2012-08-07-RandolphSheppard
Seminars@Hadley
Blind Vendors: Understanding the
Randolph Sheppard Program
Presented by
Kevin Worley
Moderated by
Larry Muffet
August 7, 2012
Larry Muffet
Welcome to seminars at Hadley. My name is Larry Muffet. I’m a member of Hadley seminar team and I also work in the Curricular Affairs department. Today’s seminar topic is, “Understanding the Randolph Sheppard Program”. Your presenter is Kevin Worley.
Kevin is the CEO of Worley Enterprises. The company was founded in 1992 and provides food services to government installations, which currently includes Fort Carson, Camp Pendleton, and Shriver Air Force Base. Kevin also serves as the executive director of the National Association of Blind Merchants, a division of the National Federation of the Blind. He has also built an effective consulting business and has recently launched a new company providing community outreach services to non-profit organizations.
Today, Kevin will present us with the basics of the Randolph Sheppard program. So now, without any further ado, let me welcome Kevin and turn the microphone over to him. Okay Kevin, you’re good to go.
Kevin Worley
I have taken courses from Hadley. I hate to tell you how long ago that was. Okay, 30 plus years ago I took a couple of great classes from Hadley. So thank you for your work over the years. I know we have a lot to cover in a short time.
But just let me say, on a personal note in passing, my math and science teacher at the Illinois School for the Blind, was one of my very, very favorite role model teachers, again 35 plus years ago. After retiring, he spent many years teaching Hadley courses in math, science, and business. So, it’s really nice to be a part of what you’re doing for the blind in the nation and the world. Thank you for the opportunity.
Well, I am Kevin Worley and I’m governed by a couple of things and they will relate to Randolph Sheppard, hang in with me. George Bernard Shaw said, “Those who get on in this world get up every day and look for the circumstances that they want. And if they can’t find those circumstances, they make them.”
I like that. It’s about building opportunity and it kind of leads into the second motto that I have for myself, for Worley enterprises, and the work I do at the National Association of Blind Merchants. And the second motto for me is, “building opportunity through service.”
If you think about it, you can find a place in your life in business where you can get up every day and look for circumstances. But if you don’t find the positive opportunity that you want you’ve built it yourself. And while you’ve built it, you build it by serving others, customers collaborators, partners.
I also want to just mention at the top here, I notice the list of folks who are participating. It looks like the right numbers of women are on this call. I would say for purposes of Randolph Sheppard that’s an important thing because right now. Of more than 2,300 blind vendors, licensed blind vendors, and business operators who are engaged and licensed in the business of Randolph Sheppard, only about 23% of those folks are women.
So, we really do need to have more women involved in the program and I think that you’ll see that Randolph Sheppard might be an opportunity for women. I have about three things I want to cover. Let’s do the first one, the law and the program.
Now I’m not a lawyer, I’ve never played one on TV. I sometimes have served as an advocate negotiating individualized education plans for parents of blind kids or representing folks in rehabilitation who may feel that they are not getting a fair shake so I’ve been an advocate, but never a lawyer. So we’re not going to spend a lot of time on the law of it.
Suffice it to say that the Randolph Sheppard act was first passed in 1936 Jennings Randolph was a member of congress. He believed that new deal programs are to include a place for blind people and he fought that entrepreneurship would be a place, I don’t know if they used the word entrepreneurship much in the 30s, that’s kind of a buzz word in the last decade, isn’t it when you think about it. Good buzz word I suppose.
But, Jennings Randolph thought that this would be a good program to establish so that blind people might have an opportunity to run little counters, snack counter at the post office, and sell notions and candy and cigarettes. He teamed with Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas. They passed a piece of legislation called the Randolph Sheppard act but in 1974 the Randolph Sheppard act was significantly amended to move this program to a different level of entrepreneurship.
So that blind individuals, licensed by the state licensing agency, will get into that in a minute, could operate not just a few vending machines or not just a snack counter in the lobby, we could move to full food services in the federal government sector, on essentially all federal government property.
Now, I’ll add a caveat to all fed government property because as the act and the program has evolved in 37 years, we’re finding that there are certain properties which it is difficult to have this priority. So the act the Randolph Sheppard act as amended in 1974 gives blind individuals a right of first refusal, or a priority, to operate food service and concessions on most fed property.
There are caveats to that but if you want to read the act you can see those. Where could you read the act you ask, well Hadley probably has a copy of it, or, you could go to The Randolph Sheppard act is up there. The rules implementing the act are up there so that will give you the statutory basis for the Randolph Sheppard program, also known, by the way, as the Business Enterprise Program.
So if you hear someone say well I’m looking into going into the Business Enterprise Program of the state of California or Oregon or Illinois, they’re talking Randolph Sheppard. The Business Enterprise Program for the blind and the Randolph Sheppard program is the same thing. What happens is you’ve got the Randolph Sheppard act.
One of the elements of the Randolph Sheppard act calls for the United States department of education through the rehabilitation services administration to license a state agency to administer the program.
So usually it’s the commission for the blind in your state or the division of vocational rehabilitation in your state that says we’re going to have a Business Enterprise Program under the Randolph Sheppard act. We’re going to submit our rules and regulations. The rehabilitation Service Administration says yes those are good rules, you developed those rules in collaboration with your elected Committee of Blind Vendors.
You can have a program. You now can operate a program. You can get matching funds to help operate your program. And so the program can come into being. Now, most states also have what we often refer to in the trade business as mini Randolph Sheppard Acts.
These are laws that have been passed over the past 50-60 years by state legislation. They give blind people through the designated state licensing agency, again the commission for the blind or the vocational rehabilitation agency. They give blind business owners the opportunity to manage often vending, snack bars, cafeterias at many state buildings. Sometimes county and municipal buildings those laws vary from state to state.
Let’s talk a little about the program and then we’re going to take a few questions about the first two elements of this, the act and the program. The program is for allowing blind people, blind entrepreneurs, blind vendors, blind merchants, the opportunity to manage and profit from small businesses. Usually in the concessions, food service, cafeteria, vending business.
So you go through training. We’ll get to that in a minute. You go through training, get a license, and you can bid on locations around your state and when I say bit it is typically, well it is never, a financial bid. In other words, you don’t have to say well I’d like to have that course house down there or I’d like to have that bid federal cafeteria, how much is it going to take me. What kind of a price offer do I have to make? You don’t.
When you bid on a location, it means you present your business plan and other materials that the state agency wants to best select the candidate to operate that location. The state agency, it’s called a program because the state licensing agency provides the apparatus, the infrastructure if you will. They help fund it.
They work in collaboration with the elected Committee of Blind Vendors. So if you’re a blind vendor you might say “I want to be a part of governing this program. I’m going to run to be a member of the committee so I am part of the program in a meaningful way. I am helping to construct the program” so when we talk about the program it implies governance, operations, management, collaboration.
How do you get into this program? We’re going to talk about that in a minute but before we do that, I’m going to go ahead… I sort of remind myself of my good friend Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado when he does town meetings he says “Well, let me take this question but I don’t want to talk very long because I want to hear from you. I really want to hear from you.” Then he answers the question in about 25 minutes.
So I don’t want to be Senator Bennett. I’m going to let this key go here and see if there are any quick questions for me so we can dialog at least a little bit before we move into the next part of this webinar.
Larry Muffeet
This is your opportunity if you’d like to ask a few questions of Kevin. We’ve got the chance now so for those of you that have a question ready, let’s go ahead and fire away.
Brian Madley
Is there a listing, a clearing house, where we could see what buildings would qualify as federal or state?
Kevin Worley
Yeah, you know that’s a very good question. There is no specific listing. You’d think there would be. Maybe the National Association of Blind Merchants ought to come up with such a thing. The difficulty really, you raise a very good point, because the number of both state and federal buildings which have not been procured by the state Business Enterprise Programs and some of the folks on this call by the way I know have been involved in trying to procure some new opportunities.
We certainly have in the National Association of Blind Merchants. I guess the only way to go about it would be to reach out to the Business Enterprise Programs in each state and say “hey I’d like to have a list of the locations that you are currently running” and they should be able to do that and if they can’t you call me and I’ll make sure they do give it to you. But in terms of a federal government wide list I don’t know of a repository though we could check with Dan Fry at the Rehabilitation Services Administration who is the federal employee who currently is charged with oversight of this program.
I doubt that he has such a thing because if he did I’d probably be using it. The thing is we happen to know that there are thousands and thousands of federal buildings that we are not doing business in and this is the kind of thing we need to work more diligently to create. But I think what you want to do if you plan to stay in your state is reach out to your state agency and say “tell me the locations we currently have as I consider whether or not to get into this program” which segways very nicely with how do I get into this program?
Look, the first thing you do is open a rehabilitation case so if you’re not working and you want to investigate the program. Well, first thing I would do is make an appointment with the people in your state that run the Business Enterprise Program. You want to get a sense of who they are, what they are, what kind of administration you have there.
Are they open to your ideas? Are you open to their ideas? Stephen cubby says seek to understand before being understood. I notice a lot of my colleagues like to tell everybody what they think but we don’t sometimes (I’m just as guilty) we don’t sometimes slow down and say “What is the perspective of the other guy?” And if you’re going to build business opportunities, getting that understanding from others before you make your decisions, your assessments, and your appraisals makes a lot of sense.
When I deal with hundreds of customers a day, I want to know what their needs are. I want to understand their position. I want to understand what their income level is. I want to understand why their attitude toward me and my business is what it is before I start telling them my point of view.
So, you go into the program, I think, by first reaching out the Business Enterprise Program in your state. If you don’t know who that is, you can send me an email and I’ll get it to you. . I’ll be happy to get you that information. So you make an appointment. They might say “Well, you have to open a rehabilitation case first.”
If I were someone in those shoes, I’d say “Well, I understand that and I don’t know about that process, but do you have 30 minutes for me to just survey the land?” Mostly they will. If you like what you hear, you open a rehabilitation case and you’re going to get a rehabilitation counselor. And you’re going to talk to that rehabilitation counselor about your vocational outcome. And you’re going to say, “I’d like to consider this Business Enterprise Program.”
Each state, unfortunately, each state will have different rules of the road. Some of them you’ll have to go through some sort of vocational assessment. What are your skills of blindness? Do you travel well with a long white cane or use a guide dog. Do you have visual aids like a monocular that make more effective in terms of the way you deal with business, your communication with people? What are your math skills? I mean if you’ve got a third grade math level, chances are you’re not going to be able to run a location that you hope will ultimately gross $800,000, a million, a million five a year.
They need to know that they can teach you bookkeeping and accounting. You don’t have to be an accountant to get into this program, but you have to have some basic knowledge. So you’ll have to do some evaluations. I know. Nobody likes rehabilitation evaluating. But you have to at least do some of that if you want to get into the trade. States will then offer you Business Enterprise Program training, Randolph Sheppard training.
Unfortunately, that varies wildly state to state. Some states, it’s six months at their rehabilitation center. Some cases, it’s six weeks at a rehabilitation center. In some cases, it’s six weeks at a rehabilitation center and you have to take eight courses at the community college. So it’s all over the map.
When you have that initial conversation with the BEP folks or the rehabilitation counselor folks, ask them, what is the training scenario? And you’ll have to make a determination. Man, is it two years? Well if it’s two years, can I really, is that training going to be beneficial? Is that training going to help me build opportunity in the program?
Let’s face it if you’re in a state where there are only eleven Business Enterprise Program locations, there are already fifteen people licensed, the top earning level is $50.000 a year, do you want to invest two years of your time for that kind of opportunity? That’s a decision, I think, that you’ll have to make.
So you’re going to go through the training. And then you’ll ultimately be trained. You will not be licensed typically. Typically you have to get into a location for a period of time. 90 days, 120 days, 180 days, and then you will be provided a license. How do you get into that first location? Well, hopefully you’re lucky.
You come out of training and there’s a location sitting there, the court house, a food service that you would want, or the state hospital or the federal building downtown. And you say to the agency, “I’ve done my training. I’d like to get into this” They say, “Let’s take a look at your training record.” And they say “Well, gosh, there’s no other blind vendor there. Do you want to go look at it?” Yeah, I want to go look at it. You say, “Wow, looking at this data it looks like this thing could maybe gross $200,000 a year. If I can run the thing at say 20% or even 15% or 18%, I’m going to make $30,000 or $40,000 right out of the box. I think that’s something I ought to do.”
So you submit your business plan and it is likely that you would get chosen to operate for that location. The state agency gives you support. They are supposed to give you your equipment, your initial inventory, and typically a start-up loan which you’ll have to pay back over a year. So when you think about considering Randolph Sheppard, think about it this way. You’re not going to need opening money. They’re going to loan it to you. They’re going to give you the equipment. They’re going to give you initial inventory.