Awareness and Acceptance: For Ourselves and Others

With the launch of World Autism Awareness Day on April 2 and Autism Acceptance Month throughout April, we asked members of the GE Power’s Disability Advocacy Network (DAN) how the employee resource group (ERG) is raising awareness and acceptance of autism at the company. While autism awareness increases visibility of those with autism, acceptance emphasizes that autistic people should be given equal opportunities and belong in inclusive workplaces.

Rosalia’s Journey

Rosalia Martinez-Brandon, Principal Engineer for Regulatory & Security Compliance in GE Gas Power Engineering, began her journey with autism when her son was born. Rosalia knew instantly that there was a challenge. She went to work investigating on her own, and after two years of persistence, finally got experts to listen to her concerns. The day her son turned three, he started receiving special education services for autism and attending the school district for a full day. Non-verbal until the age of four, Rosalia’s son is now a junior in high school and is taking college courses for dual credit to pursue an engineering degree.

“Along the way, we have been supported by many teachers, therapists, and doctors, and he was recently transferred from special education services to accommodation supports,” said Rosalia. “Every minute along the journey has been a transformative experience—every time I thought ‘ok, we’ve got this’, something would change, and it would feel like Day One all over again.”

When Rosalia’s daughter was born, she figured everything was ok—she grew up in an autism-structured household, with Applied Behavior Therapists, visual schedule supports, and strict routines. When her daughter started pre-school however, the signs of autism appeared.

“I mourned—I just didn’t think I could go through this all over again. Now at the end of elementary school, she is working through some major challenges, but we’ll figure it out eventually.”

Both of Rosalia’s children are twice exceptional—not only having autism, but also gifted intellectually. “The journeys with them, and some difficulties of my own dealing with the stress, caused me to have myself evaluated.” Decades into Rosalia’s engineering career, she was diagnosed with autism herself. “My life started to make sense—the challenges with communication that I thought were due solely to my hearing loss are significantly compounded by my autism.”

Being autistic is part of who Rosalia and her children are. “My brain works differently, and it allows me to think in patterns and processes, focus on excruciating details for extended periods of time, and evaluate technical situations and potential solutions much faster than many other people. I often have to slow down to let others catch up with my thinking. My communication style is direct and terse—I’m still working on how to communicate most effectively in a neurotypical world, but the recognition of neurodiversity and my journey has driven me to be an advocate for myself and others.”

LiNCing-IT All Together

The path that Rosalia has walked does not need to be a lonely journey for others. The GE Disability Advocacy Network is a forum where employees like Rosalia can share experiences and information with others in similar situations and encourage others in their journeys. As part of that outreach, the DAN is sponsoring and supporting efforts to recruit GE Gas Power IT and engineering interns with autism. GE is partnering with Linking North Carolina with Innovative Talent (LiNC-IT) to help source these interns.

LiNC-IT was launched in 2018 and is the first statewide neurodiversity program. The LiNC-IT Collaborative was created to provide employment experience and paid internships for students with autism as well as to provide employers with a pipeline of excellent talent often missed during conventional recruitment processes. The current unemployment rate for individuals with autism is 86%, even though many of these individuals have the skills and education employers need.

An Important First Step

DAN leader Guillaume Spillemaecker explained how this initiative is an important step in the ERG’s global goal of recruiting more people with disabilities. “The objective is to get a business like GE Gas Power to recruit more people from diverse slates and develop them!” The program starts this month as part of Spring internships at Gas Power. “In the future, we plan to expand our outreach to more interns, but we want to start small to ensure this is successful.”

It’s a future Guillaume hopes will ensure more employees like Rosalia have a successful career at GE. “Our goal is for everyone to have the same opportunities to get a job anywhere. The journey is long … but every small brick in the road, every milestone like Rosalia’s, will bring us there.”

“Autistic people view and experience the world in a different way,” said Rosalia. “The pandemic has opened the perspective of many people to consider non-traditional modes of work and communication, and that’s an opportunity to experience the world as many autistic people do every day. The talents we offer to society are immense.”

To apply for a LiNC-IT internship, visit their web site . If you are a person with a disability interested in joining GE, visit https://invent.ge/gepdan to join our talent community and be informed of future opportunities!