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Agency tries new ways to help disabled and at-risk youth find employment

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

By Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A few unexpected things happened to Life's Work director Bob Mather as he was recuperating from a horrific traffic accident that crushed a hip, smashed a knee and temporarily forced him to rely on a wheelchair and walker. Mather discovered how difficult everyday life as a handicapped person can be and felt the anguish of wondering if he might never be able to return to work -- interesting revelations for a man who has dedicated a 30-year career to vocational rehabilitation.

	Bob Mather, left, president and chief executive of Life's Work of Western Pennsylvania, talks with Brandon Rice, who is training for assembly work. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

"I was a living example of why our agency does what it does," said Mather, 63, who came to Pittsburgh from Iowa three years ago to become president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Life's Work of Western Pennsylvania, previously known as the Vocational Rehabilitation Center.

"I really never understood what a serious injury does to a family -- the impact it has on family members, especially a spouse, and how it impacts you as a person, and how much we depend on our jobs to keep our self together," he said.

Mather also found time to read while recuperating -- an activity that helped develop a new initiative aimed at transforming the 75-year-old agency from a sheltered workshop into a more competitive business enterprise.

The first example of an approach Mather calls "mission-based social enterprise" is a partnership with a former grocery store owner who created Jurassic Dog Products, a growing business that distributes smoked bones of various sizes and other treats for dogs.

Jurassic Dog Products is in the same facility as Life's Work's Mon Valley division in Belle Vernon, where up to 60 of Life's Works clients -- people with disabilities or other barriers to employment -- package and label.

Company owner Angelo Spagnolo, who stumbled into the business after installing a meat smoker in a Giant Eagle store he once owned, has plans to one day distribute dog treats nationwide. They now are sold at 300 Tri-State area locations, mostly supermarkets.

"It's a very unusual circumstance but to be honest, I'm very proud of the fact that we've been able to make this work and I hope as we continue to grow Life's Work will be a part of us," Spagnolo said.

Belle Vernon workers also assemble boxes for International Paper and separate recyclable metals for Clad Metals, a sister company to All-Clad Metalcrafters, the high-end cookware maker.

While Life's Work is a contract vendor to International Paper and Clad Metals, its arrangement with Jurassic Dog Products calls for it to share financial risks and rewards.

For example, the social services agency is investing $331,000 over five years, including $173,000 for equipment, in a 27,000-square-foot addition it's building with Spagnolo. Life's Work will lease 17,000 square feet of the new building, which will be used for both commercial ventures and client services, while Spagnolo will lease 10,000 square feet.

The expected return for Life's Work is jobs for the agency's clients and income that can be invested back into other programs and services at a time when traditional funding from government and other sources is shrinking.

All together, Life's Work plans on investing about $1 million in four such ventures over five years. The agency projects that the investment will create 370 jobs, including 100 for at-risk youth, and will generate a 24 percent annual return on the investment.

So far, the agency has raised more than $1 million from various foundations to fund the move into profitable business activities. It has hired Laks Iyengar, an adjunct associate professor of management at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, to be chief operating officer of the effort, called Total Business Solutions.

"It's really fascinating," Mather said. "We have opportunities for trademarked stuff, opportunities to share in the profits of these kinds of social ventures, ideas that we haven't quite worked out yet, but that's what the concept is. You have to be creative and think the way a company does, try to come up with something that is equitable, that doesn't put the nonprofit at risk, that still meets our mission and yet meets the mission of a company that has to make money.

"If we can do that together, share in that, we all win."

Mather said the for-profit idea, gleaned from books including "The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life By Giving Something Back" by William Shore, was perhaps the best thing that came out of his traffic accident.

Shore, founder of Community Wealth Ventures, helps nonprofit organizations such as Life's Work identify and develop ways to generate income rather than relying solely on government aid and traditional philanthropic sources.

"It's a major transition for us because we have traditionally for 75 years run a sheltered workshop and now we're [changing into] community-based business alliances on levels we've never had before," Mather said.

Mather's personal transition began on Christmas Eve 2000 when his family, while on the way to see the holiday lights at Hartwood Park, were hit head-on by a car driving in the wrong lane.

Although his wife, Jan, daughters and sons-in-law escaped with less serious injuries, Mather had to be cut from the minivan he was driving. He suffered extensive injuries to his right knee and left hip, both of which were replaced.

For many months, he received intense physical and occupational therapy to learn how to use adaptive devices to reach things beyond his grasp, to maneuver in a wheelchair and even to bathe and dress himself.

He suffered slights familiar to wheelchair users. Some people would stare. Shopkeepers and waiters would ignore him and instead address his wife or other companion, apparently assuming his physical disability was a mental one, too.

Mather couldn't reach light switches or all the items on grocery store shelves. He was forced to enter some restaurants through the kitchen because the main entrances were not accessible. Making a bathroom stop while away from home was always a big concern.

"Everything I dropped was a major problem," he said with a laugh. "You drop a piece of paper. You drop a sock. Anything you drop you can't reach."

On the other side of the coin, there were the acts of kindness and concern. People with autism or other disabilities would notice Mather as he struggled along the hallways at Life's Work's Uptown headquarters and give their sympathy.

One young woman who is confined to a wheelchair asked him if he was going to get better. Mather said he hoped he would, knowing as he spoke that she had no such hope for recovery. For her, the best hope is not recovery but to be accepted in society.

"It struck me that the clients care about me. Some of them have such severe disabilities, yet they have time to care about others," Mather said. "That was important."