Heather White

Congratulations to Heather White, recipient of the 2014 Fall Quarter Classified Staff Excellence Award! The following is taken from her award nomination:

Heather White is the Program Support Supervisor for Disability Support Services. She has been with the college since 2002.

Heather provides a tremendous service to the community by facilitating communication between hearing and deaf consumers. Heather interprets and provides accessibility for campus events professionally and holds herself to the high standards of skill that she expects from all of her interpreters. Her performance in her work is the very definition of “excellence.”

Heather always has a great attitude. She is compassionate to everyone who comes in seeking help. She takes the time to know the specific needs of the deaf students and the interpreters, and matches the student’s needs with the interpreter’s strengths. What is important to the student is important to Heather.

Heather works to improve our community in many ways. She is involved with the Sign Language Interpreter Program Advisory Committee at Portland Community College and is on the Washington School for the Deaf Post High School Advisory Committee as well as the State Deaf Transfer Fair Local Advisory Committee. She is also on the Commencement committee and provides the interpretation at Commencement to make it accessible to deaf students, faculty, staff and audience members. She has taken on the role of placing interpreters for Washington State University Vancouver and Lower Columbia College.

Heather is a wonderful person to work with and for. Whether someone is a new or veteran interpreter, she makes sure we all feel respected and supported. She always listens actively and attentively and looks at each person as an individual.

Congratulations to all of the fall quarter nominees:

Vanessa Meyer: Vanessa is doing a great job in the department. She pays attention to details and maintains the office and its immediate environment, including the mailroom, elegantly. Vanessa is cheerful, polite and shows courtesy to the faculty. When help is needed, she takes prompt action. Her messages are clear and precise. Everything she does is orderly.
Susan Taylor: Susan is in charge of all admissions at Clark International Programs and she always manages to get everything in order to perfection. She wants to help every person she comes in contact with. Whether it is a student or a co-worker or someone outside of our campus, she is willing to take all the time needed to make you feel comfortable and confident. Susan respects everyone. She is always the bigger person and is always polite, no matter what the situation.
Thor Tesdale: Thor works tirelessly to maintain the interior and exterior appearance of the college. He takes great pride in his work and makes sure the job is completed to satisfaction and on time. Thor prioritizes jobs so that the most pressing deadlines are met first. He is very personable and is willing to “bend” his schedule as much as possible to accommodate the needs of other individuals. Thor’s calm and respectful personality is a beneficial addition to Facilities Services. The personal thank-you notes he has received are additional evidence of his high level of service.

The College Community will celebrate all 2014-2015 nominees and recipients at the Annual Ice Cream Social.

The Classified Staff Excellence Award was established in 2005 and recognizes classified staff who have demonstrated exemplary work performance, outstanding customer service, a positive and cooperative spirit, and special achievements or contributions to the college community. Thanks to the support of the Clark College Foundation, each quarter’s recipient receives a $400 cash award.

Billy Henry began lifting weights as a teenager, an experience he found so empowering that he decided to create a nonprofit dedicated to promoting athletics and physical fitness among the blind and visually impaired.

Cast your mind back to your high school physical education classes and ask yourself: How many of those activities could you have done blindfolded? Basketball? No way. Relay races? Only if someone made significant changes to the way it was organized. Dodgeball? Please.

Small wonder, then, that almost 70 percent of all blind or visually impaired school-aged children in the U.S. never participate in any sort of sport, physical activity, or physical education program. The result is that many miss out on opportunities to boost their confidence, teamwork skills, and both physical and mental health. But thanks to Clark student Billy Henry, all that’s changing in the Pacific Northwest.

Henry, 21, is the executive director of the Northwest Association of Blind Athletes (NWABA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating opportunities for blind and visually impaired people to participate in sports and physical activities. He founded the organization in 2007, when he was all of 15 years old.

Henry, who is legally blind due to a congenital condition called optic nerve hypoplasia, might well have become part of that 70 percent of non-active youth if he hadn’t discovered the sport of powerlifting in his teens. Energized by what he calls the “life-changing” boost in self-confidence and strength provided by competing in this sport, he decided to create the NWABA to share that feeling with other blind and visually impaired people.

“I just saw a real need in the community,” says Henry. “There are a lot of challenges to blind and visually impaired people joining sports and physical activities, and I wanted to give them that opportunity to gain confidence and self-esteem to carry into other parts of their lives.”

The organization started small, with just six people practicing powerlifting in the Henry family’s garage; Henry’s parents would make dinner for the team twice a week. “I got a couple friends to be on the board of directors—it took some arm-twisting,” recalls Henry, who at the time was attending Hudson’s Bay High School. “I sat down with a friend to fill out the 32-page IRS application for 501c3 [nonprofit] status. Fundraising was really challenging. We held a lot of bake sales.”

The effort paid off: Over the next six years, the organization grew in leaps and bounds. In 2012, more than 1,000 blind and visually impaired people participated in NWABA events, which now include activities like judo, tandem cycling, swimming, track and field, skiing, baseball, golf, and an adaptive form of ping pong called showdown. With an operating budget of $150,000, the organization has expanded its reach to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana; this summer, it hosted the 2013 National Goalball Championships, featuring a sport specifically developed for blind and visually impaired athletes.

Clark student Billy Henry became interested in weight lifting while still in high school, in part because the sport allowed him to compete on an even footing with sighted athletes. Here he holds a trophy from the World Association of Benchers and Dead Lifters.

Henry now operates out of an office in downtown Vancouver, which he moved into in the fall of 2010—the same time he enrolled at Clark to study business administration. “I chose Clark because it allowed me to stay local and I knew it had a good reputation for its disability support services,” says Henry. “They’re phenomenal. They’re really experienced with working with blind and visually impaired students and understanding each student’s individual needs.”

Clark College Director of Access Services Tami Jacobs says that the college has a high proportion of students who are blind or visually impaired, in part due to its proximity to the Washington State School for the Blind (just a block away from Clark’s main campus) and its strong working relationship with the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind. Jacobs says she and her staff work hard to provide a welcoming and supportive learning environment for students of all abilities. Jacobs says she has been impressed by Henry’s work ethic, both in class and with the NWABA. “He is driven, passionate, and looks for solutions outside of the box,” she says.

“It’s interesting, because at the nonprofit I get a lot of hands-on learning,” says Henry. “And at the same time I do learn a lot in my business classes that I’ve brought into the nonprofit. Reading financial statements is much easier since I’ve taken Accounting.”

Henry has taken a mix of in-person and online classes, noting that online classes offer certain advantages for the visually impaired. “I struggle with math, and I really like [taking] math classes online because I can go back and watch a video lecture over and over, and get as close to the screen as I want,” he says. “That’s more challenging in a room with a whiteboard. But I also really like the personal interaction that you get in the physical classroom setting.”

Henry expects to graduate from Clark in 2014 and plans to attend Washington State University Vancouver afterward to earn a bachelor’s degree in business. Meanwhile, he plans to continue growing NWABA, even if that means eventually handing the reins over to someone else.

“It’s hard, because I want to keep doing the work,” he says. “But getting my education is very, very important to me as well.”

Eventually, he would like to earn a master’s degree—either in business or in health care administration. When someone mentions that health care organizations could probably benefit from his unique perspective, Henry chuckles softly.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” he says.

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley