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Bender Consulting Services, Inc. Salutes
Alan A. Reich
The staff of the Bender Family of Companies would like to express our deepest sympathy at the loss of the National Organization on Disability's (N.O.D) Founder and President Emeritus, Alan A. Reich. As his friends, family, and colleagues in the disability community grieve the passing of Mr. Reich, we take comfort in the dynamic legacy of progress that this visionary advocate for the human condition leaves behind him.
Serving as President of the U.S. Council for the International Year of Disabled Persons observed in 1981, Mr. Reich founded N.O.D. in 1982 to continue removing barriers and increasing participation of people with disabilities within their local communities. Prior to his advocacy efforts on behalf of people with disabilities in the nonprofit sector, Mr. Reich held senior leadership positions within the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce and in the private sector as an executive with Polaroid Corporation.
Founding the Franklin D. Roosevelt International Disability Award given by N.O.D's World Committee on Disability, of which he was Chairman, and becoming the first individual to address the United Nations General Assembly from a wheelchair, Mr. Reich took a global view of disability as an international human rights issue. He also led the charge for integration of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Wheelchair statue in Washington, D.C. as part of the FDR Memorial national monument to this U.S. president to demonstrate the integral role of disability as part of our country's history and social fabric.
Mr. Reich most recently received the George Bush Medal from President George H.W. Bush. Never one to lose sight of the mission at hand, Mr. Reich saw the numerous accolades he received as evidence of his responsibility to continue advocating on behalf of people with disabilities around the world and to equip others to carry on those efforts in his absence.
Those of us who had the chance to know Alan Reich became stronger disability advocates as a direct result of our association with him, and we readily embrace the challenge he has entrusted to us-to continue removing barriers and creating opportunities for people with disabilities in communities around the world.
For more information on the life and legacy of Alan A. Reich, please visit www.nod.org
"It's ability, not disability, that counts!"
-Alan A. Reich
1930-2005
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