AAPD Board Members and Officers Announced
August 15, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mariana V. Nork
(202) 457-0046

WASHINGTON, DC- The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), a national membership organization dedicated to promoting the economic and political empowerment of all people with disabilities, announces its Board for the coming year. A slate of candidates was presented by the AAPD Nominating Committee to all active AAPD members to fill six open board positions; all active AAPD members received ballots and were invited to cast their votes.

The following six individuals were elected by the AAPD membership to serve terms of three years each, commencing July 1, 2003: Marilyn Hamilton, Vice President, Global Planning & Strategic Services at Sunrise Medical, Fresno, California; Lynn Rivers, former member of Congress from Ann Arbor, Michigan; Debra Robinson, Treasurer and former President of Speaking for Ourselves (SFO), Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania; Cheryl Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin, co-chair of AAPD's annual Leadership Gala; Michael Takemura, Director of the Hewlett-Packard Accessibility Program Office, Houston, Texas; and Tony Young, Chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, Washington, DC.

Hamilton, an AAPD Board member since 1998, has been a driving force for positive change in society for 24 years, after an accident left her paralyzed. Unhappy with existing technology, in 1979 and with two hang-gliding friends, she began manufacturing Quickie wheelchairs out of a California garage.

In addition to earning pioneer status revolutionizing the wheelchair industry, Hamilton has won numerous honors as a recognized business leader, longtime disability advocate and Paralympic sports champion. Today, she works as Vice President of Global Planning and Strategic Services for Sunrise Medical, who purchased Quickie.

Hamilton leads an Ambassador Outreach Program; founded WOW, an organization that helps children through socialization and education; drives the development of innovative mobility technology; and speaks at hundreds of rehabilitation centers and hospitals and to providers and the public across the globe, changing attitudes and creating awareness. She was a foundation trustee of The California Endowment (TCE), where she influenced a disability agenda that resulted in TCE providing funding of several millions to disability organizations.

Her story has been featured in three books, Companies with a Conscience, No Pity and Women Business Leaders, and on television specials, including 60 Minutes, CBS This Morning and PBS People in Motion.

A first-time nominee to the AAPD Board, Rivers served one term in the Michigan House of Representatives and four terms as a Democratic congresswoman from Ann Arbor, Michigan. She used her position in Congress to educate the public about her personal experience with bi-polar disorder and has always believed that by speaking out she can "change the face of mental illness." She first spoke publicly about her more than twenty years of experience with manic-depressive illness in the final days of her 1994 campaign, when a caller to a radio show asked her if she'd ever had a problem with depression, to which she responded, "Absolutely! Millions and millions of people do."

Rivers was named "legislator of the year" by the National Mental Health Association, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Senior Alliance Area Agency on Aging. In addition, she was given the "Disability Awareness Award" by the Education Accessibility Services and the "Home Health Leadership Award" by the Michigan Home Health Association.

A mother of two by the time she was 21, Rivers attended law school while raising her family. She became involved in politics as a "mom who got mad at the system," taking on the Ann Arbor school board and ending up as its president. She currently resides in Ann Arbor Michigan and is teaching at Washtenaw Community College.

Also a first-time AAPD Board nominee, Robinson was appointed by President Clinton in 1995 to serve as a member of the National Council on Disability (NCD), a federal agency charged with advising the President and the Congress on public policy issues affecting people with disabilities. She remained on the Council until 2002.

Robinson helped to found and subsequently served as Treasurer for Self Advocates Becoming Empowered, a national cross-disability advocacy organization. She has testified before the Pennsylvania state legislature on the need for de-institutionalization and community-based supports and is a personal advocate for many people, helping them to negotiate the service delivery system.

She currently serves as Treasurer of Speaking for Ourselves (SFO), a statewide, cross-disability organization advocating with and for people with disabilities in Pennsylvania; she previously served as SFO president, the first African-American female to hold that position. She also organizes SFO's annual Freedom March to the Pennsylvania State Capitol. Robinson serves on numerous public policy and cross-disability task forces and works for Temple University's Institute on Disabilities as a research assistant on assistive technology.

Sensenbrenner, wife of F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and who worked on the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), is a first-time nominee to the AAPD Board. She was co-chair of the 2002 and 2003 AAPD Leadership Galas and will serve as co-chair of the 2004 AAPD Leadership Gala, which takes place March 16, 2004 in Washington, DC. She speaks openly about how much she has enjoyed her involvement with these events and her interaction with the individuals who are presented with significant awards at each year's event.

In 1972, Sensenbrenner sustained a spinal cord injury and has since functioned from bed, a wheelchair, with Canadian crutches and a cane. In addition to being the mother of two adult sons, she is also the proud sister of Tara, who has Down syndrome. She believes that she has been able to remain an active person because of the strong support of her family, but understands that many people are not as fortunate as she and do have not that kind of support.

Sensenbrenner says it is because of her personal experiences with disability and her volunteer experiences with AAPD that she has become actively involved with AAPD and with advancing its mission and goals.

Takemura, a first time nominee to the AAPD Board, has been in the technology industry for more than fifteen years and played strategic roles in marketing and sales organizations and is responsible for developing the overall strategy for Hewlett-Packard's accessibility efforts. The HP Accessibility Program Office guides corporate-wide accessibility in product design, engineering, product development, documentation, web services, and support and programs for persons with disabilities. For the past two years, he has been a member of the annual AAPD Leadership Gala Steering Committee.

Takemura is a frequent speaker, representing HP and the industry on accessibility issues. He was selected to participate in the HalfthePlanet Foundation 21st Century Disability Think Tank (2002) and AAPD's 2003 Henry B. Betts Award Jury Panel. He also currently serves as a Director on the Advisory Board for California State University at Northridge-Center on Disabilities (CSUN-COD); is a member of the Board of Directors for the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA); and is on the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) Section 508 working groups, the Accessibility Forum Interoperability Working Group and the FCC Consumer Disability Telecommunications Advisory Committee (C/DTAC).

Takemura, who has been in a chair since the day after his 19th birthday, when he incurred a spinal cord injury as the result of a car accident, is a resident of Houston, Texas. He is an active member of his church, through which he makes mission trips to work with children, including this summer to Costa Rica to assist with the building of a church and an orphanage.

Young, the Assistant Vice President of Governmental Affairs and Workforce Development for NISH, is another first-time nominee to the AAPD Board. At NISH, he addresses employment and employment support issues as they affect individuals with the most severe disabilities. He also serves as the Chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, a coalition of 100 national disability organizations that work together to advocate for national public policy that ensures the employment, self-determination, independence, empowerment, integration and inclusion of children and adults with disabilities in all aspects of society.

Previously, Young was Senior Policy Analyst with United Cerebral Palsy, Inc.; Director of Residential Services and Community Supports for the American Rehabilitation Association; President of Open Access, a consulting firm that focuses on the design, development, evaluation and analysis of policies, programs and services for persons with disabilities; Founder and Executive Director of the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia; and a budget analyst for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Over 32 years as a quadriplegic, Young has served in a variety of state and national bodies, including the Congressional Task Force on the Rights and Empowerment of Americans with Disabilities; the Presidents' Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities; the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities; the Blue Ribbon Panel on Entrepreneurship and Small Business for People with Disabilities; the National Rehabilitation Hospital Research and Training Center on Medical Rehabilitation and Health Policy; the World Institute on Disability Research and Training Center on Personal Assistance Services; the National Institute on Consumer Directed Long Term Services at the National Council on the Aging, Inc.; and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Blue Ribbon Panel on Personal Assistance Services Policy.

At their recent meeting in Washington, DC, the AAPD Board elected its Officers. Serving for terms of one year each, they are as follows: for Chair: James J. Weisman, Esq., Associate Executive Director for Legal Affairs, Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association (EPVA); for Vice-Chair, Helen Roth, Executive Director, OPTIONS for Independence, Northern Utah Center for Independent Living; for Treasurer, James J. Billy, Branch Chief, U.S. Department of Education; for Secretary, Margaret Staton, Founder, ELA Foundation; and for Immediate Past-Chair, John D. Kemp, Principal, Powers, Pyles, Sutter & Verville, P.C.

In addition to the newly-elected members, other members-at-large serving terms of three-years each are: Henry Betts, M.D., Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Foundation; Judy Brewer, Director, Web Accessibility Initiative, World Wide Web Consortium; Judi Chamberlin, National Empowerment Center; The Honorable Tony Coelho; Richard Ellis, Director-Federal Affairs, Verizon; The Honorable Judith Heumann, World Bank; Tim Holmes; Edward Kennedy, Jr., Marwood Group; Paul Marchand, Staff Director, The Arc and UCP Public Policy Collaboration; Frances Priester, Director for Consumer & Family Affairs, DC Department of Mental Health; Linda Shepard, Parents Educating Parents and Professionals; Robert Silverstein, Director, Center for the Study and Advancement of Disability Policy (CSADP); Fred Weiner, Special Assistant to the President for Planning, Gallaudet University; and Duncan Wyeth, Executive Director, Michigan Commission on Disability Concerns.

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