Meet the Workshop Speakers!
Here are 2024 Abilities Expo presenters. Check back to find out what's in store for 2025.
Meet the speakers for the Abilities Expo Dallas workshops! They bring years of experience and knowledge to the workshops they will share with you. Many are recognized regionally and nationally for their ongoing work with the disability community. All Abilities Expo speakers have apparent and non-apparent disabilities, work in the disability field, or are the sibling or parent of a person with disabilities.
Logan Perkes, Regional Disability Integration Specialist and Lacey James, Portfolio Disability Integration Specialist
FEMA Region 6
FEMA Region 6 Disability Integration Specialists help people with disabilities before, during, and after disasters. When they are not assisting in active disasters, they provide trainings, engage with the community, and partner with local and state governments to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.
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Workshop: Beyond the “Go Bag”: Emergency Preparedness for People with Disabilities
Clay Boatright
Author - God's Plan, Our Circus
A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Clay Boatright has lived in Texas since 1994, where he and his late wife Carole raised three daughters, including identical twins with severe intellectual disabilities and autism. With undergrad and graduate degrees from the University of Memphis, Clay managed two full-time careers for almost twenty years, one in the consumer-packaged goods industry to pay the bills and another as a volunteer advocate for people with disabilities. Clay is Past-President both The Arc of Dallas and The Arc of Texas. In 2011, he was appointed to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities in Washington, DC, and in 2013, he was appointed Founding Chairman for Texas Health & Human Services' IDD System Redesign Advisory Committee. Following Carole's death in 2020, Clay maintains a close relationship with his daughters and works to help everyone know that God has a plan for their lives.
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Workshop: Raising Children with Disabilities with Excitement and a Smile
Kelly Green
Executive Director - Help Hope Live
Kelly L. Green joined Help Hope Live as its Executive Director in November 2017. Kelly is the daughter of a transplant recipient. She not only believes in the mission of Help Hope Live, but she was also once a client —and it completely changed her life. She feels honored and proud to lead an organization that provided hope and help to her family during her mother's journey to transplant.
Kelly describes herself as a mother, a daughter of her hero, a battle-tested unifier, and a thought leader. She has more than 25 years of experience working in and leading nonprofit organizations and has dedicated her life to civic engagement.
Kelly is a constant learner. She graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Administrative Justice, continued her graduate studies at Temple University in Social Work, and decided to go back to school to finish her Executive MBA at Cornell University during Covid. 1 Under her leadership, Help Hope Live has expanded its outreach, dedicating full-time support to educating patient and professional communities about the nonprofit's proven fundraising model. These efforts have led to increased awareness and thousands of community-based campaigns that raise $7 million annually to cover the unmet needs of patients nationwide.
Workshop: Discover How to Pay for Everything You See Today
Debra Kerper, ACC, CATA
Accessible Travel Specialist – Cruise Planners
Debra Kerper has been planning travel for persons with physical disabilities for more than 30 years. She is a bilateral below knee amputee and uses a walker and a wheelchair. She is also dealing with low vision, which is proving to be the most difficult challenge she has faced. Her love of people and research led her to a career in travel and has been the "perfect marriage"! She has been on over 120 cruises and has visited 35 countries as a disabled traveler. Debra is very passionate about her work and her responsibilities to her clients. She has the utmost respect for their time, memories, and money. She lives in Frisco, TX and is married. Her favorite things besides traveling are swimming, reading and being with her extended family.
Workshop: Travel the World! Even if you have mobility challenges and special needs
Rachel Krishnan, AIA
Project Manager - Architecture, Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA)
Rachel Y. Krishnan, AIA, joined PVA Architecture in 2018. Mrs. Krishnan has over twenty-five years of architectural design and construction experience with project scope ranging from private homes to large defense, government, and healthcare contracts. Five years of experience in healthcare design brought accessibility needs to the forefront of her work. With her knowledge of accessible design guidelines, Mrs. Krishnan provides technical assistance to those who are planning home renovations specifically focused on improving accessibility. She also advocates to maximize accessibility for healthcare projects serving veterans throughout the United States. Mrs. Krishnan is a licensed architect in South Carolina, with NCARB certification. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Design and a Master of Architecture from Clemson University.
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Workshop: Accessible Home Design: Kitchens & Bathrooms!
Billy Price
BILLY Footwear
As a teenager, Seattle native Billy Price suffered a spinal cord injury and became paralyzed from the chest down, losing the ability to move his fingers. Daily tasks became difficult, but using his creative mind and unyielding spirit, he never gave up. He continued on, facing life's challenges with tenacity and determination.
Born out of a need, BILLY Footwear was founded on the principle of inclusion. Alongside an incredible team, Billy strives to add value to the lives of others and make a measurable difference in the world, one foot at a time.
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Workshop: Universal Design — The approach of BILLY Footwear to bring inclusive shoes to market
Heather R. Price, OTR/L, ATP/SMS
Central South Regional Manager, Stealth Products
Heather R. Price, OTR/L, ATP/SMS, is a Regional Manager at Stealth Products. She also provides clinical education to therapists and DME providers under the Quantum Rehab education team. Previously, in clinical practice, Heather gained experience in wheelchair seating, positioning, and mobility at two nationally ranked rehab hospitals, TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston and Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. At TIRR, Heather was an Occupational Therapist on the inpatient spinal cord injury team. She gained extensive experience in custom wheelchair prescription, training, and seating and positioning. As the Wheelchair Skills and Management Specialist at SRALab, Heather helped develop a new program for inpatient clients of all ages with a variety of diagnoses. The program featured extensive wheelchair trials, evaluations, and instruction on advanced wheelchair skills.
Workshop: Wheelchair Seating Solutions for KidsAndre Sam
Disability/Special Needs Planner, Disability & Special Needs Project
Andre Sam is a comprehensive Disability and Special Needs Planner with the Disability & Special Needs Project. Upon earning a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Arizona, Andre began a career in comprehensive disability and special needs planning. Andre has been in the industry for 12 years now working with individuals and families with special needs and disabilities and spends time providing complimentary educational presentations to conferences, organizations and support groups who have loved ones that are part of this wonderful disability/special needs community.
Workshop: Disability & Special Needs Planning Made Easy
Linda M. Schultz, PhD, CRRN
Linda M. Schultz, PhD, CRRN is a leader and provider of rehabilitation nursing for 40 years, most recently developing Activity Based Rehabilitation strategies. She has directed programs at an international level, including the Christopher Reeve Recovery Project at Washington University in St. Louis. She is certified by the Association of Rehabilitation Registered Nurses. Dr. Schultz writes the interactive Ask a Nurse blog, an evidence-based community forum, conducts monthly international webinars hosting discussions and questions from individuals with paralysis, and has created emergency pocket cards concerning the topics of sepsis and autonomic dysreflexia, in coordination with the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Foundation. As a researcher, Dr. Schultz focuses on the concepts of promoting bladder and bowel continence and skin integrity. She has completed a national analysis of urinary continence in the elderly population utilizing NIH data. The results of these findings have been used to establish protocols by the AHCPR.
Workshop: The Art of Complex Caregiving
Karla Sonderland, MS, OTR/L, ATP
Clinical Education Manager, Midwest – Sunrise Medical
Karla Sonderland graduated with a master's degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of Mary in North Dakota. She has 20 years of experience with a focus on individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She brings to the team her knowledge and understanding of providing 24-hour care to individuals with multiple caregivers as well as helping individuals transition to alternate living arrangements with optimal assistive technology to ensure their safety and participation. Karla lives with her husband and three children in Iowa and manages the Midwest Clinical Education program.
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Workshop: Wheelchair Evaluation/Fitting: How to be an Active Participant
Kristen Cezat, PT, DPT, ATP/SMS
Clinical Education Specialist – Altimate Medical
Kristen Cezat is a Board-Certified Specialist in Neurologic Physical Therapy and a RESNA-certified ATP/SMS. She received her DPT from the University of Central Florida in 2011. She has dedicated her career to rehabilitation and improving lives for adults with spinal cord injury (SCI) and other neurologic conditions through clinical practice and program development. She received the APTA SCI Special Interest Group (SIG) award for Clinical Excellence in SCI Care and is currently serving her second term on leadership for the APTA ANPT SCI special interest group.
Kristen is the Clinical Education Specialist for Altimate Medical Inc. She has presented nationally on various topics related to assistive technology recommendations and interventions and current evidence in spinal cord injury rehabilitation, emphasizing translation into clinical practice.
Workshop: Complications of Prolonged Sitting: Why Prescribe Supported Standing Devices Following SCI?
Supported Standing Devices and Exercise in Adults with Spinal Cord Injury