Enabling Vision : Diabetes Took His Eyesight, Self-Esteem; Now He’s Helping Others

Robert D. Cummings was 22 when diabetes disabled him, robbing him of sight in one eye and stealing all but a fraction in the other.

Cummings, who was a college junior at the time, thought his life was over. Now, 21 years later, Cummings is blind but is sustaining a different kind of vision by dedicating his life to others with physical handicaps.

Director of the Dayle McIntosh Center for the Disabled, he is making it possible for the disabled to have what most others take for granted: a job, an accessible place to live, the ability to get around, independence, self-respect.

The county government has contracted with the center to provide services to Orange County’s 370,000 disabled, he said. The center’s responsibilities range from training the disabled to live outside of institutions to advising public agencies and businesses about adapting their facilities to meet the needs of handicapped employees and customers.

The disabled “wish to be like other people living in the community, participating in life with all of its joys, all of its pain and all of the things that bring everybody else the satisfaction brought to most people by just living,” Cummings said in an interview at the center’s offices in Anaheim.

Making it possible for the disabled to live independent lives is morally right, and it is cheaper for society, he said. The center itself is an example of how that can be accomplished.

Within the widened halls of its 7,000-square-foot offices, a staff of 30 works; nearly 75% of them have some form of physical disability. They roll in wheelchairs, walk on crutches or ride on motorized scooters through the maze of offices, doing the work that allows the county’s handicapped to become mobile, taxpaying members of the community.

When people become disabled “they don’t lose their talents,” Cummings said, as he deftly maneuvered around the office where he has worked for the past 14 years, 10 of them as assistant director.

Assuming otherwise often leads to the disabled being treated as “nonentities” and placed in institutions at tremendous cost to society. Too, there is the danger of being denied jobs, housing and other opportunities.

“My blindness is part of my life, but it’s not my life. It’s not me in total,” he said, as he described himself as a ex-husband, father, boss and now director of the center.

In September, Cummings took over as head of the center, which has a $1.2-million budget. He was promoted from assistant director after a nationwide search to replace the previous director.

“I can be president of United Airlines or President of the United States. The way I do things may be different, but I am getting the job done,” said Cummings.

He did not always believe that.

In 1971, when diabetes destroyed the vision in his left eye and had damaged his right, he thought his life was over. He dropped out of college and went into a six-month depression, never leaving his father’s home in Tustin, where he was living.

After allowing his son a period of mourning, his father admonished him: He could either continue to feel sorry for himself and die that way, or he could do something with his life.

“That was my renaissance, my rebirth,” Cummings recalled.

At the time, he still had about 10% of the vision remaining in his good eye. He learned to walk with a cane and enrolled in Braille classes. After re-enrolling in college, he graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 1976, got married and adjusted to life as a visually impaired person.

He became an advocate for the disabled and got involved in the Independent Living Movement for the disabled. Working directly for the county’s Human Resources Program, he helped write the regulations to put the county in compliance with the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination against the disabled by organizations receiving federal funds.

When the MacIntosh Center opened in 1977, Cummings became its first program director/ombudsman. He held that job for four years before being named assistant director in 1981.

It was four years ago that Cummings lost the remaining vision in his right eye.

“My vision had decreased so much that, emotionally, it was not as difficult as when I lost my first eye, but it was still an adjustment,” he said.

“Emotionally, you have to get used to the fact that you are not going to see the environment or see your daughter, and you have to find new ways of doing things.”

Cummings, who was divorced in 1977 after 5 1/2 years of marriage, lives in a house in Tustin in a single-parent family with his 17-year-old daughter, Jennifer. He has cared for her since she was an infant.

Witty and full of energy, Cummings smiles often and dresses in sharp-looking suits. A hard worker and an optimist, he pushes his staff to find a way around obstacles. Despite his toughness, he is often concerned about the comfort and well-being of his employees. He makes a point, when walking out of the office, to hold the door open for those coming behind.

On a typical day, Cummings, a workaholic, is up at 4:30 a.m.

He begins the day by cooking breakfast for himself and his daughter. Then, Jennifer leaves for a 7 a.m. college class.

After going back to bed for about an hour, Cummings dresses in a suit laid out for him by Jennifer. Even though he is sightless, he said, “we sometimes argue about which tie goes with what suit.”

He waits at the garage of his Tustin home for a center staffer who picks him up for the 12-minute ride to the Anaheim offices.

At 8:30, he begins a workday filled with ringing phones, endless meetings and consultations with staff members. A recent day included a meeting with Supervisor Thomas F. Riley and did not end until after an evening speech.

“Life doesn’t have to be the way we assume it will be,” said Cummings, while sitting in his glass-walled office on the day he was to meet with Riley. The director expertly handled an $8,000 computer system that has an optical scanner and a screen reader, which enable him to keep his own calendar and listen to staff reports. It is the kind of office equipment that he would like to see used more by businesses in the county.

Though he has never seen his staff, he has a picture of each one inside his head. The mental image gives him a sense of what the person is like and helps him to communicate.

Of their individual achievements, he said, “I feel like a proud father.”

Cathy DeMello, program director for The Clubhouse, the center’s social and vocational program for people with traumatic head injury, said: “He’s the best boss I’ve ever worked for . . . because he works with you . . . alongside of you.”

“We hire people because of what they are good at, not because of what they can’t do,” Cummings makes a point of saying. This is what he wants all employers to do. Cummings hopes that society will realize that when any segment of society is not productive, it hurts the entire society.

“Everyone in the society is worth something and should be able to function in it and contribute to it,” he said.

In the coming year, Cummings’ already-busy life is apt to get busier. That’s because as of July 26, all businesses with 25 or more employees must implement the federal Americans with Disability Act guidelines, which prohibit discrimination in employment based on physical disability. The center will act as a resource center for county businesses as they comply with the law. In 1994, the threshold for compliance will be reduced to 15 employees.

In addition, the act requires that public accommodations--including most businesses, restaurants theaters and public and private schools--be made accessible to the disabled.

Cummings said it costs an average of $500 for an employer to accommodate a worker’s disability. Such changes to the workplace may include purchasing special telephone devices or software that enables a computer to read a document aloud, or putting Braille symbols in an elevator.

The cost is minimal, and employers will find the investment paying off for years to come because the disabled tend to stay on jobs longer, he said.

Every step that makes the disabled independent “helps fulfill my personal goal,” he said. The disabled “are ready for this world, and it’s time. It’s time now.”