Having the courage to be at the right place at the right time pays
career dividends for blind-from-birth Kerri Laman
by Kerri Laman as told to Katharine Hansen
Kerri Laman has been blind since birth. "I was a premature baby
weighing only 1 lb., 7 oz.," says the 25-year-old, who grew up in
Colorado. Her earliest ambition was to be a meteorologist. Up until
her last year of college at Colorado State University, she wanted to
be a teacher "until I figured out I didn't really want to teach kids
anymore," she recalls.
Kerri doesn't hesitate when asked who was the single biggest
influence on the direction of her career. "That is easy," she says.
"The biggest influence was my first guide dog, Gina. If I hadn't
traveled to Columbus, OH, and Pilot Dogs [a non-profit organization
that trains dogs in a "seeing-eye" capacity] to receive her, I
wouldn't have discovered I liked this city so much, and wouldn't have
moved here to find a job! So I owe it all to Gina!"
Indeed, after receiving her bachelor's degree in human development
and family studies, Kerri decided she did not want to live in
Colorado, but instead in Ohio, where she had received all of her
guide dogs.
"While in Colorado," Kerri notes, "I had been working with Colorado's
Division of Vocational Rehabilitation so they could help me find a
job after I was finished with school. They informed me they could not
help me find a job in Ohio because they lacked the resources that
Ohio rehab would have.
"But Ohio rehab informed me I would have to live in Ohio before they
could provide services to me," Kerri says. "So you can see why I was
anxious to move to Ohio."
"Moving to Ohio without a job was tricky, though, and luckily I had a
friend who said I could move in with her until I found a job," Kerri
relates. If Gina the guide dog was Kerri's initial inspiration, her
Columbus friend who allowed Kerri to move in with her gave Kerri her
luckiest break.
Once she had moved, Kerri began working with "a wonderful vocational
rehabilitation counselor" under the Bureau for Services for the
Visually Impaired. "She referred me to a small job-training service
[Greenleaf JTS, Inc.] that works exclusively with people with
disabilities," Kerri recalls. "I became a consumer, and they began
working with me to help me look for a job.
"My job developer and I met each week, filling out applications, and
following up job leads, with not a whole lot of luck," Kerri says.
"Then one day she came in and said, 'How would you like to work for
us?' I was ecstatic! Here was my dream job! I would get to not only
work with adults, but also build a program from the ground up!"
Kerri does indeed attribute her success to being in the right place
at the right time, but also to having the right qualifications and an
extremely helpful support team.
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Kerri's Vital Statistics:
Age: 24
Place of birth: Denver, CO
Education: Bachelor of Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
Current location: Columbus, OH
Current job title: In-house Trainer, Green Leaf Job Training Services
Marital status: Single
Favorite movie: "Render: Spanning Time" featuring Ani DiFranco
Latest book read: A Gift of Dragons, by Anne McCaffrey
Favorite book: Annie On My Mind, by Nancy Garden
Interests/hobbies: Figure skating, reading, listening to music, Internet
communication
Favorite TV show: Survivor, ER, Big Brother
Favorite food: Kit Kats, popcorn shrimp, steak, potatoes cooked in any way
Favorite Web site: Any Web site having to do with Ani DiFranco
Favorite magazine: Readers Digest, Guitar Player
Biggest thrill: Doing a Lutz jump (in figure skating) successfully
Personal philosophy: "Listen to your head, listen to your dreams, and follow
your heart."
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She considers moving to Columbus and making it successfully -- "even
when people told me I wouldn't be able to do it" -- to be her
proudest accomplishment.
In her job as an in-house trainer, Kerri guides consumers through
five of eight modules: Occupation Finder, Budgeting, How to Market
Yourself, Interviewing Skills, Mock Interviews, Community Resources,
Empowerment Training, and How to Locate Jobs. The class runs for
three hours five afternoons a week.
Her goal is to get the program publicized throughout the Columbus
area and make it as strong a program as it can be. "I would like to
see me teaching the maximum number of classes, and I would also like
to develop more programs in the future."
What else would she do if she had no obstacles in her way? "I love
this job and wouldn't trade it for the world," she says. "But if I
could somehow do this job and help the trainers at Pilot Dogs
work with the dogs, that would be really cool!"
Kerri says the job is working out extremely well. "My co-workers are
great. We laugh, because isn't it ironic that the very people that
were supposed to help me look for a job ended up offering me one!
That doesn't happen very often!" In fact, it is her terrific working
relationship with her colleagues that inspires her advice for young
people just starting out in their careers: "You don't know everything
the first day you walk in, and you won't know everything even 20
years down the line. Use your co-workers as team members."
To read lots more about Kerri, her figure skating, her guide dogs,
how she communicates on the Internet, and more,
visit her Web site.
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