Climb to success

Dean Batstone was born with a severe visual impairment and grew up with only six per cent vision. It wasn't until he left his native home of Jackson's Cove (Green Bay) that he realized fully the challenges he would meet because of his disability.

In last week's Aurora, Dean explained how he had succeeded in doing a small engine repair course with a welding component in Lewisporte in his early 20s.

In the five years before that, after he graduated from high school, Dean worked on his grandfather's farm. His grandfather mentored him and encouraged him at every opportunity.

After months rigorous job searching, it came an abrupt end for Dean in St. John's after he was exposed to the nasty attitude of a garage manager. Not only did the manager not take his job quest seriously, he acutely insulted Dean when he questioned the authenticity of Dean's college certificate. The whole experience delivered a crushing blow to the young man who had gone up against great odds and succeeded up until that point.

Defeated and dejected, he abandoned the prospect of finding work at his small engine repair trade and he went back to work on the farm with his grandfather.

For the next few years, he continued to work for his grandfather. To earn a bit of extra cash, he did some gigs as a DJ as well, but Dean realized it couldn't be for the long term.

"Grandfather was in his late 70s by this time and as he got older he began worrying a lot," Dean recalled. "He was always afraid I would get hurt and that he would feel responsible if something happened. He still kept assuring me that I would get a job."

At age 28, Dean decided he was going to go back to school again and started checking into what course he could do that would yield him a job this time.

"I wanted to do something that I felt employers could see a blind person doing," he explained. "So, it wasn't like a career choice based on what I really wanted to do, it had to be something I could get a job at."

A blind man who worked with the government offered Dean some advice on getting into an accounting program.

"This fellow was running a program with the Provincial Public Service called Opening Doors Program," Dean recalled. "He told me that if I could get a background in accounting, he could almost guarantee I would get work with the provincial government."

Still hurting from the job search in his quest to work as a small engine mechanic, Dean decided dealing with numbers might be better than dealing with the lack of acceptance he had found in people the years since he moved out of Jackson's Cove.

"I mean, I knew I had a disability," he said recalling the horrible day at the garage in St. John's. "But I never hit that wall until then and it was reinforced to me quite a lot over the next seven to 10 years. So, I didn't want to deal with people, so dealing with numbers appealed to me. I could sit in an office. Sounds stupid, it does, but that is how I felt."

So it was off to the College of Trade and Technology in Grand Falls-Windsor to do Business Management.

Then after one year, and a lot of advice from people around him, Dean transferred to St. John's to complete the three-year course.

The years in college were not easy for Dean, who had to get a student loan and couldn't afford the support tools to assist in his studying.

He was still using a stand magnifier that he had since he attended elementary school, he couldn't afford to buy a computer, so he would spend hours and hours in the computer lab on campus after classes were finished.

There was at that time a funding vessel in the province called VRDPP-Vocational Rehabilitation for Disabled Persons Program, but because Dean was on his second college program, he had to fight to get any funding.

In the end his tuition and books were covered but there was nothing for visual aids or living expenses.

He relied on the paltry allowance he received from social services.

He walked to and from college, and made the most of the limited resources he had.

"I worked like a dog," he said. "I lived in a bed-sitting room, had a microwave that most of my cooking was done in; I mean what you can cook on a stovetop you can cook in a microwave though it doesn't taste as good. But I had my share of Kraft dinner I can tell you and I think I forgot what steak tasted like when I was going to college."

Living in St. John's was a far cry from the life he was used to in his tiny outport home. Dean said the adjustment was likely similar to what anyone coming from an outport community would feel, it's just that his vision impairment made it even more challenging.

"I worked like a dog, but I finished the program with a 3.2 grade point average," Dean said. "When I got out of school, I went to CNIB. I needed to get a position that gave me some kind of income. They had a project on the go there from HRDC. They hired me on a three-month project. So I was working in the accounting department at CNIB. I was doing general clerical; from counting change to doing up entries for the system.

After three months, they thanked me and were prepared to say goodbye and I am saying, what am I going to do now, I didn't even get enough time to qualify for unemployment insurance. I needed six months. So they had another project with the catering business owned by CNIB so I got another few months. So then I had my six months, got me stamps now, and I was on top of the world."

In the meantime, Dean had applied for a job as technology counsellor with the CNIB - the position had become available when the former employee got a job with the government.

He didn't hold out much hope, he had no IT background outside being able to use a computer for his own purposes; he didn't even own one.

Dean was successful in getting an interview and it happened to be with a woman who he'd known since he was a kid. She had worked with him before and had observed his determination.

"She was in my corner," he said of his former rehab worker. "She told me she had watched me over the years and was impressed by me more than once."

Later he was called for a second interview where he had to do a written test and shortly after, he was offered the job.

Getting the position left Dean shaking with sheer excitement, the $22,000 salary was like a ton of money, he said, given his highest pay to that point in his life was only $5.95 per hour.

"I felt like I was king of world and I thought, 'finally I will be able to buy myself a computer,' when I calmed down and stopped shaking," Dean recalled that day; it was Friday, Jan. 31, 1995.

Dean turned a corner in life that day and all the effort and sacrifices became worth it. He was unstoppable and he finally felt the self-confidence his grandfather and parents instilled in him returning in full force.

For four years he worked in the IT position and then he got a significant promotion.

"I was promoted to provincial manager of CNIB for Prince Edward Island and Cumberland County," he explained. "I was managing the whole operation there from fundraising to administrating a $300,000 budget...I looked after everything. So I was Mister CNIB for PEI."

And it didn't stop there. After three and half years he was offered a position with the national CNIB office. He accepted the employment accommodation consultant position for Atlantic Canada and moved to Halifax.

Dean travelled to each of the Atlantic Provinces at least once a month facilitating employment, conducting assessments and doing training to get people into the workforce.

For health reasons Dean retired a couple of years ago and has since moved to Labrador City to be with his fiancÉe.

Dean is humble when he discusses how far he went in his career right up to the impressive position he held at the national level.

"That was the culmination of everything I did before," he said of duties of his last position before retirement. "If someone would think that me working on the farm had nothing to do with that, then I would tell them it had everything to do with it. You can't replace what he [my grandfather] gave me. Mom and Dad too, but you expect to be supported by your parents, but Grandfather was a businessman and he ran his operation on a shoestring and a knife edge so if anything went wrong, he'd go belly up. But he believed in me and he gave me that experience."

It was only two years ago that his grandfather passed away, and Dean is grateful he lived to see him do well.

"Every time he met me, he told me he was proud of me," he said of his grandfather. "I always told him, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have done any of it."

Part 1 of Dean's story:

http://www.theaurora.ca/index.cfm?sid=333691&sc=298