TEAMWORK IN ACTION — IT DOESN’T GET BETTER THAN THIS
March 3, 2009 by Mike Hingson · 1 Comment
The Role of Teamwork in Technological Innovation
When I am contacted by meeting planners, corporations, and members of Associations about speaking at their events I am most often asked if I can speak about teamwork and team building. As a keynote speaker I can tell you that this is indeed a subject which seems to be on the minds of company executives, workers, and to some degree most of us. We all seem to value highly the idea of working together. During companywide and executive retreats often times there will be some sort of “team building exercise.” Management constantly talks to staff about “the Team.” Many books have been written on the subject.
Paraphrasing Patrick Lencioni’s observation from his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, if teamwork is so important and we all value it so much why is it so hard to achieve? Good question! We work together, oftentimes more than we realize, but we seem to not be able to work together. We rely on each other in so many ways throughout the day, but we seem not to recognize this fact. For example, our automobiles are built by teams.
When Henry Ford developed our modern conception of the assembly line his efforts typified TEAMWORK in action. Unfortunately, many company executives feel they do not have great team relationships or, at least, they feel many of their employees do not have the “right team spirit.” The term has become almost trivialized and cliché. Most of us have lost sight of the value and strength of the human team. We have forgotten how to make and keep great teams going.
It is not surprising that people ask me to speak about teamwork since teamwork means something very personal and extraordinary to me. I have understood the importance and value of teamwork from the time I received my first guide dog, Squire, when I was 14 years old. But life’s school taught me a dramatic lesson about teamwork, when successful teamwork essentially saved my life in 2001 when my fifth guide dog, Roselle, and I worked together to escape the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, leading others to safety moments before the tower collapsed.
Teams must be grown and nurtured. Although one individual usually is the team leader all team members must do their part. For me, the team worked dramatically well on 9-11. That story will always be a part of my life and I enjoy sharing it.
I have another amazing story of teamwork I would like to share with you. It is one most people don’t know about, but it is one that has changed the lives of millions of people around the world. It is a story that has been 35 years in the making and will continue to unfold, creating a lasting impact for years to come. It is the story of how Teamwork can be an essential ingredient for technological innovation
In 1974 a young inventor named Dr. Raymond Kurzweil developed a process which would allow a special camera to take a picture of a printed page and convert the information that it saw into either voice or recognizable text which could be displayed on a computer screen or stored in a computer file. What made Ray Kurzweil’s invention so unique and exciting was that his device successfully employed for the first time optical character recognition techniques to scan printed or proportionally spaced material such as that which is found in magazines and books.
Ray had an interest in helping blind people read printed information. With this in mind he contacted the National Federation of the Blind with his first idea for an application of his device to see if there might be an interest in helping him take his “reading machine” from a prototype concept to a real production model reading device for the blind. As it was described to me, Ray Kurzweil told leaders of the NFB when he first spoke with them that he had a machine that really would read books and magazines out loud to blind people.
Many would-be inventors have approached the NFB with claims that they had invented devices which could do everything from help blind people see again to help them “read” books without the so-called need for Braille. Ray’s claim was met with a fair degree of skepticism. Even so, there was something different about him. As a result, some leaders of the Federation traveled to the Kurzweil laboratories in Massachusetts to see this incredible sounding machine for themselves.
It is hard to imagine the surprise and thrill that these blind leaders felt when they arrived at Ray Kurzweil’s facility and placed magazines and books which they brought with them on the reading machine and actually heard the system read their own pages aloud to them. Never before had blind people been able to independently read printed information at normal reading speeds.
Almost immediately Dr. Kurzweil and his team, and Dr. Kenneth Jernigan, then president of the National Federation of the Blind, and a team of Federationists began to develop a plan to fund the Kurzweil Reading Machine project. By 1975 it had been decided that the NFB would purchase five prototype machines at a cost of $50,000 per machine and place these machines around the country in order to test them and to provide feedback to Ray Kurzweil about what features needed to be in a real first model of the Kurzweil Reading Machine.
I officially joined the project in 1976; working under James Gashel, the NFB’s Director of Governmental Affairs, I was hired to coordinate the day-to-day activities and efforts of the NFB-side of the project. My job was to take the five machines purchased by the Federation and place them around the country in locations where blind people would have access to them. I had to train users in each location, ensure that the machines operated correctly, collect user data, and feed that data back to Ray Kurzweil and the leadership of the NFB. For 18 months I traveled around the country living mostly in hotels and visiting the various sites where machines had been placed. At that time the Kurzweil Reading Machine weighed several hundred pounds and consisted of a very heavy scanner and an even heavier computer processor, each housed in their own cabinets. To provide some sort of portability the machines were each placed on a heavy-duty rolling cart.
A lot of teamwork was required all around to make the project a success. It is not often that an inventor allows prototype models to leave the laboratory much less be taken completely out of their control. Never-the-less, that is exactly what happened in the case of the Reading Machine. A team of blind people ran the NFB project, maintained the machines, wrote training curricula, trained other blind people how to use the machines, and scientifically collected data which, in early 1979 led to the first production model of the Kurzweil Reading Machine becoming available on the open market.
Over the years Dr. Ray Kurzweil has often praised the team effort created when he joined forces with the organized blind to make his invention a reality. As far as blind people were concerned, the early machines were problematic since they did not read as well as blind people would have really liked them to. Some of us understood that this technology would go through many stages of evolution before a high degree of reading accuracy was achieved. Never-the-less, even the early machines allowed many of us to read books that were previously unavailable to us. We could also read magazines, papers, and other printed material which allowed us to remain current with our times. A whole new world had opened for blind people.
The success of that early team was due to the commitment of all parties to work together even though the various members were scattered throughout the United States. Solid leadership and good motivation from the tem leaders helped keep us all on track.
Fast forward in time to the year 2001. One of Ray Kurzweil’s dreams has always been to make his machine a truly portable device. Ray often talked to me and others about his goal to create a truly portable pocket-sized reading machine which any blind person could use anywhere. In the years between 1979 and 2001, the Kurzweil Reading Machine indeed went through several evolutionary changes. It became smaller and less expensive. In the mid-1990s the software driving the machine was ported over to the Windows operating system so that it could be run on any PC. In addition, scanner drivers were developed so that many of the emerging, less expensive scanners could drive the optical character recognition software. By 2001 the software costs $995 and the rest of the machine consisted of a typical PC or laptop computer with sound card and a scanner which cost from $150-$300. These newer systems costs much less, but they were not really portable.
Throughout the life of this project, Ray Kurzweil kept an ongoing dialogue and relationship with the National Federation of the Blind. In 2001 he approached the Federation with the idea of making a portable reading machine system. By 2001, Ray was acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost futurist, inventors, and forward-looking thinkers. Part of his methodology was to study technology and essentially predict where it would be in five, 10, 20, or even 50 years. In talking with Dr. Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind in 2001, Ray proposed undertaking the development and production of a portable reading machine by 2006. Ray believed it would take that long for the technology of handheld computers to progress to the point where it could support the processing requirements and speed of optical character recognition and speech production.
In 2005, prototypes of what would be called the new “KNFB Reader” were put in the hands of blind people for testing. 100 machines were provided for testing and evaluation to create the feature set that would go into the production model.
In July of 2006, the KNFB Reader was officially introduced for sales to the blind of the world at the national convention of the National Federation of the Blind. Again, as Ray Kurzweil attested, it was the success of the entire team of his developers and blind people throughout the United States which made the portable reading machine a reality.
The machine consisted of a small, high-end digital camera attached to a high-end personal data assistant or PDA. The system sold for $3,295. Although the system wasn’t really pocket-sized, it was truly portable. I recall traveling to Japan and around the United States reading material I had never read before including such mundane things as literature in hotel rooms and restaurant menus. The machine fit into my laptop computer case along with my computer, Braille note taking device called a BrailleNote, and other items I routinely carried with me on my travels. Reading truly became an adventure and it was available wherever I went.
Ray and the team weren’t finished yet. By the beginning of 2008, a new company called KNFB Reading Technologies, a joint venture between the National Federation of the Blind and Korowai Technologies, Inc., had been formed. Its first task was to develop a second generation of the KNFB Reader called the KNFB Reader Mobile. This time, the hardware platform was a high-end cell phone, making the reader a truly portable, pocket-sized device.
As usual, a well-rounded team of beta testers was recruited to take prototypes out into the world and to test them everywhere they could. Later in 2008, the new KNFB Reader Mobile went on sale for $2,195. By the end of 2008, due to cell phone cost reductions and encouraging initial sales, the price of the reader dropped to $1,640. Now, for the first time in history, many blind people could afford the technology that would allow them to read most printed material in a truly independent manner.
Ray Kurzweil has a future vision for his “reading machine” to do even more than just read print. There is no doubt a great future for this device as it evolves, but we will have to wait for the technology to catch up to Ray’s ideas.
The dream and the idea began with Ray Kurzweil, a rare individual who possessed the technical expertise to create the machine itself which allows blind people to read printed material. There is not doubt, however, that the technology would not be where it is today if not for the teamwork created between the inventor and the thousands of blind people who have partnered with him to make the machine a reality. This teamwork, evidenced by the development, production and evolution of the Kurzweil reading machine technologies, is a true demonstration of how many people can work together for a common goal, transcending diverse backgrounds, diverse experiences and expectations to achieve a transformational result.
Companies desiring to increase the effective outcomes of teamwork in their own organizations could take lessons from the Kurzweil project. It took the leadership of only two people, Ray Kurzweil and Kenneth Jernigan, to get this incredible project off the ground, with the added leadership of Marc Maurer to keep the successful momentum going – OVER 34 YEARS! Every step of the way, team members across the country, both inside and outside of Ray’s company, remained focused on collaboration to achieve the ultimate unifying goal and end result. And the collaboration, passion and vision continue.
As I said in the title of this article this team is as good as it gets. The accomplishments have been and continue to be tremendous. Those of us privileged to be involved with this project, in my own case from its very earliest phase, hope to share this model of success, innovation and inspiration to help other teams striving to make the lives of others more rewarding and enriching. Where successful teams thrive, the future is a bright and hopeful place.
For more information about the new KNFB Reader, please visit: http://knfbreader.michaelhingson.com
“Independence Day” – Day 7
November 21, 2008 by Mike Hingson · 1 Comment
November 19, 2008, 9:09 PM
Thus far my work and bonding with Africa have been progressing well. Already we have had many adventures. Yesterday Todd informed me that today our first route was to be the infamous “independent route”. It is a route that is considered “independent” because the trainer does not walk with the student and dog. Usually, the student is told their starting location and then, when dropped off, they are asked to make their way to the Guide Dog lounge.
The route is not overly challenging to anyone who has good mobility skills. In a training center where blind people are learning to walk as blind people they will travel many independent routes including some where no instructor is observing them. These are true independent routes where blind people are expected to gain confidence in their own ability to travel from place to place. The GDB independent route is designed to get the dog used to walking without their former trainer nearby. The route can be a bit of a test of a blind person’s orientation and mobility skills. However, GDB is not really providing orientation and mobility training so it is expected that blind students are already capable of walking routes independently especially one of the difficulty of the kind Africa and I traveled.
Once again Todd arrived at 9 sharp. After discussing Africa’s adjustment and behavior from last evening, (no problems), off we went to downtown San Rafael and our walk. Todd dropped me off at third and Lootens St. it was my job to get to the GDB downtown lounge while Todd did his best to stay out of Africa’s sight. To explain further, at this point in our training Todd is still a security blanket for Africa. She knows him better than me. In a sense she relies on having him around and although I am the one giving her commands she has not totally made the transition of loyalty from Todd to me. During our first six days of training Africa would look around from time to time to see if Todd was close by. Today would be something different as Todd would not be in sight, or at least that was the theory.
To get from third and Lootens to the lounge all I had to do was to walk up Lootens to 4th St and then to walk up 4th St until I got to the lounge which was located between E. and F. I brought along my BrailleNote Sendero GPS system in order to do some experimentation toward developing some possible GPS training for GDB.
Before starting out I notified Todd that I would be stopping at RadioShack along the way. RadioShack is located between C. and D. streets and thus it was right on my way to the lounge. With all the preliminaries out of the way I embarked on this latest adventure. Of course, on principle, I had programmed the route into the GPS system so I allowed it to tell us where we were and how to get where we needed to go. I even had it tell me when we got close to the RadioShack.
The trip went well. When I was in the vicinity of RadioShack I asked a passerby to help me locate the specific door. As often happens in such cases the person I asked said “I don’t know where that is”. When asking the question I indicated that I knew it was close by, but as usual, people don’t seem to pay attention to that part of my question. I informed the person again at RadioShack should be within just a few feet and finally the person looked around and, what a surprise, saw the store, one door away.
Anyway, I went into RadioShack and purchased a small speaker which I needed. I then left the store and continued on my way to the lounge. As I walk toward D. street Africa began looking around for Todd. She had done a little of this during the first part of our walk, but now she became more intense about it. With some encouragement and praise I refocused her. We continued to walk past a D. toward E. Street. Again, Africa looked around for Todd a bit. Todd informed me later that he had a real hard time keeping completely out of sight and that Africa spotted him more than once. I figured as much. It is almost like a game of cat and mouse between Africa and Todd. However, Africa needed to learn that Todd was not the boss and that she had to focus on my commands. She really did a pretty good job. She is a very bright dog and I think she got the message.
After crossing E. Street we continued on to the lounge without incident. I don’t think Africa looked around for Todd once on that final block. When I got to the lounge I discovered that there was a GDB van there with some trainers and some applicants engaged in a multi-day assessment. One of the wonderful programs offered by GDB is a process by which some potential students can come to GDB for a three day assessment of whether or not they would be good candidates for using a guide dog. Most people only go through a home interview and a telephone interview. Some people have more challenges which require a more in-depth assessment on both sides. These people come to GDB and spent some time working with a guide dog as well as doing Juno work to see how well a guide dog will fit their needs and lifestyle. I think there were four students at the lounge when we arrived.
About a minute after I arrived at the lounge Todd appeared. He was very pleased with the walk and Africa’s behavior, Africa searching for him notwithstanding. The important thing was that Africa re-focused when I asked her to do so. Todd and I both felt the walk was good, Africa’s guiding was good, and that we were progressing well.
We decided to walk back down 4th St and find a place to have lunch. Eventually we settled on The Broken Drum, a microbrewery between and B streets. Although a bit noisy, the place wasn’t too bad. It was a little bit of a different experience for Africa, which is why we decided to stop there. She was not bothered by the noise and distractions at all, no surprise to me.
After lunch we returned to the van and traveled to GDB for a consultation with the veterinarian staff. Every student has a vet consult to learn about the medical history of their guide.
All of the reports on Africa were very good ones. The only interesting thing that I learned was that Africa has swallowed a couple of socks in her lifetime. No surgery was required to remove them from her system, however. Meeting with the vet staff is always good because we learned much about our dog’s behavior and habits from the puppy reports they share with us. Forewarned is forearmed. Now I know that Africa is a potential scrounger. And she looks so innocent too!
After the vet consult we returned home and called it a day. I must say that if all of our training progress sounds too positive and too good to be true it isn’t. Sometimes things go extremely well and sometimes they do not. Sometimes progress depends on how the student reacts to unexpected behaviors of the dog. As I said before this is as much a training time for the student as it is for the dog. It’s a time to sharpen our skills and to be reminded of how to encourage the best behaviors out of our new guides. I’m very pleased that training is going so well with Africa.
I remember a time with my third dog, Klondike, when he showed a fear reaction to walking in downtown San Francisco. It took a lot of work to encourage him to do his job. We worked through the problems and then Klondike guided for 10 years. For my part, I learned a lot from the challenges I faced with Klondike during training. Terry Barrett, now GDB Director of Training, Admissions, and Graduate Services, was the training supervisor during my class with Klondike. I will never forget Terry’s encouragement and wisdom. His ideas and suggestions stay with me always and always come to mind whenever I faced a training challenge. It is good not to have major difficulties at this point in our training, but I know that if they occur GDB and I have the tools to surmount them.
Tomorrow is our last day of training! Todd suggests that we go back into San Francisco where we can ride the subway, called the Muni, and then walk around Embarcadero Center. It sounds like a pretty full day with lots of distractions and lots of good guide exercise for Africa and me. Come back tomorrow to read the results.
“The Streets of San Francisco” – Day 5
November 20, 2008 by Mike Hingson · Leave a Comment
Monday, November 17, 2008, 7:58 AM
Today was another gorgeous day around the bay at San Francisco. I haven’t mentioned the weather we have experienced during our training. In a word, the weather has been great! California has been experiencing drought conditions for some time. I hope that we will move beyond them this winter. However, for late November and needing to be outside training with a guide dog I must admit I can’t complain about the warm sunny time we are experiencing. The temperature has been in the 70s and 80s during the day. We’ve had little cloud cover but rather lots of sun. Southern California has been facing many severe wildfires which we hope will soon be under control and out. All of us in California fear the severity of fires during the dry conditions we are experiencing. I hope we get no more fires this year. All I ask is three more days of sunny weather and then let the clouds open and the rain poured down.
Todd informed me this morning that he expected that we would be done with our training by this Thursday evening. As I said earlier in-home training permits a lot of flexibility. Todd feels that by Thursday we will have covered everything we could possibly study and that unless something unexpected happens there is nothing else that he can do for us during the formal training process. Of course, Todd is always available to answer questions. Guide Dogs for the Blind also has an excellent Graduate Services Department directed by Brian Francis. In the first entry of this journal I mention Marc Gillard who is a member of the Admissions and Graduate Services section of Guide Dogs for the Blind. Marc works for Brian. Brian’s Department is always available to help graduates throughout the United States with any issues they may be having. I think it is great that GDB has such a good support network.
Once again Todd arrived on the dotted 9 a.m. Our plans for the day was to go back into San Francisco and work around Union Square, a major shopping, dining, and hotel area in the city. After that we would return to Marin County and do some work on streets with no sidewalks.
With our plan in place Todd, Africa, and I got into the GDB van and headed off to San Francisco. We arrived in Union Square just a bit after 10 a.m. Before we started on our route I helped Africa on with her booties. We expected to do some escalator work this morning and as I explained earlier the booties protect her paws from the escalator treads. I don’t think that Africa is a great fan of these booties by the way she walks in them, but she tolerates them pretty well. The booties would also be good protection during extremely hot weather and on snow-covered streets.
Our first destination on this route was the park in Union Square. When we arrived workers were installing the lights on San Francisco’s Christmas tree. In addition, the outdoor ice skating rink was in full operation. Go figure…ice skating in 80° weather in November. I’m sure no one expected this kind of weather which is why the rink was open.
While in the park Africa and I practiced a few obedience exercises. These exercises are one of the first things students learn at GDB. The idea behind them is to have a routine of commands which allow us to put the dogs through some basic paces every morning as kind of a warm up and a method to help them focus. Obedience consists of having the dogs perform a series of “sit” and down maneuvers. We then have the dogs stay while we walk away a few feet to the end of the extended leash. After waiting at the end of the leash to make sure that the dog remains where we told it to sit, the handler returns to the side of the dog and provides lots of praise. After doing the “stay” we begin another “stay” but this time rather than returning to the dog we called the dog to us with either the “heel” command or the “come” command. “Heel” in this case requires the dog to move to our left side and sit. “Come” tells the dog merely to come and stand in front of us.
Doing obedience in the park gave both Todd and me an opportunity to see how Africa worked with lots of distractions around. I should explain that these obedience exercises are a great way to regain a dog’s focus was being distracted any time. Many times during the day while I’ve been walking and my guide dog became too distracted by other things going on around him or her I use this obedience work to get the dog back on track. It works really well.
After obedience, which Africa performed very well, (what else), we left the park and walked over to Macy’s department store. We walked through the crowded aisles in this four-story building, as well as traveled up and down two floors on the escalators. As soon as I could hear the escalators near me I told Africa to ‘find the escalator”. True, she may find the down escalator when I want the up escalator, but it’s my job to determine the right one to use, not her. The point is that she gets me to the escalators for me to then make the right determination. Also, it should be noted that I need to be near the escalators for her to expect to find them. “Near” means we have to be close enough for me to hear the escalators and for her to see them. It is not practical for me to simply walk in the door at Macy’s and suddenly say “find the escalator” which may be at the other end of the store. I’ve seen some blind people who think this, but they’re not correct. Of course, I’ve encountered some sighted people who think that the dog does everything and never listens to discover that I’m giving the dog commands. Africa and I are a team. We each have a job to do. The best teams consist of members who understand each other’s jobs and who respect the abilities and skills of all the team members.
With Macy’s behind us we started off for the van and the return to Marin. Along the way we decided to make a stop at another crowded store, the Nike store. I didn’t even know one existed in San Francisco much less had I ever been there. It goes to show what I know.
We entered the store to the blare of loud Christmas music. This time, the escalator was right near the entrance and so I used the command “find the escalator” to tell Africa where I wanted her to go. We went up a long escalator to the second floor and then took another one to the third floor. After walking around a bit and not buying anything we return to the escalators, descended to the first floor and left that noisy cacophony of sound. It was a good experience for the team even though Nike didn’t make a dime off from it.
On our way to the van as we traveled through the park we stop for our traditional tea and coffee at a small outdoor coffee shop. Hey, what else is there to do on a bright sunny day in San Francisco? Less you miss the point of stopping for coffee and tea every day I should explain that it is a good way for the dog to unwind after doing very complicated and stressful routes. Make no mistake; this job is very stressful to a dog. I talked about this in an earlier post. Although I do not like to stress out my dogs it is important to keep up their work and practice. Going to places like the Nike store and walking a successful route through it and then conveying my pleasure to the dog is a great way to keep up her level of confidence.
We returned to an area near GDB in Marin to work a sidewalkless route. This kind of route is just what the name says. We had to walk in the street because there are no sidewalks alongside them. Also, there are usually many cars parked along the streets so it would give Africa a good opportunity to practice going up to cars, letting me find them, and then working around the car in order to get back on route. Part of the reason of doing a sidewalkless route is to make sure that the dog stays right near the edge of the street rather than walking out in the middle of it. Personally, I don’t need to do many sidewalkless routes, but they sure are good practice for the few times I am required to walk one.
The only challenge Africa had on this route was that there was a place where two cars were parked very close together. Rather than simply passing both cars and then regaining the route she tried to walk me between the two cars to get back to the curb as soon as possible. There wasn’t enough room so I was smushed against one of the cars. No one was hurt, but it was a good experience for Africa. She is a bright dog and I believe she won’t do that again.
After this walk it was time for lunch. We went up to Novato to the Vintage Oaks shopping center where we had lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. Vintage Oaks is also the home of Costco and Target. After lunch we decided it was time to call it a day. Todd, Africa, and I returned home around 2 p.m. Sure we could’ve walked more, but training is in part about good quality bonding time. It is not all about simply walking routes and keeping the dog in harness all day. The value of doing in-home training is that we get to spend our quality time at home so Africa gets used to our home life.
Tomorrow we get to do traffic checks. Come back to read what that’s all about.
My New Guide Dog “Africa” – Her Daily Training Journal
November 15, 2008 by Mike Hingson · 1 Comment
Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 7:11 AM
The day has finally come. This is the day I receive Africa, my new guide dog. Africa is the seventh guide I have had the pleasure of working. All seven guide dogs were trained at Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael California. I received my first guide dog on June 28, 1964 when I was but 14 years of age. That day is still as fresh in my mind as if it happened only this year.
My fifth guide dog, “Roselle”, is by far the most famous one of them all as she was with me when I worked and escaped from the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. You can learn more of Roselle’s life elsewhere on my web site.
In March of 2007 Roselle retired and I was joined by my sixth guide dog, Meryl. Unfortunately, Meryl only worked for about a year and a half before the stressful job of guiding became too much for her and she had to retire. Guiding is not an easy job. Only about 50% of the Labrador Retrievers who enter the program a guide dogs for the blind actually succeed and go home with blind people as part of a person-guide dog team. Some guides go home only to discover that guiding isn’t their thing. Meryl retired officially on September 18, 2008.
As an aside, I should explain that the reason the success rate for labs is only about 50% comes not from the fact that the other 50% are not as bright or is good. Dogs are just like people. Each one has its own personality. Some dogs work well as guides while others do not. Some people are very successful and seem to adapt well to some jobs but not to others. We learned a long time ago not to say that the dogs that do not make it as guides are failures, but rather they are “career change”. Some of the career changed dogs leave GDB in order to perform other jobs such as cancer detection and to do work with the military in drug and explosives investigation. Some career change guide dog puppies have gone on to work with persons with diabetes. These “Dogs for Diabetics” are taught how to warn their handlers of drastic changes in their blood sugar levels and thus prevent the onset of hypoglycemic or insulin reactions.
Back to Africa. Immediately upon Meryl’s retirement the search began for a successor guide dog for me. The process of matching a blind person with a guide dog is a very complex one. It is important to find a dog that can match its blind handler’s pace, walking patterns, temperament, as well as having a personality which will fit into its handler’s daily way of life. There is a good reason why Guide Dogs for the Blind calls the decision to use a guide dog a “lifestyle choice”. Part of the process which every team goes through is the forming and building of the relationship which will dictate how human and dog will interact with each other during their time together.
For me when preparing for Africa it helps that I have had six previous guidedogs all from the same school. Even though Guide Dogs for the Blind has amassed quite a bit of information about my needs and desires concerning a guide dog match I still went through a home interview and a brief walk with the local GDB field rep, Marc Gillard. We did the interview at the same time he came to fetch Meryl back in September.
The next event was an e-mail from Charles Nathan, the Guide Dogs Director of Training in San Rafael. Charles e-mailed me around the 20th of October to tell me that he believed that a match had been found for me. He wanted me to take a test walk with the dog to seeif I felt we might have a match. Charles informed me that the dog’s name was Africa and that she was a small yellow Labrador. As soon as I saw the name I realized that there was another reason why GDB may in fact have found a good match. Africa is one of the puppies from the second litter of our GDB breeder, Fantasia. Fantasia has lived with us for a little more than two years. One of our close family friends, Linda Lewis, had suggested the name Africa when we learned that Fantasia’s second litter would all have names beginning with the letter A. I knew that if Africa was anything like her mom we had the potential for a great match. Fantasia’s personality was more suited to what I desired and felt would be best for my lifestyle. If Africa’s personality and demeanor were anything like her mother she was certainly worth a look.
On October 27 Todd Jurek brought Africa to our home for our test walk. We spent three hours traveling around our neighborhood as well as through downtown Novato. We also went to a restaurant, and spent some time at the local Peet’s coffee just so I could observe Africa in a variety of settings. Afterward I told Todd that I thought Africa was a good match and that we should go ahead. Todd was Roselle’s trainer and as I learned that day he trained Africa as well. I didn’t have Todd as an instructor when I was matched with Roselle. I asked that if at all possible I would like to work with him to do my training with Africa. I learned later that week that we could start training the week of November 10 and that Todd indeed would be my instructor. It doesn’t get better than that.
