Meet the Workshop Speakers!
Meet the presenters of the Abilities Expo workshops! They are people whose individual lives are as relevant to the Community as the issues they are addressing. Our speakers have years of experience and are highly knowledgeable in their fields. Many are recognized nationally and within their state for their ongoing work with people with disabilities. All our speakers have apparent and non-apparent disabilities, work in the disability field, or are the sibling or parent of a person with disabilities.
Ron Pettit
Director, Disability Inclusion and ADA Compliance – Royal Caribbean Group
Ron Pettit is Director, Disability Inclusion and ADA Compliance at Royal Caribbean Group, an industry leader in providing innovative and accessible cruise vacations. He is responsible for accessible guest experience for three global brands – Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea. He collaborates with our brands in developing global disability inclusion strategies in the marketplace and workplace including digital accessibility and supplier diversity. He leads a team of almost 50 people dedicated to this market. His efforts have resulted in Royal Caribbean Group being named as one of the “2022 Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion” for the eighth year in a row by scoring a top score of 100% on the Disability Equality Index. Prior to Royal Caribbean, he was at Northwest Airlines where he led efforts to improve the air travel experience for over 3.3 million annual customers with disabilities and ensuring compliance with the Air Carrier Access Act.
Workshop: Accessible Cruise Vacations
Timothy Brown
Southeast Regional Sales Manager, Stealth Products/Quantum Rehab
Timothy Brown is a regional sales manager at Stealth Products and Quantum Rehab, serving their clients in Georgia and throughout the Southeast United States. He has twenty years of experience with Complex Rehab Technology. Timothy regularly assists with evaluation, set up, programming, and delivery of complex rehab technology. In his personal time, he is an outdoorsman and enjoys attending sporting and entertainment events.
Workshop: Wheelchair Seating Solutions for Kids
Ryan Gebauer, Quad and MBA
President - Spinal Cord Injury Support Group of South Florida
Ryan is the first and only severely disabled real estate broker and brokerage in the United States. Ryan's been paralyzed for 29 years as a result of a diving injury when he was 16 years old. He earned his MBA at Florida Atlantic University in 2008. After graduate school, he went on to assist with developing the largest SCI group in Florida, whereby he continues to run the Broward group as of today. He's passionate about assisting the disabled and newly injured individuals with quality of life resources. He uses his Never Give Up outlook on life to be a positive light to others.
Workshop: Hurricane Season + The Disabled = Prepared
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
Anson James
President – Miami Chapter
Anson James is 54 years old, currently the President of the Miami Chapter. He's been a paraplegic for 20 years. He enjoys his role as President. He also enjoys helping the SCI community. Anson graduated from high school, did some management courses online for my role as a manager since I was 21 years old. He owned a barbershop for 10 years.
Workshop: Hurricane Season + The Disabled = Prepared
Cindy Kolbe
Author and Lifelong Disability Advocate
Cindy Kolbe worked as a nonprofit director, group home manager, and literacy instructor. She has been a life-long disability advocate—even before her daughter Beth was paralyzed in an accident at the age of 14. After the accident Cindy and Beth became a team. They shared extraordinary adventures, traveling from a small town in Ohio to Harvard and around the world. Cindy wrote a 2019 memoir of their story titled Struggling with Serendipity. A second edition of the book launched in December of 2022 with a new title, Just Keep Swimming: a crash, a quest, and waves of hope. "Hope is an incredibly powerful thing. And if you never give up - hope wins." Cindy published over 50 articles in two years and volunteers for disability and mental health nonprofits. She is a peer mentor for the Reeve Foundation. She would love to connect with you! Visit her website www.cindykolbe.com to sign up for her free "Just Keep Swimming" newsletter to access resources, updates, and giveaways.
Social Media
Workshop: Share Your Story: Top Ten Tips
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.
Social Media:
Workshop: Accessible Home Design: Kitchens & Bathrooms!
Heather C Markham-Creasman, MS CS, MS RST, RESNA ATP, ICC Accessibility Inspector
International-award winning photographer with the Just for the Love Gallery, author of "Rough Waters: From Surviving to Thriving with a Progressive Muscular Dystrophy", and CEO of Making Waves for Good
Heather C. Markham-Creasman, is an engineer, assistive technology professional, educator, ADA architectural barriers specialist, golfer, competitive ParaSurfer, public speaker, and award-winning international photographer. With her background in Electronic Warfare and Assistive Technologies, she has honed her skills and an eye for otherwise unseen details. She specializes in seeing what others rush right past, and her power wheelchair provides a steady surface from which to photograph it. She doesn't let anything stop her from pursuing her interests, despite being diagnosed with a progressive neuromuscular disorder in 2002. Heather believes in a world where businesses make accessibility and compliance to Americans with Disabilities Act Standards a priority. Her personal mission is to show 1 businesses how to make their physical spaces and websites warm, welcoming, and accessible to the more than 1 billion persons with a disability. She expresses herself creatively through her memoir Rough Waters: From Surviving to Thriving with a Progressive Muscular Dystrophy and fine art photography. She resides with her husband, a deaf but super-snuggly part Maine Coon cat, and a deaf but happy little old dog near Cottonwood, Arizona.
Social Media:
Workshop: WTF? (What's The Focus?) Photographing the Unseen with a Progressive Disease
David McMillan, PhD
Director of Education - Spinal Cord Injury Support Group of South Florida/Miami Project
Dr. David McMillan is a dual-role academic, serving The Miami Project as Director of Education and Outreach and the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine as Research Assistant Professor for Department of Neurological Surgery. He conducts research with and for people who have paralysis, primarily due to spinal cord injury (SCI). In his outreach role, he facilitates The Miami Project's illustrative faculty to achieve success in their clinical trials through recruitment, operational coordination, and communication. He liaises between their institution and community partners and stakeholders. And he directs educational initiatives such as the Henry G. Steinbrenner Scholars Program. In his professorship, his dissertation pertained to the role of the autonomic nervous system in the absorption, trafficking, and fates of dietary fat. However, he's now refocusing his efforts to align with regional demands and affordances, aiming at the disproportionate risks and rewards posed by the Tropical Atlantic on people living with SCI. Regarding risks, he studies the vulnerabilities of people with SCI to climate hazards in the form of flooding, heat, and hurricanes.
Workshop: Hurricane Season + The Disabled = Prepared
Andre 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
Mark Wellman
Adventure Athlete, Motivational Speaker
Mark Wellman is a nationally acclaimed author, filmmaker and motivational speaker. Despite being paralyzed in a mountain climbing accident, Mark has inspired millions to meet their problems head-on and reach for their full potential. A two-time Paralympian and former Yosemite Park Ranger, Mark's NO LIMITS philosophy encourages individuals to adventure into new horizons; to go beyond the seeming unreachable.
Mark, faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, persevered courage and determination to fulfill his passion for the outdoors. He shares his story in the autobiography Climbing Back. An accomplished wheelchair athlete, Mark is best known for the first historic paraplegic ascents of the sheer granite faces of El Capitan and Half Dome, in Yosemite National Park.
His notoriety has been acclaimed on national television, by congressional commendation and meetings with two Presidents of the United States. The first paraplegic to sit-ski unassisted across the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, Mark has also carried the flaming torch up the 120-foot rope, shocked by thousands of spectators, and lit the cauldron for the opening of the Paralympic Games in Atlanta.
Workshop: Mark Wellman: No Limits