Business Enterprise Program
helps visually impaired find work
Lansing, Mich.- An employee at Constitution Hall in downtown
Lansing stops to get a coffee before work at the snack bar. As they are paying
for their drink, the employee notices ithat the man working the cash register
is blind.
These visually impaired employees are a part of the Business
Enterprise Program (BEP) of the (Michigan) Bureau of Services for Blind
Persons. This program offers employment opportunities for blind and visually
impaired people.
Professor at McMaster University and expert in developmental
disabilities Penny Salvatori said that job opportunities are very limited. A
few employers like Wal-Mart have policies to employ people with disabilities;
however, their disabilities tend to be minimal.
“I’m not familiar with the BEP program; however, all of
these kind of programs are essential in order to fight for equal opportunities
and make a difference in the lives of people with disabilities,” Salvatori
said.
About BEP
The BEP specifically licenses blind individuals to run and
manage their own food service establishment.
This program was established after Congress passed the
Randolph-Sheppard Act of 1936. This provided opportunities for blind
individuals in federal locations. The Public Act 260 of 1978 established
opportunities for State of Michigan properties.
Visually impaired individuals can become part of the BEP by
taking initial testing and then a training program. Once in the program,
operators find a job by using the bid line. This phone line lists all
facilities up for bid. An operator can call and say they are interested and one
person is chosen for the location.
The Michigan Business Enterprise Program Manager James Hull
said that the program provides training, initial inventory of products for
sale, equipment and a location to set up and start operations of their own
business.
Robert Essenberg has been an operator in the program since
1985. Essenberg started out in a Muskegon county building and moved around to
different locations around the state such as Grand Rapids and Pontiac until he
ended up in Lansing at the Operator Center cafeteria and snack bar. Essenberg
is also an operator at the Michigan Secretary of State and the Michigan Department
of Health and Human Services in Lansing.
The BEP provides employment opportunities at cafeterias and
snack bars in federal and state buildings, as well as vending operations in
these locations and rest stops on highways.
“The primary function of the program is to assist blind
people in getting remunerative employment,” Hull said. “Blind individuals have
the highest unemployment rate in the country, it’s roughly 80 percent, so this
affords them to start their own business to provide not only for themselves but
for their families and assist them in getting off public assistance.”
Essenberg said he found it difficult finding employment in
the field he graduated in being blind. The BEP has helped Essenberg find a job
when he graduated and has provided him with a steady income for the last 30
years.
“It (BEP) opened up an opportunity for blind individuals to
enter the workforce or enter self employment with a level of security that they
wouldn’t have if they were going out and opening up a business in the state on
their own,” Essenberg said.
Going forward, Hull said they are trying to set up
opportunities to run commissaries in county jails and eventually state prisons.
They are also looking to set up kiosks that would be run by BEP licensees where
incarcerated could make calls and emails.
BEP also signed a contract introducing state of the art
vending, which will initiate greater vending operations.
Meet some of the operators
While the BEP has operators all over the state of Michigan,
it has a large presence in the Lansing area. There are many people who have
been affected by the program and would like to see it grow in the future.
Samuel Tocco
Tocco first learned about the BEP in the late ‘90s. In 2002
he looked more into it, went through the initial testing to enter the program,
and took a four-month training course.
Tocco started out in downtown Detroit and then had a vending
route for a few years after. Now Tocco lives in Lansing and is the operator of
the snack bar, vending and catering services in Constitution Hall and the
Romney Building in downtown Lansing.
While primarily working at the cash register, Tocco also
manages four employees and makes sure the business runs smoothly overall.
“It has been good for me as it turns out, but I definitely
had to work my way up,” Tocco said.
When talking about the BEP, Tocco said his job in Lansing
has helped him and he makes good money. However, it hasn’t always been that
way. Some of the places Tocco said he worked at when he first entered the BEP
were not very good. The location he is at now is one of the better ones in the
program. It took Tocco three moves and a few years to find a good location.
“It’s a good program, but if there are 60 locations, there’s
a lot of them that are really little that they are looking to combine into
bigger ones,” Tocco said.
Tocco said he thinks that is the direction that they should
go in. There would not be as many jobs, but they would be good jobs. A lot of
the stands make a couple hundred dollars a day and it is hard to get by on
that.
“You take these little ones and you’re broke and you get
into debt and borrowing money from people and you’re trying to survive and have
a place to live and before you know it your shelves are getting less and less
empty, people are complaining and it just spirals out of control,” Tocco said.
“Some of that could be avoided if they started in a place that makes decent
money to begin with.”
Richard Heiser
Benjamin Ploch
Roxanna Mann
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