Changing lives is their bottom line

By JESON INGRAHAM

Essex County Newspapers

SALISBURY _ When it comes to initiatives to help the blind, businesswoman Gayle Yarnall says politics as usual just gets in the way.

Yarnall, who is also blind, founded Adaptive Technology Consulting, Inc., in 1994. The Salisbury company specializes in services and products meant to help the blind in the workplace.

Yarnall said the company is more a tool for change than a tool for profit. She believes that businesses have the potential to promote social change, even more so than a political program.

"You catch a lot more flies with honey and sugar than you do with vinegar," said Yarnall.

In politics, she said there tends to be too much gridlock and too little action. Yarnall has found ample opportunity to use her business prowess to help the blind in tangible ways.

She said 70 to 80 percent of the work-age, blind population is unemployed. But there are inexpensive solutions to put a blind person the work, she said.

It costs just $500, for example, to buy a "JAWS" program, which enables a computer to talk. And once a company invests in a blind employee, Yarnall said it tends to gain a loyal worker.

It's these types of solutions, she said, that can help relieve the government of costly commitments. In getting stable jobs, blind and low-vision workers stop getting federal disability payments and start adding to the tax base, she said.

"Americans have been slow in catching onto that," she said.

Yarnall has also used her business talents to help improve conditions for the blind, particularly schoolchildren, overseas.

In 1989, she created a volunteer group to work to make technology more accessible to children in impoverished countries. She used her own money to take her first trip to Bangladesh.

Her humanitarian travels have landed her in Poland, Greece, Thailand and India to name just a few places. She has also represented companies like IBM overseas to help with computer training.

"We have blinders on and don't realize how most of the world works," said Yarnall.

Yarnall is quick to point out the importance of Braille literacy both home and abroad. She is on the board of trustees for the National Braille Press of Boston.

The company makes Braille print more accessible and affordable to the blind population.

Eileen Curran, director of educational services at National Braille Press, praises Yarnall for her efforts to promote Braille.

Curran has known Yarnall for 15 years. The two have also traveled to Thailand together to do computer training at underfunded schools. Curran said Yarnall uses her business energy to help others.

"She can talk you into doing anything," she said. "Just her enthusiasm pulls people in."

And that is a crucial quality in helping empower the blind through literacy, she said.

"If they can't read Braille, they can't read and, therefore, can't get jobs," said Curran.