This month, as the Workforce Recruitment Program marks its 20th year of hiring college students and recent graduates with disabilities into the federal workforce, it highlights the Defense Department’s achievement of a more diverse workforce, DoD officials said.
DoD and the Labor Department formed the WRP through a presidential executive order to increase federal employment opportunities for those with disabilities, and in doing so, the agencies added a diversity of thought, ability, background, language, culture and skill, officials said. This year is also the Americans with Disabilities Act’s 25th anniversary.
The WRP helps to break down stereotypes and barriers for disabled students, and their skill sets add to DoD’s military readiness mission, said Donald Minner, supervisor of a WRP intern at the Defense Threat Reduction Program. “WRP participants bring a freshness, excitement and enthusiasm,” he said.
Dispelling Disability Myths
DTRA’s director of equal employment opportunity and diversity programs, Willisa Donald, echoed Minner’s sentiments.
“WRP added to our diversity in many facets [by] bringing individuals with disabilities into the workplace,” she said. “WRP has taken away some of the myths some managers and supervisors may have had about working with people with disabilities.”
Minner supervises Flynn Rosko, 23, who is deaf. He is in his second year of WRP’s intern program as an information technology specialist and works alongside hearing co-workers as part of DTRA’s quality analysis and synchronization team.
“Flynn fits in perfectly,” Minner said, “We have been very impressed with this young man, his experience and the unique perspective he brings to DTRA.”
Rosko also works with DoD to try to “break down the barriers for others with disabilities to ensure they have what they need to perform their jobs,” he told DoD News, through an interpreter.
Flynn Rosko
“I’m very enthusiastic about my work,” Rosko said, noting that he has overcome numerous hurdles since he was born deaf and adding that his empathy for other disabled DoD employees is why he helps them.
“I grew up deaf. That’s my normal,” he said. “Sometimes I have to work harder to show people I can do [the job] just as they can. I just can’t hear -- that’s all.”
Working for a DoD agency in support of warfighters makes him feel good about what he does, Rosko said. He wants to continue to give back to his community and hopes to work long-term for the federal government, he added.
“WRP helps people with disabilities who might not ever be able to realize what their capabilities are, and that they are able to do an equal job [compared to] people without disabilities,” he said.
Bryan Richardson
Bryan Richardson is a program analyst in basic and applied research for DTRA’s research and development. At first, few people knew the 28-year-old had a disability, but once it was known, everyone understood and was supportive, he said.
Like Rosko, Richardson said he “takes pride” in working for DoD. “It’s [about] having a job where your purpose is more than making money for yourself. … You are doing something that helps people,” he said.
How those with disabilities contribute to diversity is hard to define, because disabled people are different from each other and from “more normal” people, he said.
“But one thing [disabled people] have in common is some sort of limitation they have to figure out how to overcome,” Richardson said. “They have to be creative problem-solvers to find ways to function with their limitations. And they can apply that same creative problem-solving in their jobs and their lives.”
Madison DeGruy
Madison DeGruy was fresh out of college and pursuing her broadcasting dream job in Los Angeles when she was diagnosed with cancer, she said in a joint DoD News interview this summer.
After realizing she would need a more stable career and health care benefits, she returned to college and found WRP, she said. She applied to the program and was chosen for a human resources internship in Germany. Following her internship, she came back stateside and shifted her career focus with WRP’s guidance to become a third-generation federal acquisition professional, she said.
DeGruy, now 26, is a contracting specialist for the 633rd Contracting Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, Virginia, and has become a WRP representative who speaks to disabled college students and recent graduates to share her success story and encourage them to look into the program.
Something WRP does best is help break down preconceived notions that “disabled people are weak … and always need assistance,” she said.
But sometimes, nondisabled people don’t know how to interact with disabled coworkers, and often "have one image of disability,” DeGruy said.
When DeGruy speaks to students and graduates, she promotes WRP’s many resources for training and employment. “I tell them they can get a lot out of it,” she said, “And not just professional development. They also learn to work with people who have those preconceived notions.
“WRP helped me tremendously,” she said. “It’s a phenomenal program.”
(Follow Terri Moon Cronk on Twitter: @MoonCronkDoD)