(Editor's Note; John R., "Rod" MacInnes is a counselor for the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. You can find more details at the web page cited in the article below.)

Jill Duson, who is the head of the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services, asked us to get involved in DMD in 2004 and I had been thinking about it ever since. A few months ago Jill asked Penny Plourde of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and Bud Lewis of the Division of Blind and Visually Impaired to get involved in this year's DMD. (Disability Mentoring Day)

I created a PowerPoint presentation, shown to the Maine Job Council's Commission of Disability and Employment. Coastal Enterprises' Gerard Salvo did a great job recruiting 20 companies to become mentors. I was able to recruit three mentees this year and Gerard recruited 2 more. We achieved our goal of 5 mentees for this year, 2006. Hopefully next year people will get more involved. Larry Glantz and Leslie Pohl of Muskie's "Choices CEO Project" set up a web page "Maine Disability Mentoring Day Oct. 18 2006". Here it is:http://choices.muskie.usm.maine.edu/DMD/

This year there were four Local Coordinators, Ally Day & Deb Bechard Of Jobs for Maine Graduates, Sadie Donnell Of CEI Staffing Services, Zahira Duvall Alpha One, and Rod MacInnes, VR Counselor Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. I think it is progress.

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