Meet the Founder

When I told my mom what I was gonna do, she said I'm not surprised Tanner, you always successful in previous lives. In this one, you just came to do one of the most, most difficult things there is to do, and that is to change people's minds about blindness. And what they can do in employment.

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I'm an all American kid. I was an all American kid growing up, loved sports never really was excited about school. And both my brother and I were destined to go into the military and when it came time to do that I backed out, I got scared. I didn't, I told myself, like whatever it was that I needed to hear in order to, to not do that. And then once you know months later, maybe like even 18 months later when I finally got my wherewithal, the maturity, the courage to re-enlist in the military right around my 21st birthday that I saw a blind man for the first time I was Eastbound on Speedway Blvd. Tucson, AZ, at the intersection of Speedway and Wilmont and this man was wearing a backpack and a colored shirt and black glasses and he had a white cane in his hand. He crossed the street; he lifted up the cane and he held it parallel to the ground out in front of his face, above not touching the ground completely about eye level. And he walked across the street, and I was just like, wow. I guess that's how they do it. But I had volunteered for Easter Seals a lot when I was growing up and I've been around different types of people with severe disabilities both physical but never sensory like that. And I just didn't understand, I didn't know any better.

A couple weeks later, I was in a really bad auto accident when a tree came through my windshield and paled me in the face. I woke up in the hospital totally blind with my broken back. My jaw broken bone sticking out of my face, my brain was exposed to the air, and I contracted a couple different infections. One of which, that was on my brain that it was killing me. I didn't know that I was going to even be alive until 12 months later, I was just fighting to stay alive. And when I came out of that, I was motivated to do something with my life. I really kind of felt like, the first couple of decades were a Mulligan, and so I went out and I got after it. I didn't even know how to use a screen reader, but I enlisted into college and then I got a guide dog and then I got a job. And then I got fired, someone complained about me. And I lost my job, it was the longest I've ever had one job. And for the next six years, I struggled to find anything. I never, ever had a problem getting a job ever. If I got the interview, I got the job. Period. But now that wasn't the case, I would crush a phone interview, I would destroy the first in person interview. I could tell that they wanted to hire me as soon as they found out the level of my visual impairment, everything changed. We'll let you know. We'll get back to you. You know what? We went a different direction. It just wasn't a good fit.

Six years went by, before I ever got another opportunity, before someone gave me a chance, and it was actually selling digital accessibility job boards in 2015, 2016, a little bit before its time. But from there, I realized that digital accessibility can be an opportunity and shortly thereafter, I realized holy moly. Actually, knowing how to use a screen reader to be a competitive advantage. In fact, it could be a, a way to create employment opportunities for the blind. Today, it's known as digital accessibility testing. I've dedicated my life to this so, Employment is my passion. Equal Employment is my vision. A couple of years ago I started a company called Accessibility Officer. I've been fortunate and blessed. We hire blind, I've got eight blind people working for me today doing digital accessibility testing. All of them. I taught how to do that, my company did. We certified, we've trained them and certified them as Digital Accessibility Testers. Totally blind. Screen reader using digital accessibility testers working on large government projects. Online retailers' e-commerce. People that are helping other businesses overcome digital accessibility lawsuits.

When I told my mom what I was gonna do, she said I'm not surprised Tanner, you were always successful in previous lives. In this one, you just came to do one of the most, most difficult things there is to do, and that is to change people's minds about blindness. And what they can do in employment.