2026 National APSE Board of Directors At-Large Candidate

CLICK to meet all nominees before the election ends on March 15.

Please describe your history/nature of involvement/interest in promoting competitive integrated employment in your state. Additionally, explain why you are passionate about competitive, integrated employment for people with disabilities:

Before moving to Oklahoma in 2021, my new home state, I spent over thirty-five years leading a vocational services department at Cerebral Palsy Associations of New York State, doing business as Constructive Partnerships Unlimited. Through its various programs, including supported employment, customized employment, job placement, and prevocational services, this department focused on providing a range of Medicaid Waiver and New York State VR-sponsored vocational services for capable individuals with profound disabilities who need ongoing supports and services to successfully find and maintain competitive, integrated employment. As a leader of this department since the mid-eighties, I have had the pleasure and satisfaction of developing a program that helped countless individuals with various disabilities (e.g., ID/DD, TBI, Mental Health, Physical Challenges) realize their true potential as self-actualized members of the workforce. Since moving to Oklahoma, in my new role as a Certified Vocational Counselor and Vocational Evaluator with the state, I have enjoyed meeting all kinds of people across the state and, by doing so, have helped their VR counselors develop meaningful, person-centered, individualized employment plans for my fellow Oklahomans with disabilities through the hundreds of reports I have written and the advice I have offered. Although I have always known and participated in the many conferences and training sponsored by APSE and its New York State chapter, since moving to Oklahoma, I am proud to say that I am a governing member of the Oklahoma APSE chapter. This leadership position in the state organization has given me the pleasure of working with a variety of state and nonprofit leaders who operate a wide range of vocational service programs throughout the state. As I approach my sixty-fifth year, when thoughts of retirement come to the fore, I find myself newly invigorated by the prospect that I can still make a difference in people’s lives in new and interesting ways. As the saying goes, I am just getting started.

What best represents your position/lived experience?

Service Provider or Manager; State Agency Representative; Vocational Evaluator

What skills, knowledge, or lived experience do you have that will contribute to strengthening and growing the financial health of APSE and promoting its mission to advance employment and self-sufficiency for all people with disabilities?

Through my work as a professional vocational services administrator and Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, the following is applicable: UNIQUE VALUE Grant Writing, New Program Development, Employee Recruitment & Supervision, Program Operations Leadership, Long-term Strategic Planning, Policy / Procedure Development and Implementation, Stakeholder Collaboration (state DD and voc services), Budget Development & Management, Compliance Management, Training Facilitation, Organizational Transformation, Community Committee/Group Participation, Active Oklahoma APSE board member, Professional Vocational Evaluation Services EXPERT PROGRAM KNOWLEDGE AND LEADERSHIP: Supported Employment, NYS Universal State Contracted Vocational Services (ACCES-VR, NYS Medicaid Waiver Employment Services, Programs Without Walls Day Habilitation (prevocational), Community Habilitation Services, Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver Services (Ind. Living Skill Training and Care Coordination).

How do you think serving on the National APSE Board will help you grow as a leader in the Employment First Movement?

While I may have knowledge and experience in regulatory policy and legislative affairs at the local and state levels in two states (Oklahoma and New York). Through National Board membership, I will have the opportunity on a national level to influence policy and develop services that enable people with disabilities to access their birthright to become self-actualized, employed, and fully integrated citizens, respected as unique and diverse individuals.

Biography

As a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor with a Master’s Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from Hunter College, Al has spent much of his career directing programs and services for Cerebral Palsy Associations of New York State (now Constructive Partnerships Unlimited). His work is dedicated to helping people with the most severe disabilities become self-actualized through obtaining and maintaining fully integrated employment, and achieving maximum independence in the communities where they live and work. Some of these programs include:

VR and DD Waiver-sponsored Supported and Customized Employment Services

VR-sponsored Universal Services Contract providing a range of job placement, job coaching, and community-based evaluation services

DD Waiver-sponsored Programs Without Walls, including Day Habilitation Services and Community Habilitation Services

DD Waiver-sponsored Facility-based Day Habilitation Training Services

Just to name a few.

Since moving to the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area in 2021, he has worked as a Vocational Evaluator and a civil servant for the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services. Al travels across all four corners of the state, including the “Panhandle,” meeting with individuals with disabilities and assisting rehabilitation counselors with reports that help develop person-centered vocational plans for hundreds of people throughout the state, many of whom have complex support needs. Through this work, Al has expanded his knowledge of vocational services in major urban centers to also include an understanding of the unique challenges of serving people in rural communities across the state.

In addition to his paid work, Al also volunteers his time and experience to Oklahoma APSE as one of it boardmembers. Through his board membership, Al has the opportunity to network with a variety of local program leaders in vocational rehabilitation and habilitation services, and learn from his unique perspective on how to deliver valuable person-centered vocational services.