people, because we recognize that low expectations stand between blind people and our dreams, and that is certainly true for all people with disabilities.
As America’s civil rights membership organization of blind people, we’re truly proud that Maryland is the home, has been the home, for our national headquarters since 1978, which you can see if you’re getting ready to go through the tunnel in South Baltimore, you undoubtedly have seen our building and our sign. We’re proud to make Baltimore our home and to continue to do that, especially today in this state, which continues to lead the nation, as has already been detailed, on disability issues. And I just want to echo my appreciation both for the Secretary and for the Governor on putting disability front and center in so many ways.
The Governor already mentioned the fact that Maryland is one of few states to eliminate the provision to pay people with disabilities less than the minimum wage. We haven’t convinced Congress yet that this is a no-brainer idea, but Maryland has done it. So again we’re leading the way, on technology accessibility, on so many other areas, and I think it’s because the Governor and the Secretary have prioritized not just disability, but bringing people with disabilities to the front of the conversation, so that people with disabilities are leading the conversation about how to make Maryland an innovator in so many ways. That’s why we’re very proud to be here today, and to be part of the Maryland effort to lead the nation.
So on this 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, what comes to mind for me is the fact that the creation of the Act 31 years ago was a good start to codifying in law what the Governor described as the action and attitude that we want to see throughout the community.
But we’re really seeing a shift in that understanding through that action and attitude and leadership here in Maryland. Accommodation used to be the standard. But because of strong leaders and because of the voice of people with disabilities, that is shifting to making sure that we’re planning and building our society to include people with disabilities from the beginning. That inclusive truly means considering and planning for people with disabilities to be an active part of the community, not just a thought afterward. And there’s no other issue that is so critical there than access to the internet, which the Governor also mentioned. We do this for buildings today, right?
We build them to have people with disabilities in mind. The internet, websites are the built environment of the future, and they need to include people with disabilities from the beginning. And this state is helping to lead the nation in that regard, building it into our technology, our services, and working together to figure out how to innovate as new things happen is so important.
Finally, I’d like to, again, commend the Secretary and the Governor on what we have seen happen during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an organization of blind people, when we have found issues related to access, to testing, or vaccines, we’ve been able to call upon the administration to help fix it, and we’ve gotten responses, and also, as the state shifted its response in voting during the last cycle, we again saw a very responsive administration to making sure that people with disabilities had a variety of ways to have equal access to their right to vote.
So as I think about action and attitude and what disability and culture and achievement mean to Maryland going forward, I’d just like to say, and I think this might be the first public place, that it is the intention of the National Federation of the Blind to make Maryland, specifically Baltimore, our national headquarters, the home of the first civil rights museum on blindness in the country. I don’t know when we will open the doors on that project. It’s something we’re beginning to think about now. Maybe by the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but I truly cannot think of a better place than the state of Maryland to launch that initiative and to highlight the true achievements of blind people, blind people like Becca Meyers, who have taken courageous steps to own for themselves their rights, and to take responsibility for fully participating in the community. But that happens because of people with disabilities, but also because of leaders who are willing to recognize those courageous steps and be vulnerable enough to say we can do better.
So I close by saying that as a partner, the National Federation of the Blind continues to commit to doing better with our state partners in Maryland to make sure this state continues to be number 1 in terms of helping people with disabilities live the lives they want. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
SECRETARY BEATTY: So, please, let’s do one more round of applause for our speakers today.
(Applause.)
In closing, I would like to thank Governor Hogan for your leadership on these very important issues. Equality and accessibility are just words if we don’t put action behind them. Your actions like today’s Executive Order help us to change Maryland for the better for people with disabilities.
So, as we adjourn, I’d like to ask each of you to commit yourselves to making Maryland more accessible. In the bags that you’ll be receiving, we’ve included some tips to help make your communication — Word documents, e-mails, social media — more accessible. So please take a bag, and take a look at some of the information that’s included, and thank you, and have a wonderful day.
(Applause.)
(End of transcript).
Thank you all for joining us here today.
Let me acknowledge, first of all, that we have many secretaries here in the room, first of all, I will be introducing the Governor in just a moment!
But I thank you, my colleagues, for being here, and being here for this celebration.
Along with that, we want to thank the Governor for inviting us to his reception area for recognizing the importance of the ADA, which is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation, and acknowledging the work that still needs to be done to provide access and equality for Marylanders with disabilities.
Earlier this month, the Governor announced the new state disabilities plan, which is our guide to creating change in our state. I’d like to thank the members of the Inter Agency Disabilities Board, many of the members are here today, for your input and work on this plan. We are very proud in Maryland to be the only state with a cabinet level department focused on cross disability issues. Our department works very closely with the Governor and sister state agencies to improve the delivery of services to individuals with disabilities in the state of Maryland. We are guided by the Maryland Commission on Disabilities, and again, many of the members are here today, so thank you for being here.
It is my honor to introduce the 62nd Governor of the state of Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan. He is recognized both statewide and nationally as a strong independent leader who consistently delivers results and achieves commonsense bipartisan solutions.
The disability community in Maryland has benefitted greatly from Governor Hogan’s support and strong leadership, both before and during the COVID pandemic. And we are grateful that he always attends to the diverse needs of the citizens of the state that he governs. Please help me welcome Governor Larry Hogan.
(Applause.)
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Madame Secretary. It’s great to have all of you here with us in our historic State House. Secretary Beatty, thank you not only for that introduction and welcoming everybody to the State House, but hasn’t she been an amazing Secretary of the Department of Disabilities?
(Applause.)
I want to thank all our other cabinet secretaries for being here today, I want to thank Secretary Beatty and her amazing team and her department and all the folks that sponsored our event here this morning. It really is an honor to be able to join with you to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which brought about a shift in attitudes in America and brought new opportunities for many more of our citizens to gain equal access to communication, transportation, and for better access to their communities.
For six and a half years now, as governor, I’ve traveled all across the state from one corner of the state to the other, had the amazing opportunity to meet countless people from all walks of life, including so many Marylanders with disabilities and their families. And having those opportunities has only deepened my belief that Maryland is stronger when all of our citizens are able to contribute to their communities and reap the rewards of those contributions.
Our administration remains committed to doing everything we can to make sure that adults with disabilities can obtain meaningful work, that our schools and public places are examples of inclusion in both attitude and action. That is our vision, and together with all of you, we have been working hard to make it a reality.
We eliminated sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities, with the full implementation of the Ken Capone Act. Statewide IT accessibility initiative has worked to make our state’s websites, including our COVID response and recovery pages, accessible to all Marylanders. And earlier this month, I was pleased, as the Secretary mentioned, to announce the release of our new state disabilities plan, which provides a framework for delivering, monitoring, and improving our state services. We truly are making incredible strides to improve access for everyone, but there’s still so much more left to be done. Today, the State of Maryland is taking another step forward to ensure that all our citizens are confident in their ability to contribute to their communities, and assure that those contributions are valued by all. In just a moment, I will be signing an executive order making everybody July Disability Culture and Achievements Month in the State of Maryland.
Throughout the month, we will promote and enhance events and activities all across the state focused on disability pride, culture, and contributions to society.
I want to thank each and every one of you for the incredible work that you do in our communities, and for truly embodying what it means to be Maryland Strong.
Before I enact the Executive Order, I want to take a moment to recognize a very special guest who is joining with us today. Six-time Paralympic medal winning swimmer and Maryland native Becca Meyers.
(Applause.)
Becca won a silver and bronze medal for competing in the 2012 London Games, three gold medals and a silver medal at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and she was very much looking forward to competing once again this year, where I think she was going to bring home several more gold medals to Maryland. Unfortunately, last week she was forced to make a very difficult decision to withdraw from the 2021 Tokyo Games, when her request to bring her personal care assistant was denied.
I was one of many who immediately called on the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee to reverse that decision. Becca deserved to be able to compete and while we’re all so disappointed for her, I got the chance to tell her just a moment before this started that I’m unbelievably proud of her for having the courage to speak up and to speak out about this injustice.
Aren’t you proud of her?
(Applause.)
So at this time, I’m going to ask Becca Meyers to please come forward. It’s not nearly as good as a gold medal.
(Laughter.)
But I’m going to present her with a governor’s citation recognizing her many contributions to the disability community both here in Maryland, across the country, and around the world. And we’re so proud of you, Becca. Come on.
(Laughter.)
Let me just take a moment to read this. It’s made today, signed by myself and Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State of Maryland. It says, be it known that on behalf of the citizens of this state, in recognition of your athletic ability and exceptional talents, including winning six medals in 2012, 2016 Paralympic Games, and your bravery for highlighting the issues of inequality in access for people with disabilities, Maryland is very proud to support your efforts throughout the world, that accommodations are not optional, and that people with disabilities deserve access to participate and compete in the pool and in life.
On behalf of state of Maryland, thank you.
(Applause.)
I would have been really proud of those gold medals, but I could not be any more proud of her. Just an amazing young woman. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
Now I’d like to ask — it may be a surprise to her, I don’t know — but Secretary Beatty, please come forward so I can present her with a proclamation officially recognizing July 26, 2021, as a day of observance of the progress made in the 31 years since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and to thank her for all her amazing work. Just come on over here.
(Applause.)
And now, I’m going to sit down and sign this Executive Order!
(Laughter.)
(Applause.)
SECRETARY BEATTY: Thank you, Governor. That is so exciting, all of it. Becca, thank you for being here. Thank you for recognizing her talent as well as her bravery, and thank you for the Executive Order! We will do some really cool things with that. So thanks so much.
I’d like to ask Katherine Breen to please come up. We’re pleased to have Katherine today, she’s the policy manager representing the Governor’s Office for Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and thank you for joining us, Katherine.
KATHERINE BREEN: Thank you for the introduction. 31 years since the establishment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, really, it’s been almost 50 years since the enforcement of policies related to the Deaf and hard of hearing, starting with the Rehab Act of 1973, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Video Communications Accessibility Act, and now the Americans with Disabilities Act, all of which have immense impact on the Deaf and hard of hearing. It’s been 20 years since the establishment of the governor’s office in 2001, in May of that year. We are the ONLY state that has an office that reports directly to the governor for issues relating to the Deaf and hard of hearing. In addition to that, the legislature passed a bill recognizing the need for that.
Now, the Office of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing works with the principles of the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide services to the Deaf and hard of hearing people of Maryland, ensuring that people know they have the same abilities as anyone else in the state of Maryland. In addition, we’re working on things like an interpreter bill relating to the need for interpreters, and certified Deaf interpreters like the one you just saw providing more accessibility to Deaf and hard of hearing constituents, and I’m pleased to report that research recently found that Maryland is one of the top states in the nation in terms of providing accessibility to COVID-related policies. So we want to recognize the work of the administration, as well as the director of the Governor’s Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Kelby Brick, who couldn’t be here today. We’ve seen discrimination in housing and increased isolation, as well as situations of health care, where Deaf and hard of hearing people had limited access to reading people’s lips with the requirements of masking and so on. We very much hope toward the end of the pandemic that we see an end to the disparities in health care.
Now, I’m very excited to introduce David Bahar, director of the Telecommunications Access of Maryland Program, also known as TAM. Prior to joining us two years ago, he comes from the Virginia Department of Deaf and Hard of Hearing, he was the manager there, and previous to that he has a wealth of experience in legislation. He was critical to the establishment of the 21st Century Communication Video Accessibility Act. Without further ado, Director David Bahar.
(Applause.)
DIRECTOR BAHAR: Thank you, Katherine, I appreciate those nice words. Thank you, Governor, and thank you Secretary Beatty. It’s a pleasure to be here with you this morning.
31 years after the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are still people in the state of Maryland who remember when the telephone itself was novel technology. However, it was completely inaccessible to those Deaf and hard of hearing constituents in the state of Maryland. Unlike other options and ways of communicating where they could find other ways or avenues, the telephone did not allow for that. It created a significant barrier to a variety of different aspects of life. This was a way of communication that took over day-to-day living, and became a significant and substantial barrier to things like employment, learning, commerce, the ability to simply catch up with family and friends, and also the ability to access emergency services, as well as many others.
160 years after the phone was invented, the ADA was codified into law. That really put us leaps and bounds ahead of where we were. It created 24/7 telecommunication relay service and access, the ability to connect through an operator who would serve as the ears and voice of the caller on the line. That autonomy and empowerment had huge results in the Deaf and hard of hearing community, really transformational.
Now, of course, it was limited by the technologies of the time. The first TTY only worked at 45 words per minute, if you can imagine trying to communicate that way!
We are fortunate that relay services have kept up with the times. Part of the ADA mandate was the recognition by the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, that both encouraged not only using existing technology, but also the development of any new technology — which means that current relay services can be used on things like your smartphones, other mobile devices, or your laptop at home. Now, if you compare that to 31 years ago, relay technologies, which were extremely costly at that time, even by today’s standards, now you have off-the-shelf technologies that you can access very easily at any electronic store at a very reasonable cost. Telecommunications Access of Maryland has also changed with the current times. We are providing more specialized services now for Maryland constituents who have difficulties using a standard telephone.
Our most recent services are relay conference captioning, known as RCC, and this was developed and launched, ironically, at the same time the pandemic hit in March of 2020. And we’ve seen exponential growth of that service, because of course it came online at the same time people started to utilize teleconferencing for their everyday work and personal activities.
To close, Maryland is proud to be leading other states in the acquiring of real-time text, or RTT, another relay service, which is a digital replacement to the antiquated TTY technology, which was only 45 words per minute and unidirectional, could — only one person could communicate at a time, now they can communicate in real time. It is compatible with TTY technology and in line with the current standards we have. We’re working with our colleagues at the Maryland Department of Disabilities to ensure that real-time text and 911 accessibility for real-time text are available and come on board at the same time.
As we push for Maryland to meet a more diverse range of needs for our constituents, we’re encouraging other states to do the same by example. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
SECRETARY BEATTY: Thank you, David.
It’s now my pleasure to introduce our second guest speaker, Mark Riccobono. Mark was diagnosed with glaucoma and aniridia at age 5 and nevertheless attended public schools and graduated with honors, and after graduating college became the director of the Wisconsin Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and later earned a master’s degree of educational studies. While serving as educational director at the National Federation of the Blind’s Jernigan Institute, this is a little tidbit about him, he navigated a car at the Daytona Speedway. He was elected president of the National Federation of the Blind and has been reelected ever since, and lives with his wife Melissa and their three children in Baltimore. Mark.
(Applause.)
MARK RICCOBONO: Thank you very much, Madame Secretary, for that introduction, and it is truly an honor to be here.
Governor Hogan, thank you very much for your leadership, and those in this room, in addition to the secretary that worked on these issues every day.
The National Federation of the Blind is proud to be here today, and we know in our organization that blindness is not the characteristic, or I would say, disability is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. And every day, we work on raising the expectations for blind people, because we recognize that low expectations stand between blind people and our dreams, and that is certainly true for all people with disabilities.
As America’s civil rights membership organization of blind people, we’re truly proud that Maryland is the home, has been the home, for our national headquarters since 1978, which you can see if you’re getting ready to go through the tunnel in South Baltimore, you undoubtedly have seen our building and our sign. We’re proud to make Baltimore our home and to continue to do that, especially today in this state, which continues to lead the nation, as has already been detailed, on disability issues. And I just want to echo my appreciation both for the Secretary and for the Governor on putting disability front and center in so many ways.
The Governor already mentioned the fact that Maryland is one of few states to eliminate the provision to pay people with disabilities less than the minimum wage. We haven’t convinced Congress yet that this is a no-brainer idea, but Maryland has done it. So again we’re leading the way, on technology accessibility, on so many other areas, and I think it’s because the Governor and the Secretary have prioritized not just disability, but bringing people with disabilities to the front of the conversation, so that people with disabilities are leading the conversation about how to make Maryland an innovator in so many ways. That’s why we’re very proud to be here today, and to be part of the Maryland effort to lead the nation.
So on this 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, what comes to mind for me is the fact that the creation of the Act 31 years ago was a good start to codifying in law what the Governor described as the action and attitude that we want to see throughout the community.
But we’re really seeing a shift in that understanding through that action and attitude and leadership here in Maryland. Accommodation used to be the standard. But because of strong leaders and because of the voice of people with disabilities, that is shifting to making sure that we’re planning and building our society to include people with disabilities from the beginning. That inclusive truly means considering and planning for people with disabilities to be an active part of the community, not just a thought afterward. And there’s no other issue that is so critical there than access to the internet, which the Governor also mentioned. We do this for buildings today, right?
We build them to have people with disabilities in mind. The internet, websites are the built environment of the future, and they need to include people with disabilities from the beginning. And this state is helping to lead the nation in that regard, building it into our technology, our services, and working together to figure out how to innovate as new things happen is so important.
Finally, I’d like to, again, commend the Secretary and the Governor on what we have seen happen during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an organization of blind people, when we have found issues related to access, to testing, or vaccines, we’ve been able to call upon the administration to help fix it, and we’ve gotten responses, and also, as the state shifted its response in voting during the last cycle, we again saw a very responsive administration to making sure that people with disabilities had a variety of ways to have equal access to their right to vote.
So as I think about action and attitude and what disability and culture and achievement mean to Maryland going forward, I’d just like to say, and I think this might be the first public place, that it is the intention of the National Federation of the Blind to make Maryland, specifically Baltimore, our national headquarters, the home of the first civil rights museum on blindness in the country. I don’t know when we will open the doors on that project. It’s something we’re beginning to think about now. Maybe by the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but I truly cannot think of a better place than the state of Maryland to launch that initiative and to highlight the true achievements of blind people, blind people like Becca Meyers, who have taken courageous steps to own for themselves their rights, and to take responsibility for fully participating in the community. But that happens because of people with disabilities, but also because of leaders who are willing to recognize those courageous steps and be vulnerable enough to say we can do better.
So I close by saying that as a partner, the National Federation of the Blind continues to commit to doing better with our state partners in Maryland to make sure this state continues to be number 1 in terms of helping people with disabilities live the lives they want. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
SECRETARY BEATTY: So, please, let’s do one more round of applause for our speakers today.
(Applause.)
In closing, I would like to thank Governor Hogan for your leadership on these very important issues. Equality and accessibility are just words if we don’t put action behind them. Your actions like today’s Executive Order help us to change Maryland for the better for people with disabilities.
So, as we adjourn, I’d like to ask each of you to commit yourselves to making Maryland more accessible. In the bags that you’ll be receiving, we’ve included some tips to help make your communication — Word documents, e-mails, social media — more accessible. So please take a bag, and take a look at some of the information that’s included, and thank you, and have a wonderful day.
(Applause.)
(End of transcript).