FINISHED TRANSCRIPT

USBLN 19TH ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE

ORLANDO, FLORIDAA SECRET POOL OF ELITE JOB CANDIDATES: PARALYMPIANS

PRESENTER: JOHN REGISTER CORDOVA 5 & 6

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016 9:30 A.M. CST

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Caption First, Inc.P.O. Box 3066 Monument, CO 80132 1-877-825-5234 +001-719-481-9835

* * * * *This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

* * * * *

>> All right, folks are -- strap in. A drum fills the screen but the drum sticks are in the feet of the man with no arms. A some-piece swing band joins in.

[Music.] Featuring a one-armed bass player and a blind pianist. A

lead singer in a blue suit performs a spin in a wheelchair.¶ Yes, I can suddenly.>> Lead singer rolls off the stage and onto a road, racing

alongside British Paralympian Hanna.¶ Take a look what do you see?>> Then an athlete with one leg jumps an impressive high

jump.Striking images of people doing things with their feet, from

a mother lifting her baby, to a man doing donuts in a car around the bend.

¶ Yes, I can.>> A series of wheelchair users and dancers to wheelchair

rugby players who collide. Ouch!¶ I can!>> The singer rolls into a black and white scene complete

with graceful amputee tap dancers, a pianist with partially formed arms, tap dancing prosthetic legs, and a chorus line of

girls elegantly displaying their stumps. The singer dons a crash helmet and smashes through the set wall. A status pistol, Paralympic sprinters racing.

A rock band appears in the middle of a wheelchair basketball game.

A guitarist with one hand rocks out while the lead guitarist plays a solo with his feet.

App blind footballer lifts a finger to his lips.Blind footballers score a goal. Back in the net.¶ Yes, I can.>> A series of people shout yes, I can while showing their

abilities including Paralympic and psychist. David, a pilot with no arms, a Jim Niss with the one hand, a graduate with Down's Syndrome, a ballerina with a prosthetic league, a deaf signer, and a break dancer. Did you get all that?

A career adviser talks to a boy in a wheelchair. "No, you can't."

Yes, I can!The boy is now a Paralympic rugby player and crashes into an

opponent.Marshal artist kicking asker. And then children using

prosthetic limbs at home and school. The band plays at the top of a mega ramp in a stadium as a man in a wheelchair performs a death defying stunt. And a man with partially formed arms brushes his teeth.

¶ Can!>> Super humans, Rio 2016 Paralympics. Channel 7, the

UK Paralympic broadcaster. That's just awesome.[Silence.]>> One minute.>> Let's take 15 more seconds and begin to wrap it up. 15

more seconds.5, 4, 3, 2, 1, let's bring it back, bring it back, bring it

back, bring it back now.Who would like to be a spokesperson for each one of your

tables to talk about what you discussed? And then we have some thoughts that we would like to interject a little bit later. Who wants to go first? Go ahead, yes. We will run a mic to you. Thank you.

>> Hi, Andrea from General Motors. We kind of decided as a combination of both. I mean, to outsiders, it often looks like super human feats, put to those with the disabilities, it's day-to-day life for them.

I have a daughter who's paraplegic and she's actually I want to talk to you later, Illiana, because she's trying to train for the Paralympics in 2020 with swim. I experience a lot of parents that are overly impressed I think sometimes and praising her for

day-to-day activities like "look at her get in the car buy herself." But to her it's just daily life. It's how she lives. She lives differently. But then there's other things that she does that even as her mother seem like super human sometimes.

>> Very good. Thank you. Who else?>> We absolutely agreed with that. And I actually used the

term dangerous, but I really believe that. I believe it is risky. And we all agreed with this, to categorize people who -- people with disabilities as either heroic or as victims. These people are exceptional because, as Danielle put it, exceptional human beings doing exceptional feats not because they are people with disabilities doing exceptional feats. So we saw a combination, which was really cool, I think, of everyday things along with extraordinary feats. And the people doing everyday things are everyday people who are adaptable. The people who are super athletes like you guys are super athletes. Not because you have disabilities.

>> Very good. Thanks, Lori. Who else?We got two more tables to go. You're not getting off the

hookup here, Chris, just to let you know.[Laughter]>> So just to piggyback. So similar; however, we were

chatting. So obviously the relative. Like, okay, the Paralympic athlete to Paralympic, super human compared to? Well, no. Obviously Olympic athletes, they're all gifted. So in general Olympic athletes? Yeah, I think in some ways I think of them as super human. But the relative side of things maybe not.

But it's interesting because we looked at the video, too, and it's like this is for branding, for marketing, to build some enthusiasm. So in that regard I see the point to get some energy around it.

>> Very good, thank you. What's your name again?>> Oh, John.>> JOHN REGISTER: Good name. Great name. Awesome name.

Strong name. We love that name.[Laughter]>> I'm Margaret from Barilla. I think we are all having the

same conversations. I think it's in the necessarily a label of super human, it's really who are you as a person and what is your drive and what is your passion? I think people do X games and I think that's insane. But if you have that competitive drive, that passion, that spirit, that talent that I certainly don't have and you want to go after that and go for that gold, it's just remarkable opportunity. And to your point earlier, John, I wish I had seen any hype with what the Paralympians are doing because I think it's a big miss.

>> JOHN REGISTER: Thank you. I think we are hitting around the same theme. And that's great observations.

Before we take it to the workplace, I want to talk to our two athletes a little bit about this question because they get hit with it, I know, a lot. But either be being quote/unquote the inspiration or the other side of the coin, the super human.

So what, Illiana, do you feel about that video when you hear "super human” and how do you relate it to the work that you're doing now?

>> Illiana: Well, I think -- (feedback).Whoa. I think I'm very loud right now.[Laughter]I don't see myself as super human. I just see myself as

someone that had a goal, had a dream and I went after it.If my life, I, as you can see my accent is very British,

right? I was born in Cuba. So coming to the United States was my first challenge. Honestly, I went through the same thing like any other kid that didn't speak the language would go through. So I was this kid that took a year to learn English in high school and I had my goals of going to college, so I put a big effort to make it to college.

And then, yes, a lot of times I'm seeing oh my God, how did she do it? I studied like my brother and my sister did and I put the effort as my brother and my sister did and I made it happen.

And that's how I see myself. Yes, I have big dreams, but if you have big dreams, just go after them whether you are walking, not walking, you don't have sight or you have sight, you can speak or you cannot hear. (feedback)

I think that's how I see myself. So I don't know.>> JOHN REGISTER: We'll go to Jason.>> Jason: One of the things that I think about when I think

about this is with cycling, I have the opportunity, I lived and trained in Tuscon.

>> ERIK: Which was great for it's a cycling mecca -- Tuscon, Arizona. It's a cycling Mecca. People come from all over the world, professional cycling.

With cycling I was able to race against Paralympians in Paralympian events with a sighted pilot who's a person in front and a blind or visually impaired stoker, the person in the back. Outside of that, I had the opportunity to race around the United States against able-bodied individuals both on single bikes and on tandem bikes. And for me that was the great equalizer, to be honest, I'm more proud of my competition in the national championships I have able-bodied because it's one of those things that for me it demonstrates and shows that when I raced and I was on the bike, I was just another racer out there to kick everybody's butt. No different than anyone else.

And so for me, you know, whatever, I think the fastest, there's a question. What do you think the fastest speed I've ever been on a bike? On a tandem. 63? Anything else?

>> 100.[Laughter]>> Jason: Yeah, 68. 68.7, yeah. Coming down a mountain,

yeah.>> About 100-kilometers. Pretty crazy.>> Jason: And so for me, that, again, is just about the

wind blowing and being out there and able to compete where otherwise for me a tandem was my equalizer, think about it. Otherwise I can't on a single bike. I crashed at 28 miles per hour. Ran into the back of a parked dump truck that was parked in a no parking zone and the cars behind said "it must have been, not knowing my situation, it must have been a suicide" because I was unconscious. That's the police report was, he just went all out into the back of the parked dump truck. So that was the last time I was on a single bike in 1988.

But for me, the other interesting thing about the super human comment is that I haven't heard anyone talk about it yet was comments I'm hearing about from other individuals with disabilities that aren't athletic, that haven't done anything athletic, and what does that mean about others? And it's a very interesting conversation. You know, does it mean "I'm not super human," why, to me it's a very interesting conversation and it was really neat to hear everyone else's perspective. But it's one of those things that can be talked about for a very long time.

>> JOHN REGISTER: The interesting thing about this as we kind of turn it to the business model is what John said, right? When you look at what Great Britain has done with that kind of super human campaign is they've created a model of awareness that they can now begin to talk about some of the issues that may have been taboo in their country. In 2007 I had the great opportunity to go to Hedley Court and teach the Brits kind of their own game because they were the one who started Paralympic sport in the first place. But with our military veterans coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq, we were beginning to have a conversation about how we could get more of those British injured soldiers engaged in sports opportunities. They wanted to get back to healthy and active lifestyle. The whole country was to the way we were with the American soldier in Vietnam. So they were trying to figure out a way they could shift the model. And channel 4 which one the contract to do the rights began all these campaigns of showing disability and having it at the forefront as a conversation piece and not to be afraid of it.

In fact, they had a show that I used to really try to get

home to every single night, 10:00 in the evening time, it was called, "the last leg." If you know British humor ...

And it was everything taboo about what people were afraid to ask in disability. How can we have those type of conversations? I mean, it was no holds barred and it was the funniest show that was on British TV. It just really launched them into this incredible aspect of where the entire country was behind these Paralympic athletes. So they had a chance to shift the conversation. And the shift of the conversation went from this what's called the "what" to "wow,” which is maybe a doctor telling a person that's at the bedside "you'll never be able to walk again, you'll never be able to do the things that you ever did” because they don't have, as Jason was saying, the insight of having been in that situation. All they know is the trajectory of the patient that they have been dealing with in the past. So then they forecast their fears onto that individual to say that you can or cannot do based upon what they think they can or cannot do if they were in that situation.

The second thing is the wow, oh my gosh, you can do it. It's amazing. You just did a fricking 300-foot jump in a wheelchair and you stuck it, you landed it, that's amazing, that's incredible, that's super human. So we go to the other end of the spectrum.

And I think what the Brits were able to do, they were able to get us back to with those pushes, with those attitude changes from the what to wow to the why and the how. They were able to take it to the next level.

And the why is because we had all these attitudes, these attitudinal barriers that were holding us back, that continue to hold us back. The reason why companies don't hire people with disabilities, you got a face in the room, because they don't look like they can do the job. That's one of the reasons. Why is it since the ADA we are still at over 70 percent of unemployment in this community? Because we embrace them? No. It's because we have attitudinal, prejudicial barriers that are hindering us from doing it. You all are the ones in the room that have drunk the Kool-Aid. It's preaching to the choir. But the choir has to go out now and become evangelists because when you leave this conference, you're going to have those same walls and barriers and attitudes that you have to be able to help your teams discover to say that it's not the what. It's not the Wow. We're going to get to how we'll get things done.

And the how is through the handshakes, we're doing to become reciprocal. We have to walk a mile in someone else's shoes, possibly. It goes from this as myth of a line of sight from tolerance, which are hierarchical if I say to you I tolerate you, it doesn't feel too good. Today I will accept you. I will

accept you today. What about yesterday? What about tomorrow?But if I say I value you and I appreciate your comments,

thank you so much for sharing, each one of you. Now we're on the same level. And we got to get our coworkers, the people that we're leading, to understand that it's a value-to-value proposition. Our company will be better once we have that value and not be hierarchical. We use the wrong terms. We use the wrong terminology. And we have to be able to call those things out.

So we heard Illiana's story. That was that placeholder to are her. We know about her. And we heard Jason's story, so we will fly by that slide, as well. But I want you to hear Dr. Harry Edwards. And what he talks about in Sustainable Change. Dr. Edwards is a psychologist with the San Francisco 49ers. I had a chance to speak with him a couple years ago at the NFL. We did a diversity inclusion forum up at their headquarters. And I find him really interesting. I'll see if we can get this one up and get him to talk.

>> Well, I think that there are three things that we have to understand. But first of all we have to understand nothing happens, nothing changes as a consequence of it being right or being constitutional or it being moral. Things change because of a combination of factors, particularly in terms of inclusion and diversity. One is a dependable, competent pop line of prospects to fill positions -- pipeline.

The second is an ongoing pervasive demand, sometimes rooted in morality and constitutional edicts and so forth, but that demand has to be there.

And the third thing, which is perhaps even more critical, is that there has to be a compelling need or a compelling interest on the part of the entity that is being pushed to make change. Because if there is not that compelling interest, if there is not that compelling need, then any changes made will probably be nominal. They'll probably be short-term. And they'll probably be, for the most part, be undefensible.

>> JOHN REGISTER: So, a sustainability change model, to summarize what Dr. Edwards was saying, a dependable and developed pipeline of talent. Do we have that in Paralympic sport? Do we have a group of individuals, a group of athletes who are ready to come into the workforce? We're going to take a look at that. A pervasive demand. Somebody is crying out to say do you know what? This talent needs to go some place.

A group or entity, maybe he satisfied in a law or edict. But as we know, in the last thing, a law or edict doesn't necessarily create change. It creates it maybe in the law books but we know that we're still over 70 percent it's not being enacted in society. So how, then, do we actually take that and

see if there is a pipeline of talent in this case in Paralympic sport. So we look at the dependable pipeline of talent. Before the athletes went down to Rio de Janeiro, I did a quick survey, snapshot survey, so some of the -- I'll explain some of the numbers here in a second. And as everyone went through what's called our team USA ambassador program, I asked a series of questions. Where did they go to school? Did you go to school? Did you graduate from school?

And I had the schools -- and what degree program were you in the you were in school? So of the 267 athletes that we had on the team that went through and answered the survey questions, and some of these will be duplicated because if somebody had a doctorate, I did count them having a master's and if they indicated a master's and an associates and some even a Bachelor's degree. Some had all four. So I did count that. So the numbers are to give you the plus or minus on that for you.

But 165 of our athletes have Bachelor's degree. 165. How many are shocked by that number? Over half of our team have bachelors. I was shocked by that when I saw the numbers.

55 of them are in programs that have Master's degrees already. There are a lot more that are actually in Master's programs right now.

12 have Doctorates, I think that's right? I'm colorblind. Thank you.

So you can see with the pie chart that there is a dependable developed pipeline of talent. And these are only the ones that went to the Rio de Janeiro games.

A lot of these athletes are going to retire. And I would say, and Illiana and probably Jason would say, all of them are thinking about retiring right now because of the workload that they had to do to get to those games. Every athlete goes through this kind of off-the-cliff, I'm done, I'm never going to do this ever again in my life. Michael Phelps went through that. And then he came back. You have to get away from the sport just for a minute because you're so focused, and we'll talk about some of the transferable skills that athletes have in a minute.

Here are just some of the dependable pipeline of job skills that in degree programs that they've gone with. I've taken a snapshot list. Some are in multiple. Like with anthropology there were two. Communications there were six. Business there were 10 plus. So they have some crossover, as well.

But, you know, when you look at some special education, exercise science, psychology, sports medicine, elementary education, naval architecture, all these are degree programs that most of the time when I go to HR folks, they're not thinking in these terms when it comes to people with disabilities. They have this variety of skill set.

Now, if an applicant gets an application in, gets the résumé in and they don't know that they're a person with a disability, they go to the top of the heap, I need that person in. But as soon as somebody either wheels in or comes in that's visually impaired or has an amputation, "can you do the job"? Well, we got to be asking the question a different way. So I want to begin for us to think about how we start framing and asking those questions before we start wrapping up with of how to access this developing the pipeline of talent.

The pervasive demand is of the 267 athletes, we've -- it's growing. Now, there are a lot of athletes that are participating in wheelchair basketball that are in college right now. It's probably the most developed sport. But the university at the NCAA level, they're not actually competing for an Alabama or an Illinois, even though they're wearing that uniform, they're in special services or in disability services or some other type of club program. So it's not on equal footing, but it's growing. It's getting there. We're trying to enact those laws of the Office of Civil Rights and saying that kids K-12 need to be parallelled with their peer group because they learn such value through sport.

So I'm going to take a pause right there. Get to Illiana. And Illiana's story because she has some really good comments on this.

>> Illiana: Yeah, I went to Florida international university. And it's funny how I started swimming in the U.S. I swam as a kid. And I stopped swimming because I wanted to be a ballet dancer. So when I stopped walking, I told my parents that the only thing I knew that I could still do, and I would be the same as my brother and sister, was swimming.

So I made them to take me to the beach in October in Cuba. Nobody does that. It's too cold, right? So when I came to the United States, the high school coach for swimming, I just met him in the hallway. And he asked me to join the team because he had heard that I knew how to swim. And I told him that I couldn't because I didn't walk. So I was myself stopping right there because I didn't know because that's the mindset that I had, right? And he looked at me and said I'm asking you to swim. I'm not asking you to walk. If you can do the 500-meter right now. I need somebody to finish that race so we can get the points and I heard that you swim long distance. So I just want you to come and give it a try. And that's how I started swimming.

So when I went to college, I wanted to keep on swimming. I wanted to keep on, you know, being in the water was great for me. And I really wanted to go to Paralympic games because one of the coaches in the pool that I used to train at came over to my mom and told her that I had, you know, a talent, and that he thought

that I could make it to Paralympic team.And my mom looked at him like, you know, I'm working. My

mom was working as a bakery. We barely had any -- it was just the two of us in the United States trying to bring the rest of the family over. We really had no time, no money, no nothing to be able to my mom pay for anything. This guy offered for me to do it for free. My mom's like seriously, I cannot take her to the other end of the city every single day for training. I really can't. And I look at him and I said do you know what? I have to win a scholarship and try to maintain it because that's the only way I'm going to be able to go through college.

So this whole swimming has to end here. So I left the pool for two years. But I really wanted to do it. So I went to the university coach and I asked her just for time in the pool. I didn't ask to join the team. I did not ask anything. And the answer was: You do not do real swimming.

Three years later, because of life goes around, right? Three years later, I was on the front page of the university because I was the only athlete that had made it to that level of sports. And it was a very interesting story because at that point, they wanted me to be the FIU athlete that made it. And I would always -- I even remember writing back to the newspaper and saying "please, you need to make a correction there because I'm not an FIU athlete. I'm an FIU student and I'm proud of that. But I'm not an FIU athlete. I am an athlete of Flying Fish Swimming."

[Laughter]Which was a very, like, not known club in the city. But

that was the club that pushed me to the level that I accomplished. So I think it's important for universities to start looking beyond the disability, right?

>> [Inaudible]>> Was there any followup with the University once -- I

mean, did they come back and say will you represent us? Did the coach contact you? Was there any?

>> Illiana: They were supportive if I say something different after I made it to that level. After I made it to that level, they sponsored one of my meets. They paid for trials for me to be able to go to trials. And they were really like helping me afterwards. And they were very -- I moved to Colorado Springs to be able to train with the national team. And they even allowed me to finish my Master's in Colorado while I was still going to school in Florida. So they made accommodations for me to be able to finish.

So after I made it to that level, they recognized that actually I was worth investing on, you know? And I think that that's something. And it is a changer. I'm pretty sure that the

next one that comes this is not going to be looked the same way that they looked at me, and I hope.

>> JOHN REGISTER: Go ahead.>> In cycling, my experience was a little bit of the

opposite. I had because all cyclists are really crazy to begin with when you're coming down a mountain at 58 miles per hour and you're passing cars on the other side, but mine was the opposite where in the cycling circles, everyone wanted me on their team. And it was within the circles it was like "yeah, don't view him as a blind guy because he's just going to kick everybody's butt" kind of thing. So it was really unique.

And before I became known, it was also, like, there were lots of tandems, couples as well as men/men and women/women especially in a cycling Mecca community and with racers, and I know could finish a race, walk around with my cane. And people are like you got to be kidding me. Because they knew me as cyclist Jason on the back of the bike. They didn't know me as visually impaired Jason walking around.

So for my experience was kind of different in that. And to me that's what it was all about. That really motivated me because for me, I was just another athlete out there, like I said, trying to kick people's butts.

>> JOHN REGISTER: So how do we take that conversation from Jason, Illiana and that we have these three incredible ladies on the screen right now from University of Illinois, Tatiana MacFadden, Chelsea McLemore and I'm blanking on the third girl's name. Anyway, they won gold, silver, bronze. They're all from the University of Illinois. So it was an Illini sweep and a U.S. sweep in their -- and they did it twice. They all have degrees. The one on the left is a doctor. And yet they can't -- they're finding it difficult to get hired.

But when you talk about competitive advantage, they just beat the world. They're the best. So when you look at the market and your own businesses and who your competition is, don't you want the best that know how to get it done on your team?

So what I want you to do is for the next -- we'll do for the next three minutes, again, at your tables, I want you to think about the actionable steps now, the hows of what you can take back. Maybe one, maybe two things of good ideas that you might be able to act upon once you get back to your companies to see how to turn the table from being surprised that you have an Illiana on your team or the, the opposite, we're clamoring for a Jason to come on the team. Where's that happy medium? So everybody has a culture around abilities. All right? So let's go. On the count of three. One, two, three, start talking about it. Is it clear? Clear as mud? Do I need to say it again?

Let's wrap it up, people. 30 seconds.

15 seconds.All right. What did we learn? Let's go around once again.

We'll do three tables and we'll just see if we can capture some of the information. I have my recorder going so I want to make sure we're capturing some of this information. All right, the back table first. John's table. Let's see what they have come up with.

>> Did I need like three bullets?>> JOHN REGISTER: 10 double spaced.>> Jason, thanks for hopping over and adding to the dialogue

here. Am I on? Can you hear me? Try it again. Really? I don't hear anything different. So we had a good conversation. I think one of the things was -- well first mind blowing. So how do we see these three girls up there that aren't getting a job? First infuriates, the hell out of us that people are saying no to them. But on the other side we're thinking is it a marketing opportunity for our companies to say, hey, we have an opportunity. Is it a sourcing capability? So are we working with the right companies to get this talent in? Because at the end of the day, we may not be seeing it. I think of that commercial, the student in a wheelchair, the principal, whomever, was talking to them saying no, you can't do it, right? I'm not experiencing that. I'm thinking well I'm not even seeing these folks. So where's the gap? And that's what we don't have an answer to and where we'd love to further understand.

>> Hi, I'm Kristen from ESPN. We talked a lot about how do you prepare your organization for candidates who are coming in with disabilities? Because I think a lot of it starts with your managers and the teams who are interviewing. And they need to be comfortable in order for this to be successful. And so at ESPN we do a lot of training for our managers, we do unconscious bias training because I think there's people out there that don't even recognize they have biases. It's just from their upbringing and their backgrounds.

>> [Inaudible] (off mic).Carry on. (off mic).>> Okay. (laughing).People need real advocacy. You got to be willing to take

risk. You got to be willing to speak up and fight for the candidates, fight for the folks that you know. And I'm seeing you got to focus inside your organization and make them strong because how can you bring somebody in and they not feel protected? You're not going to keep them. If your organization is not welcoming in no way, why would you want to come in a place and even say that you have a disability? Then if you have a visible disability, that can be an issue, too, so you have to have real advocacy there to make it happen, in my opinion.

And with certain training, think about training. It lasts for that day. (feedback).

And then you go right back to your same old ways if you're not challenged, if you don't follow up. How has your organization changed since you had unconscious bias?

(feedback).>> JOHN REGISTER: Anyone else?>> Want to follow on the learning conversation. (feedback).And what struck me being reflected what I can do tomorrow

because that was the challenge, right? Is [Inaudible] including very specific module on ability inclusion. And what struck me was the phrase was we lost people and the appliance and the process and do that and competitions. And to make the learning stick is to tell a story about people. And that could take it with them and carry them. How to deliver the module and the important messages around the process but attach it to real people. And share some of the stories here. Whether internal or not. Internal could be more powerful. If it would be saying we should tell more stories and feature something on corporate communication site. Here's someone who's disabled and they're incredibly successful. That's great. Remember that. And then what do we do with that? So if you can creep that into the learning.

>> JOHN REGISTER: Very good. Go ahead, Jason.>> Jason: I was just going to say that that that's what a

lot of companies are doing, and we heard through all the sessions over the last several days whether it be with disability self-identification or whether it be through the disability employee resource groups of stories. I like to use the word sell, of course we're not selling something. But the stories really stick because, again, it puts a focus on ability. It increases awareness and all those things. And so we see a lot of campaigns, whether it's again through DNI or through self-identification or others that are really using those. And those are really powerful within -- for a lot of the companies.

>> This is Lori Goldman. We haven't met yet, Jason. But at any rate, we do that a lot at EY in a lot of different formats. Showing the group we are a sponsor of -- to create internal excitement around our sponsorship and really get our abilities, messages cross instead of focusing that much on the Olympics, we focused on the paras. And we focused by having two individuals who are adaptive athletes at EY tell their stories of adaptive athletics, what it means to them. And then connect that with the paras and what the firm has been sponsored of -- USA. And we showed it firm wide. And we will put those also on our public site if people want to see them. But that's just kind of one small snippet of how you increase exposure to get people talking.

So the storytelling is really, really powerful. Identify the stories within your organization. And Thursday often stories we have of a person on our teams with us whose young daughter has CP and is involved in adaptive athletics. And that's a really cool story about what this means to her and her daughter. And it's not our employee. It's the future.

So you never know what stories are in your organization, in families and with connections. And you may be able to tell those, too.

>> JOHN REGISTER: Yes.>> Illiana: It's interesting because now that I work for

HKS Architects, before I applied there, I came back from the sports and I didn't know where to even start, right? So I got this job with this very, it's a great company, right? And my boss today, they had never hired someone with a disability before. But I landed this because of sports because I met an architect that worked for the company at an event that I was invited as an athlete. And he called the office in Miami when I was living in Miami. Okay, I have this person and I would love to hire her. And that's how I got in. After three years that I've been with the company, I'm in Houston now and my boss, before going to Rio, came to me and said "if you find any other athlete that is wanting to work and you know is an architect and is worth bringing it along, please, doesn't matter which office, we can try to place them."

So I think there's a result of you can have people that are worth hiring beyond their disabilities. And I've been part of groups winning projects, like going to presentations to win projects for the company. And that's where we leave off.

So I think that's a positive impact.>> JOHN REGISTER: So, I'm going to wrap because we got like

six minutes left but I want to hear your comments.>> Just a comment that I think that's fantastic. I think

that's something that as employers I'm very interested. Bloomberg. When I go back -- who are these champions in our company? Who is that person that kind of pulled me by the hand and say I want you in the company, come on in. Sure you interviewed and everything else but you sold your core competencies, you sold what you were really, really good at, competitiveness and everything else. You didn't have the exact background with I'm sure the particular job, right? But the bottom line that you sold your gift, your strengths.

And I think that that's where employers, we get hung up sometimes. Trying to have all the checks and all the boxes. Versus looking at their real strengths. And of course skill sets that are transferable to any jobs. So just more a comment. I love that. But that's exactly when I go back to the company, I

have to find that advocate and I have to really start to have this discussion to advertise to kind of create that awareness. And let's focus on talent. Pure talent versus these other great things.

>> JOHN REGISTER: Exactly. So I want to jump ahead a little bit. Thank you for that discussion. That was amazing discussion. So here's how to activate with inside of U.S. Paralympics and the Olympic family. We have an athlete career and education called the ACE Program. It's just getting off the ground right now. The athletes are all going to do their White House visit next week. And this program will always -- always acts around the White House visit when that comes up, Olympic and Paralympic, summer and winter games. And I'll read it for those that can't see it in the room. The United States Olympic committee's ace program strives to provide team USA athletes with the resources and tools to encourage sustained, competitive excellence and a successful transition from the athletic to the professional careers while strengthening their ties to the Olympic movement.

And so we do this in two different areas, right? Because athletes are in training and they're trying to find jobs at the same time because we're not government-funded. So it's all private dollars that are supporting our athletes.

So as we've heard before, there were companies that are engaging, like EY with athletes who are giving them a check to go out and advance that cause and cause relation. So we have other companies, BP is another company, BMW is another one, you may have seen the BMW ads and commercials that were on. And those companies have said the Paralympic brand is more valuable to them than the Olympic brand. They want more Paralympians than they wanted Olympians. So the brand is starting to shift.

And then the other part is when the athletes actually transition. So what are some of those transferable skills that we heard so eloquently put? So results-oriented. I said that earlier.

But performing under pressure, when the pressure's on, think about all the times you've seen a game where the personal line and you put yourself in a situation, what would you do? You're the armchair quarterback and you're trying to figure out what you would do. They have to do it in the moment when it's on the line after eight years of training on the day and they're trying to become the best in the world. They're coach and.

We had another, I do a lot of training around storytelling, right? How athletes can tell their story. And then connect their story to the audience. And not only connect it to the audience but then take actionable steps so that there's some tangible things, that are take-aways from that organization.

There have been some groups that came in that were trying to teach some skills that didn't understand how fast athletes understand and get concepts and can put it back because they're very coachable.

We talked a little bit about the inspiration. But the conquering of adversity. Adversity happens all the time. It's just not for the Olympic or Paralympic athlete. It happens in all of our businesses. And you want somebody that's in there that has the skill set that can -- is not going to give up when we are talking in the military the first shot is fired, right? You act on the plan. And you stay steady on the course because the outcome's going to be driven for that outcome.

We talked a little bit about the athletes needing to work in both of those two realms of training as well as when they do their career transition. And so these are those two slides that represent that.

Here is the next steps. You can provide team USA athletes with opportunity to pursue their career track while training/competing. We're looking for those partnerships right now. Because it's not just a partner family of who is kind of touching the brand of the United States Olympic committee and those athletes; it's also on the global scale, as well, because many of your companies are global companies. We want to make sure that there's an aggregate of folks. And I think that might be a great research project for me to do is find out just as with our U.S. Paralympic athletes that went to the games, what the global landscape looks like, as well, for those that have talent.

And then identifying those jobs in the transition for them. What are the transferable skills that your companies might need?

The person that's heading up this program, her name is Leslie Klein and her contact information is right there on the screen. You can get to her through me or you can contact her directly and just reference that you heard about this at the U.S. BLN conference. She's frantically putting together her conference for when they go to Washington, D.C. next week. For those that cannot see it. It's Leslie.klein@usoc.org. Of course we lost one of those sponsors on the other side, Dick sporting goods has gone out of business. 719-866-3184. Is her direct line. Anybody need to see that again?

Okay. One short video to end us out. Question in the back?>> (off mic).There is a way to connect since we hire people -- get

connected -->> JOHN: So the Olympic Committee is in Bonn, Germany,

Copenhagen is the other one that supports the Olympics. And Sir Philip Craven and their staff, Chavy Gonzalez, are the leads for that. I will get you the contact information. Hold on a second.

>> Contact information afterwards.>> JOHN REGISTER: So we can talk about it on the global

scale. All right, thank you. Thanks for reminding me about the question.

(video).¶>> Come on, guys, get back to the baseline! Too slow!(coach yelling).>> Get a move on, now!>> Come on! You look like a poodle, not a Rottweiler.>> These are all adds lets doing things at the training

session.>> Run!>> Two of the players.>> Your buddy should be on that plane.>> You lazy. (screaming).>> Coach is yelling at athletes.>> You're fast. You're beautiful. That is nothing can stop

you. You're made of metal.>> Do it again.>> 10 more reps, let's go.>> Get back in the pool. [Music.]>> JOHN REGISTER: And just like sports doesn't care who you

are, neither should the workplace. That's the presentation. Thank you so much. You're awesome!

[Applause.]Give it up for Illiana and for Jason, so eloquently adding

to the conversation.[Applause.]I'll stick around for a few minutes if anybody has any

additional questions. And then we'll wrap. So thank you so much.

>> How do we get a copy of that PowerPoint?>> JOHN REGISTER: I'll send the deck. So my email address,

if you're wanting it is John.register@usoc.org. Send me an email, I'll send you the deck.(end of session)

* * * * *This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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