DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: So I'm going to now talk about Alpha One programs, particularly as they relate to fee-based services and a little background of who we are and what we do. First of all, you see our logo up here with our tag line, powering independent living, which we think is pretty cool and we actually try to play on that with different things. We have a scholarship program for youth in Maine. Youth with disabilities graduating from high school. We award three scholarships every year of $2,000. We notify every guidance counselor in the state ahead of time, so they're aware of it. We're now in our 11th year and we're now using the scholarship program as inroads to youth and getting them involved and just recently sent a letter to former scholarship winners, inviting them to join the board of directors. So it's helping us generate board membership as well. We've heard back from four people in the last month who are interested, thrilled and delighted. They caught us up in their experience since they won their scholarship and sort of helping renew us from that point. So that's pretty nifty. Our core IL service are, like yours, information referral, advocacy, both systems and self. Peer services, skills training, our unofficial fifth core service, consumer-directed personal assistance services. We've done a lot in the housing arena over the years. You may have noticed from the fact sheet on Alpha One, that Maine has the oldest housing stock in the nation. And we're an old state back in New England and a poor state, so things don't change rapidly. People often don't have the means to make changes to their living situations. Under access and housing, you'll see access design. I'll get into more detail, but it's a fee-based program. We have an architect on our staff who does consultation with the general community, both individuals, whether they're homeowners or apartment dwellers, businesses, state and local entity of government, and you name it. We're working with the community in order to advance access to goods and services. Second one is critical access, that's funded by three different community development grants across the state. One is pretty much state-wide and the other two are for populated areas in the city of Portland and Cumberland County. And with that program, we build ramps or widen doorways as access into individual's homes in order to prevent them from being moved to a more restrictive setting, because the calls we get for services are generally because Mrs. Jones or somebody else is in the hospital, needs to go home, they won't be discharged to an unsafe place, nd if someone wasn't able to step in and do that, then they'd be off to that more restrictive setting. So we're happy to be able to provide that service. In addition, we have supportive services we offer, like the consumer-directed programs, which are done under contract with the state of Maine and we have the mPower program, which is that very expensive name that was given to a marketing firm by the mPower board, used to be known as the adaptive equipment loan board, they thought they needed a jazzier name, so they hired a marketing company and paid about a hundred thousand dollars for the name mPower. Wasn't money well invested, but it's catchy. And we have a contract with them to be the entryway for consumers to get an adaptive equipment loan with the program. We handle all the loan applications, help people identify what they're looking for either equipment or products and then work in partnership with the finance authority of Maine to, they look at their credit, their discretionary income, and their ability to pay back the loan. The next one is called Return to Life. That is actually a product name. I think that's been copyrighted by the Prudential Insurance folks. We have been working with them for the last 3 or 4 years to provide services to their long-term and short-term disability claimants to enable them to return to life. What a concept for a disability insurer. Generally speaking, someone goes out on a claim, I'm sure you've all experienced it. But, if you go through your short-term disability and you're still not able to go back to work, more than likely, you'll go out on long-term disability. Once you're in long-term disability, the insurer really doesn't want to deal with you much longer or as little as possible, they want to reduce their financial risk. They will instruct anyone who goes that route to immediately apply for SSDI, which is going to replace some of what the insurer said they would pay for and now you're off into what we call the Oprah zone, because everyone's telling you you can't work, so you're going to stay home and watch Oprah all day. Although, I guess she's not on anymore. That's been done under a fee-based arrangement with them. What we do for them is an independent living assessment by telephone with their claimants, anywhere in the country. And we did this under what we call VaporWare. They came to us at one point, finally believing in what we do and valuing independent living, saying, well we know you do that here in Maine and you do that across the kitchen table, talking to a consumer, seeing what's going on, looking at their whole life, all the barriers that prevent them from moving forward. We want you to do it for people anywhere. Can you do that? And so we do have this concept we call VaporWare, so our automatic answer is, yeah, we can do that. And then we have to go back to the office and figure out how to do it. In this particular case, I knew we could do it because we have individuals who, even though they may go to someone's home and sit across the table from that individual and do an assessment of the home setting, the outdoor setting, talk to them about health care, transportation, housing, you name it, the whole piece, we've got individuals who are blind. So even though they're in someone's home doing that assessment, they can't really see it, they're getting that information from the conversation. And actually they do the best independent living assessment of any of our independent living specialists. So when I went back and I told the staff they were now going to be doing this, they're all, we can't do that, I've got to have that up close and personal relationship and I need to see someone. I said, well Brad can't see who is talking to him. He can't see the environment, and if he can do it, you can do it. So we've been doing it. It took some coaxing and urging, but people found after a while, they could really do it. And all we do in this one-hour conversation, which is us talking to the claimant is ask them, what's going on in their life, what's preventing them from moving forward. ? What are their goals, what do they want to do? One of the claims managers from Prudential is on the line, they're listening, writing it all down, they're not talking; their just listening. And at the end, our specialists thanks the person for the conversation, writes up the report, gives it to Prudential, and the report includes recommendations of what might be done for that individual to move forward with those issues in their life. It's been an extremely gratifying and rewarding thing do. Because these guys think we're geniuses for one thing. Because they work with these claimants month after month, year after year, and all they ever want to say to them is, are you willing to negotiate a claim settlement, will you take less money to get off claim. Or have you found a job, but they have never done anyone to help someone return to life first, because you got to have all these other things in place before you can think about going to work. You got to have transportation, you got to have training. You know what it is. And now they have got a plan in front of them they can use. One great success story from that is a woman who was injured, now couldn't drive her own car without hand controls. She and her husband were locked into a lease for some big monstrous SUV she couldn't get in and out of independently. Otherwise, her former employer wanted her back. She wanted to go back to work, but she was on long-term disability. Our simple recommendation was, if you could buy out the lease and get her a car she could use, she could go back to work. That was kind of foreign language for them. They scratched their head, but someone got out the pencil and paper and realized that the lease cost plus the vehicle cost, compared to the claim cost was just minuscule. So they did it. And the woman went back to work. She was delighted. Prudential was delighted because they got to take all that money out of reserves and they got to move on to the next thing. And of course, they paid us for the work too. Great stuff to do. Durable medical equipment, been in that business for 20-plus years. We got out of it a couple years ago. It was a very difficult business and I could, will go into more detail on it. We also started, several years ago, manufacturing and selling an all-terrain manual wheelchair called the Renegade Wheelchair. I would invite you to research that on the web. We've got some pretty cool YouTube videos about it and some nice marketing materials, but that has also ran into some difficulties because as a recreational type wheelchair, it's not reimbursable by insurance at this point in time. The next one up there is adaptive driver training. Actually should be adaptive trainer evaluation. We used to do training. This is one of our oldest programs, again, generated by consumer input, people were telling us, gee, I want to know if I can drive again. Do I need adaptive equipment? The only place that I can get this evaluation is one state way. It requires an overnight stay, which is expensive. Requires, sometimes bringing in a PA or someone to help me. Very complicated and unwieldy. It doesn't really work for me. Why can't you guys do that. So we decided we would try to do that and it still continues today as a program that we offer. Because in a rural state, sometimes not having transportation really is the difference between independence and non-independence. Question over here? Mic, please. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm Pam from Jacksonville and I was debating about whether to ask you this question or not. Because we have a durable medical equipment area, it's a temporary loan closet, and it actually is quite successful. Why is it that you got out of it? Was it liability reasons? Because we have a liable waiver. I'm just curious if you don't mind sharing. DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: I don't mind sharing at all. I think our first mistake was we never capitalized it enough so we never invested enough money so that we could do the kind of things you really should do. You should be doing television advertising, which is extremely costly, or radio, or whatever else to get out there and spread the word about who you are, what you're selling, that type of thing. That was one problem. The other one was, because we felt such a commitment to consumers that we would not turn anyone away and yet other providers would. So we became the so-called provider of last resort. When anyone with a complicated situation like the really funky power wheelchairs, things like that, need a lot of tailoring and specifications, other providers, even though they weren't supposed to, would say, other providers, even though they weren't supposed to, would say, you need to go to Alpha One. Knowing that we would say, we'll do it. So we ended up serving a lot of people that we never got reimbursed for because of mistakes and errors and complications with the Medicaid system and never able to develop other insurers as markets. So too much in the Medicaid realm versus the general market. Never had the fee-based services, et cetera. Just couldn't break out of that. AUDIENCE MEMBER: If I might add, what we do is we charge just a $5 minimum donation, and we loan it out for 90 days. And it's not new equipment. It's donated equipment. And we have somebody to look over it. So it's maybe. And we do, we are a Medicaid provider, however, we do not, we're not an expert in the field to say this is what the person needs, so we have the doctor write a prescription and that's as far as we go with it. So maybe that's the difference in capitalizing is a problem that I've had as the fiscal director and making sure this stuff gets on our books. Anyway, thank you. DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: Thank you. Yes? SPEAKER: (Inaudible). DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: Use the mic, please. Takes a minute for him to recognize you. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay. I was curious about the Return to Life program. Is that a program that's been brought in, I think of an insurance company, I think, wow, maybe that brings in some funds, but has that been a lucrative program for you guys? DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: It was for a brief moment in time. The problem with that, they're not the only disability insurer we've worked with. We worked with UNUM, which back in 1999 actually wanted to buy Alpha One, they were so enthralled with what we did. Then after that, they had a change in management. They merged with Provident and that changed completely. And they no longer dealt with us. Then we worked with IDR, which is based out of Connecticut, similar kind of things, more ticket to work related, then they went out of business and then we went to Prudential and they created their own internal concept with this Return to Life thing, so as this insurance business, they change leadership on a regular basis. And when new people come in, if it wasn't their idea, it's not a good idea. So it's had ups and downs, and right now, it's very down. So we did make some money, but one of the best things we got out of it is we had them sign on as a sponsor of five different fundraisers that we did, which was great for us in terms of exposure, fundraising and having some fun and getting the name out there. So that worked well. Had other benefits. So I'm going to talk first about access design. Hiring the architect in 1991 was a big change for us as an organization. It was right after the ADA had been passed. Prior to that, since the inception of Alpha One, we didn't have a federal law we could lean against for rights and civil rights in the state. We did have the Maine Human Rights Act, which actually is a pretty comprehensive piece of legislation in the state that protects people with disabilities as well. And during the '80s, we actually developed a pretty, I wouldn't say negative, but sort of an aggressive reputation in the state of filing lawsuits against different entities and things like that that ended up leaving a pretty bad taste in the business community's mouth. For instance, we worked with a movie theater that we worked with before they built a new movie theater, telling them how they needed to make it accessible, and they nodded their head and smiled and sort of indicated they were going to do that, but in the end, they made a very inaccessible facility that didn't meet the needs. So we sued them. And they had to go in with the jackhammers and tear up the whole theater and do it all over again. And then the one that really was a real killer is we sued a miniature golf course because it wasn't wheelchair accessible. Kind of an odd choice, probably, for some, but we had consumers that were upset they couldn't go play miniature golf. That really left a bad taste in the community's mouth. So when the ADA came in, the board and management sat and discussed where we ought to go now. And there was a decision made that we would change our approach to the community that way from filing these lawsuits and then having a hard time working with local businesses because they didn't like lawsuits. And instead, becoming a resource and that's why we hired this architect to become immersed in ADA and learn it better than anyone else knew it. So we could then help the community understand the law and implement it correctly. It was a risk, but it was something that actually paid amazing dividends for us as an organization. The gentlemen we hired, his name was Dennis Pratt and I mention his name only to honor him, he died suddenly about three years ago, dropped dead of a heart attack on vacation and created a huge hole for us after all those years. But Dennis did amazing things, not only in the state of Maine, but he delivered services around the country, looking at access in different places. I listed some of them in here. What he will do is he will sell his services, or our present architect will do that now on a consulting basis. Our rates are generally $95 per hour. And he could do, or now, our architect, Jill, could do anything from reviewing plans to providing trainings, to assessing facilities, you name it, the sky is wide open for the opportunity there with that expertise and certification as an architect to look at these kind of things. And we actually knew early on, this could create waves with the architectural community. We didn't want them to think we were stealing their business. But we also knew that even though architects are responsible for doing a lot of things around new construction, et cetera, they often miss a lot of things. And many of them recognize that. They were actually happy to have a resource they could use, not to do the design, but to review their work before they went forward. So he found a real niche there to be able to review the kind of things that were going on in the community. So, again, we serve individuals, businesses and public entities. And we have been doing it now for 20 plus years. And here's a list on page seven of some of the projects. I asked Dennis a few years ago to list his top ten favorites and I didn't notice until his funeral that he had actually put 12 in, but that was his way of wanting to say that he did more than ten. And he did a lot more than that. But he put in his top ones. Sunday River Ski Resort in Maine, one of the biggest ski areas in New England. The Superior and District Court houses throughout Maine, that was done as a result of some of our advocacy efforts and relationship building we did. We were then awarded a sole source contract to do this. Didn't even go out to bid. We were put on retainer by Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine many years ago to help them assess their entire campus to make sure it was accessible. And we did that because they inadvertently admitted two young people who used wheelchairs to their new class many years ago and failed to check out whether they could actually get around the campus okay. But then realized that they needed to do what they needed to do. So they did. I need Vanna White here. Pardon me one second. Dennis went up and down the east coast looking at Red Roof Inns, to make sure they were accessible. There was a bridge built across the Penobscot Narrows in Maine. If you ever get a chance to come up, it's worth seeing. It's one of those big span bridges with the cables all over. It's actually the biggest one in the hemisphere, I believe in terms of size. It's not big, because you can't make them too big. But it's an impressive structure. But the department of transportation, when they were building it, wanted to make sure that the observation platform they were putting on top was accessible to everybody with disabilities and so they called us at Alpha One and we sent him out to help with the design of that whole structure to make sure that the elevator went up, got up to a certain level and then addressed the ability to get around the observation tower to see everything. Great view. And one of his favorites was he went out to Noxon, Montana. You guys in Montana know where this is? Yeah? And he assessed the recreational sites along the river system up there somewhere. Our outreach and marketing for this service happens in a number of ways. We get general I&R calls from many people. Over the years, we've developed that reputation. You can call Alpha One for access information. We are actually the Maine affiliate of region one's ADA center in Boston. So we get calls from them if someone from Maine calls them first, they can send them back to us. The architectural community has been a great source of referrals. We participate in seminars and business meetings and workshops around the state. Respond to RFPs that are looking for design services, and then there's always word of mouth. It's a natural fit for I&R activities and other housing-related services. And it also ties in nicely to the mPower program, again where people can borrow money for goods or services that are going to enable them to be more independent. Might include design of home structures, et cetera that could be paid for with that loan. It's also impacted our traditional advocacy agenda by focusing attention on problem solving as opposed to litigation or filing complaints. The next program I want to talk about is called critical access and that was created as a result of one of our independent living specialists coming to me one day, saying, I am so frustrated when we get a call from a hospital or a rehab center that someone can't go home from the hospital, because they need a ramp, and they want to know if we can put a ramp in tomorrow. Ever get a call like that? They don't want it next week, next month, they want it tomorrow. And we say, well, gee, we can't build a ramp tomorrow. Well, what good are you guys. And it reflects poorly on us. But more difficulty than that is that it makes it impossible for that individual to go back to their home. Our IL specialist said, I really want to do something about this. I don't know what to do, but we really should tackle this program, because too many people are having to go somewhere else other than their home. So I said, great, let's work on it. Why don't you do some research, see what's out there, you can find out about ramp programs or ramps in general, et cetera. He came back and learned about a program in Minnesota called the Minnesota Ramp. Interesting name. And they created a ramp that would work in Maine because Minnesota has winters like we do, cold, snowy, icy, hard to build a ramp when it's ice and snow. And they figured out, instead of having to dig holes in the ground, you can lay things on these rounded, metal platforms, that could be adjusted for height. Melting, freezing, et cetera. All built in components ahead of time. You can actually go out and take measurements at someone's home, look at how long the ramp's got to be, how many components it would take, how many landings, et cetera, then load everything in the truck and go out and put it all together. The key was, having the components, having the people to do the building, things like that, so then he came back and said, this is what I learned. And I said, Okay. He said, what should I do? I said, well, here's another thing I want you to remember. It's another mantra. Instead of the no margin, no mission, it's, it's all about relationships. Okay? Everything we do is about who we know, who we talk to, the relationships we build and maintain. And so the only thing I could think of is he go talk to the person who is the head of HUD in the state of Maine, who has been a friend of the organization. He went and told them about this concept of what we could do. He liked the idea, said, let's go see so-and-so at the Department of Economic and Community Development, see if there's any money there. And they came up with $7,500 to build three ramps, because we said we could build them for materials of each 2,500, without labor cost. And they found volunteer labor to do it. Within six weeks, we had built six ramps, because we found some other money, and we managed to please these guys no end. They love these things. A ramp is great, because it’s not something in your head. You can touch it, see it, walk up and down it. That type of thing. People who get one are thrilled. It was good stuff for HUD, it was good stuff for CDBG, they really wanted this program to go. They came back a month later with $50,000. They wanted us to build more ramps and of course, we get an administrative fee and we decided that in order to make sure these ramps are built to spec, no matter where they're built, that we would recruit builders around the state who would agree to do two things so people would get that ramp built quickly. One is, if they wanted to work with us, they had to agree to drop everything else they were doing, whether they were building a house or building a bridge or anything else, they had to stop and build this ramp. And the second thing was, they had to follow our training and specs on how to do it. So they all are built to according to code, and there's none of these funny ramps that you see out there. I saw a laugh over here. Because I know you would know. We have all seen them. Especially if we use wheelchairs, we've seen ramps that are just pretty awful. They're built right, they're built quickly, we can build a ramp in seven to 10 days. So now someone doesn't have to go to a more restrictive setting. That was a great story. The gentlemen at CDBG, I should say Community Development Block Grant, Thank you. Was thrilled. He wanted this to be his legacy when he left. Because he just thought that was the best thing they had ever done. That $50,000 went from 50,000 that year to 200,000 the next year to 300,000 the following year and he did something so that we didn't even have to apply anymore. He made it part of the regular line item budget. This is how much he loved it. It's a great program, it continues to exist and it's well worth doing. Question? Mic. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. I have a question. In Indiana, we had a lot of feedback into the state consolidated plan and they started to dedicate money to home rehab. We kind of, as well as you have an older housing stock, one of the problems we're running into is because housing's cheaper in Indiana, so most people that need modifications to their home may own it outright and because of medical or other expenses has quit carrying homeowner's insurance. And so then the rule is, they're dedicating a large amount of money to home modifications for those with disabilities in our state, but if they do not have homeowner's insurance on that home, we can't then touch the home and the money can't be used to purchase that. The other issue we're also running into is if the roof is over 25 years old that has to be part of the rehab and that's eating up a big chunk of the dollars that they're getting allocated to the home. So we're talking about looking at foundations or other groups to maybe help them carry the insurance for the five-year period they would need for the rehab, but the larger issue is the roof issue and I'm just curious if you or others –- because it's home and CDBG dollars as well in our state are starting to run into this problem. Because if you're only getting 25,000 on a house, and you have to replace a roof, that eats up almost $10,000 of the budget that you had to do the home modifications to keep people in their homes. DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: Interesting that we haven't heard that as an issue. We do have another program through the Maine housing organization that can actually address non-access issues. 25 percent of the grant can go to things like chimney repair, roof things, that type of thing. But it wouldn't pay for that amount of money. That's a tough one. Outreach for this program, again, through I&R, referrals from medical facilities, most medical facilities at this point are very aware of this particular option, so we get calls that way, and of course the Community Development Block Grant folks also make referrals. It's a natural fit for our work in housing. It's often a front end for some of our work with CD pass. We might find people that we didn't know about before. But someone leaving the hospital who now needs a ramp, chances are they may need assistance with ADLs, et cetera. So there's a natural fit there. And again, it fits well with the mPower financing program. And it's just one more tool for Alpha One to be a full service organization. We used to want to be a one-stop shop for everything. We realize that may not be possible. But, it's not necessarily impossible either. Next on the list here, supportive services. We have our consumer directed personal assistance service programs, I talked a little bit about them earlier. It began as a pilot program. We talked earlier about the benefit of trying a pilot when it comes along. Usually doesn't have all the rules and regulations that a formal program has. It's a great chance to experiment to see if things work. And we actually began our first one of these programs with 15 people using these services in the state. And so it was a great way to try it out and it was brand new back then. When you're trying something brand new, there's lots of leeway and people are forgiving of any mistakes along the way. As you would imagine, these services are for people who want to direct their own services. Not everybody given this choice selects it. Some people would rather get it from a home health organization or another means, but I think most people who have tried it, stay with it because they really value choosing who's coming into their home, providing services and determining when they’re going to do that and how they're going to do that, unlike typical home health. We've had ups and downs over the years. It has impacted staffing because we're required to have certain licensures, like registered nurses, occupational therapists, or certified occupational therapy assistants, et cetera, but they eventually do learn about independent living. And not to bad mouth anyone, nurses are a little slower about that. They don't get into being nurses because they want to make people independent. They like to take care of people. But they get there. Or they don't stay. And the occupational therapists are an easier fit because they take a functional view of the world, which is pretty much what we do. And I think that's a natural fit for us. And it's worked out well. Getting ahead of myself now. All right. Catching up. Outreach again, everything is done through the I&R process. That's the doorway into everything we do. Probably you too. Word of mouth is big in the CD pass program. Seems like consumers always know some other consumer who they've talked to, they meet around town and they pass on information about what works. They share things, sort of that natural peer network that we're not even connected to. Professional referrals of the assessing agency that actually has the statewide responsibility for assessing all people for long-term care, will make the referrals. And then there's the coordination with different medical providers, discharge planners, et cetera. That's been a core activity since day one. It fits very neatly with everything else. It's been a focus for the advocacy agenda well. We talked earlier about how it could be a possible conflict. It actually continues to be a focus of our advocacy. One of our staff people, two or three years ago got the bug for the legislative process. And decided to run for office. He now serves in the Maine legislature. And how dare he, but he had his own mind. He doesn't do what we tell him to do. And even though he still works for us. He filed legislation that would actually reform the entire long-term care system and have a dramatic impact on how we do business at Alpha One. But his ideas were great ideas. And it was going to make the system more consumer-responsive. So that if a consumer were using, say, our services, but starting to be overwhelmed with the work that goes with consumer direction around the recruiting, the hiring, the training, all the stuff that goes with that, which is a lot of work, the time sheets, et cetera. And wanted a break. If they wanted a break, they had to leave Alpha One and go to some home health care agency. On the flip side, if someone were with a home health care agency and decided they wanted to try consumer direction, they had to leave that organization and get a referral to Alpha One. So it wasn't that really portability in the system to go back and forth. And this legislation's creating that portability, forcing Alpha One, forcing home health organizations to be able to do it all. So we're in transition trying to figure out how to do that now. It's actually an easier transition for us. Although, we're not crazy about the home health approach. We can use it if that's what the consumer wants, but the other side thinks that they just cannot do consumer direction. They just don't get it. Question? AUDIENCE MEMBER: In Missouri, we make a distinction between home health and in-home care. I don't know if you know the, the in-home is basically the CD, the consumer-directed services, the activities of daily living where home health is the medical model and that distinction. In our in-home and CD program, the CD program, you don't have to have a nurse. The attendants are not required to have any medical qualifications, no CNAs, we reach out and try to get CNAs, but there's none of that. And I have heard both you and Kathie this morning talking about occupational therapists and all of that, that's not required in our consumer-directed program. But for the in-home, we have to have an RN and those types of things. But I'm wondering if you're talking about in Maine home health or in-home? DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: That's a great question. And I'm corrected. It's not home health that way. It's in-home. There are other in-home models. So there's a CD model and others just have the PSS or whatever acronym they use these days. But they're just sending someone to help with ADLs, IADLs, just like we do, but it's agency-driven. So thanks for the correction on that or the clarification. The reason we have nurses and OTs though, is they are required for the whole aspect of skills training and case management, which is different. They're not providing the hands-on care. Question? AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm just curious. Are you listed with Medicaid as a managed care provider? DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: There is no managed care in Maine. AUDIENCE MEMBER: So that, okay. There we go. DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: Interestingly, I was brought to Maine, recruited by Alpha One in 1995 to Alpha One develop a managed care program. See how successful I was? (Laughter). Just never happened, even though it was supposed to. And I'm not sure it ever will, because we just don't have enough people in Maine, I think to make that work. Only a million people in the state. SPEAKER: (Inaudible) DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: How many moved? SPEAKER: How many moose? (Laughter) DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: Moose? I haven't counted lately. So now I want to talk about the mPower program, which began as the result of a legislative action back in the early '80s that created an independent living commission or a blue ribbon commission on independent living. And that commission came back with a report to the legislature with seven recommendations that would help improve the state of living in Maine, for people with disabilities and one of the recommendations was that people with disabilities often benefit from assistive technologies, whether it be something simple, something commonplace, like a wheelchair, but also everything else you might think of. Might be computer technology, could be sporting devices. You name it. If it's some type of either high-tech, low-tech device that insurance won't pay for, this is why we need something like this. And Medicaid won't pay for lots of things. Typical insurance company will pay for even less and if you're a person living on a fixed income, it's very hard to afford some of things that are out there. So one of the seven recommendations was to create a revolving loan fund for people with disabilities where they could borrow money, again it's not a grant. It's a loan. They have to pay it back. And they could borrow money in order to buy what it is they're looking for. So the question then was, where to come up with the money. And that took a year-long campaign in the state by the founder of the organization and a couple other people, they went all over the state. Probably went to every Rotary Club and such organization in the state, radio appearances. They really covered the entire state, talking about the benefit and importance of this program. And they got it on to the ballot in November as a referendum question. It was the first time a referendum question in Maine dealt with something other than bricks and mortar. It was dealing with a concept. Loaning money to people with disabilities to purchase assistive technology products so they could be more independent. So they campaigned for this. When the election came that November, which was in 1988, that referendum passed with the highest approval rating of any up to that time, which demonstrated that the people of Maine thought was a great idea. They wanted to help people with disabilities move ahead. And they liked the idea of a loan versus a grant. Okay? So I have to tell you that when I lived in Massachusetts before I came to Maine, I thought it was fantastic. I liked the idea of people being able to borrow money and pay it back, just like anyone else does when you take out a loan. Not everybody does, but most people do. And it gives them the same ability to be in debt like the rest of us, right? (Laughter). It's the American way. It's a great program. Millions of dollars in loans have been done to this day. The default rate is better than the banking system's rate. Because people value having access to these resources that they cannot get from some other means. And yes, there have been defaults and sometimes loans have had to be restructured. But the board has the option of reviewing that. And they have restructured many a loan. Millions of loans made. Interestingly, when it was passed, it was a $5 million loan. It's the biggest program still in the country. And the loan program has grown. Ten years after that, we were approached by the state house and the University system, asking if we wanted another million and a half. Because they were going to put out another bond to get money to make access improvements at the University system and at the State House. But every time they put out a bond, they get voted down. Nobody wants to support the State House or the University system. But they thought if they put us out in front as the first part of the ballot, we could get it passed. And it did pass, so another million and a half went in the fund. We are paid $75 per hour for whatever we do in relation to this program. If the phone rings and someone's calling, looking for resources and we talk about the program, we can bill for that service. Whether they actually take out a loan or not. We have someone who goes to the loan board meeting on a monthly basis, their time there, billable time. So any information and referral, any direct work with a consumer on helping them identify product or equipment is all billable time. Outreach again, the focal point is information and referral. The program itself, which is operated by an independent board with a majority of people with disabilities. Advertises, does sponsorships, et cetera, a lot of television, we get a lot of referrals that way. And we actually went around the country in the early '90s with a NIDRR grant, teaching other states how to create these programs. I wish I had been there then, because they went to places like Alaska, Hawaii, all the cool places. Now, private sector, I already talked a little bit about Return to Life. So I'm not going to go much more detail on that. And I'll jump into just a few words on the Alpha One medical, and the Renegade. I think I just got a couple more minutes. Alpha One medical was begun as a program because consumers were telling us that, this is, again, in the '80s. That their equipment was breaking down on a Friday afternoon. If you had a power chair, the local DME provider refused to do anything until Monday morning. So you were stuck. Stuck for a whole weekend. Not going anywhere if your power chair's not going somewhere. And they said, what are you guys going to do about this? And we had two things we could have done. There's no law we could have leaned on at the time, and could have picketed outside the business, demanding better service, et cetera, but we decided to get in the business and become the pace setter in the industry, so to speak. And the first thing we did was establish 24/7 emergency service so that people weren't going to be stuck day and night and on the weekends. And that forced the rest of the providers to do the same thing. So within a few years, people were getting much better service in order to keep functioning on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately, we couldn't keep that up over time. Little by little, even though, some of the other providers started doing it, little by little, they stopped doing it and left us sort of high and dry and with the customer base that had more of those types of issues for calls than what they had in the other businesses. So it was untenable in many ways. Undercapitalized, we were pretty much the Medicaid-focused business and in reflection, I would say it was because we were not as expert about that kind of business as we are about the other things we do in independent living. We didn't know enough about the insurance market. We didn't know enough about the billing and collecting, et cetera. So after many long years of pain, we did give it up three years ago. But I would say it did have other benefits. And there's always intangibles to things that we know or don't know. And one of them is we were asked to bring outlines and some background information on our centers and to put them on a stick. So I'm going to show you the stick. And you're welcome to borrow this at any time. And I think Kathie has one too, probably, but all I put in here are the kinds of things that show about relationships and that type of marketing. What you'll see in here, one of the pictures I'll refer you to is in 2000, George W. Bush when he was campaigning for president, came to Alpha One to unveil his disability policy, the New Freedom Initiative. That was huge for us. Probably why we're still thought of as Republicans too. But it was a big event. The national press was all over the place. Buses up and down the street, secret service, bomb-sniffing dogs, everything was all over. But we had the press conference in our conference room for him announcing the New Freedom Initiative and all the aspects of it. Very cool. So there's a picture there of him. But the picture was taken in our DME provider because it had things you could look at and see other than an office space. And it always paid dividends that way. That's why it was one of the things that sold Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, when we received a grant from them back in 1991, when they came for the site visit, the first place we took them was into the DME, because you can show people things from chairs to grab bars, to you name it. And people love that. So having a showplace had many payoffs that somewhat offset some of the negativity. So here's the stick if you're looking for it and if you want to hear any of the nightmares, I'll tell you that on the side sometime. The last thing, just quickly, I encourage you to look at the Renegade Wheelchair piece, when we got into that business, we met a gentlemen who had, actually, you know what? Forgive me. I'm going to skip that. Just go to the quick, final thing on adaptive driver evaluation because this is an ongoing and still very important program. Renegade, by the way, is on hold because we've suspended operations for the time being. Adaptive driver evaluation. This is not a moneymaker. This is really mission-related. We make a little bit of money, but the best thing about it is, we get people back on the road again. They learn to drive, they learn what adaptive equipment they need in order to do so, we work in conjunction with the Department of Motor Vehicles, they come to see us once a year to see what we're up to, they want to review records, they publicize us themselves, they point people in our direction, it is fee-based. It's a $500 per assessment cost. If someone doesn't have, say, a VR voucher, cause VR will pay for this. They're the biggest payer. And someone has to find a way to pay it themselves. One thing they can use is the mPower program, as an option. So we can point them to that. Otherwise, they can write a check or they can put it on their credit card. But we'll help them find a resource to pay for it. But it still has to be paid for. And it's one of those things I referred to earlier as a boutique service. It's a lot of value. People value getting behind the wheel again. They want to be able to drive. No one else is offering it in the state of Maine. They don't have to go out of state to get the service. And we have trained people on staff who have driver educator training and certification, which they have to have. There's a cost to that. We have vehicles, there's a cost to that. And we have a two-part assessment. It's clinical in nature and the clinical thing, which measures people's visual acuity, judgment, ability to use or -– not so much to use, because there's so many adaptive things out there, but coordinate different activities at the same time. And then we actually do a behind the wheel assessment, which, if someone's driven before, even though they may not have done well in the clinical, they may do great once they get behind the wheel again. Because that memory stuff comes back, whether you've had a stroke or some kind of injury, people kind of remember right away. So it's the two-part thing, an assessment is done and a recommendation is made. They have to go back to the DMV for approval. But it's one of the finest things that we do is help people get back behind the wheel. I believe my time is up, correct? Correct. Any parting shots? (Applause) AUDIENCE MEMBER: We still have 3 or 4 minutes. Dennis, I don't know if you would be willing to answer any questions. DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: Any other questions? Comments? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Dennis, I was just curious, this is Bob. Now I know how big you are, in terms of geography. I was curious what your annual budget is or revenue, if you will, and what your administrative budget is. DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: This year, our revenues will total about 14 and a half million. AUDIENCE MEMBER: And then your admin? DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: It's around nine percent of the total. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Okay. Thank you. DENNIS FITZGIBBONS: Yeah. And that's done with 33 staff people state-wide. So we're lean and mean.