Deborah Russell
October 23, 2012
Hosted by Joyce Bender
[Download MP3] [itunes] [Bookmark Episode]
Episode Description
Joyce welcomes Deborah Russell from Diversity and Inclusion at Walgreens , Inc. Deb will discuss her lifelong commitment to increasing the employment of people with disabilities by leading Walgreens and other Fortune 500 companies in developing their efforts to increase inclusion in the workforce. She helped transform Walgreens’ vision to include people with disabilities into a sustainable and scalable model for a 250,000 person workforce and a model that is replicable within other corporations. Walgreens’ two most recent distribution centers employ an inclusive and integrated workforce composed of 40% of persons with disabilities who are held to the same work standards and earn the same pay as non-disabled co-workers. As a result of this success of serving both shareholders and the community, all 19 distribution centers now include people with disabilities. The division recently achieved the milestone that people with disabilities make up 10% of its workforce.
Disability Matters
Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Variety Channel
Competitive employment and empowerment for people with disabilities is the emphasis of this show. Broadcast live and captioned in real-time for individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing, we discuss how people with disabilities can secure career opportunities, and how employers, organizations and individuals can support employment and empowerment of people with disabilities.
Joyce Bender
Joyce A. Bender is the CEO and president of Bender Consulting Services, Inc. Bender Consulting recruits and hires individuals with disabilities, across the United States and Canada for competitive career opportunities in the public and private sectors. In 1985, Joyce survived a life-threatening accident caused by a misdiagnosis of epilepsy. Due to her personal experience living with both epilepsy and a hearing disability, she founded Bender Consulting Services, Inc. in 1995.
Joyce is the past-chair of both the board of the American Association of People with Disabilities and the national Epilepsy Foundation. She has received awards from both the Bush and Clinton administrations.
Joyce speaks across the United States and internationally representing the State Department on informational exchanges related to disability employment best practices. She has represented the State Department in programming with Panama, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Libya, and Tunisia.
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