Ray Campbell
460 Raintree Ct., Unit 3K
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137
630-258-0516 (Voice or text)
Occupation: Senior Accessibility Analyst, United Airlines
1. Introduce yourself and list the office for which you are planning to run. Explain why you wish to serve as an officer of the ACB.
I’m running for the office of Second Vice President of the American Council of the Blind. I have served on the ACB Board of Directors since 2006, serving the past six years as National Secretary. I wish to serve as Second Vice President because I feel I am in a good position, with my years of experience on the ACB board, several committees and through other leadership activities outside of ACB, to help whomever are elected as President and First Vice President to keep ACB moving forward. ACB is in the midst of implementing our Strategic Plan which focuses on five key areas: Affiliates and Membership, Marketing and Communications, Conventions and Meetings, Development and Advocacy, Legislation and Policy. If I am fortunate enough to be elected Second Vice President, I look forward to working with our leaders in whichever ways the President asks of me to continue implementing this plan, drawing on my skills and experience at the local, state and national level to move ACB forward in each of these areas.
2. Summarize any experience, knowledge, skills and/or abilities you have which qualify you to serve in the office for which you are seeking election.
I currently serve as Secretary of the American Council of the Blind. Because I’m responsible for documenting the actions and work of the ACB Board of Directors in this position through preparation of minutes, I come to the office of Second Vice President with a strong understanding of the work of the board and ACB staff. I served as Chair of the ACB Constitution and Bylaws Committee from 2002-2007, which gives me a strong foundation in how ACB is governed. I served as the initial chair of what is now the ACB Special Education Task Force, from 2009-2013, which has helped me be better prepared to address a critical issue, the education of children who are blind or visually impaired, who are our future. I’ve been active for the past seven years on the Leadership Training committee, working to develop ACB’s next generation of leaders to move us forward into the future. I served for one year as an ACB Board Liaison to the American Council of Blind Students (ACB Students). This affiliate is an essential part of ACB as they play a central role in helping us find and develop future leaders and it was the students who asked me to serve in this position.
I served as President of the Illinois Council of the Blind from 2001-2003, and from 2007-2011. I served as ICB treasurer from 2011-2013. This has helped me develop a key understanding of the challenges facing our affiliates, especially those of a financial nature. I have also chaired ICB’s Membership, Constitution and Bylaws, and Education and Welfare Committees which has helped me understand legislation, governance and the challenges of membership recruitment and retention.
3. What do you consider to be your strongest contribution to ACB at either the national, state, special-interest affiliate or local chapter level and why?
There are many contributions I’ve helped to make that I consider strong. I’ll discuss two of them here. From about September 2017 through April or May of 2018, I served as part of a team evaluating the new ACB Website as it was being built for accessibility. Thanks to the work of our team, identifying and documenting issues and reporting them to the ACB staff so they could be shared with Louisville Web Group, when the new www.acb.org launched in 2018, it launched with very few accessibility issues for users who are blind or visually impaired. This helped make the conversion to the new site easier for our users.
In 2014, President Charlson asked me to lead a team to draft comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on what we now know as the ICanConnect program which was passed as part of the 21st Century Telecommunications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). I was a little unsure that I was up to this task, but President Charlson encouraged me and I realized she wouldn’t put me in this position unless she believed I could handle it. I worked with a strong team of advocates to draft ACB’s comments which were shared with the FCC. Thanks to our work, ACB was able to provide strong input and guidance to the FCC which has helped put the ICanConnect program on a solid regulatory footing, providing essential services to individuals who are Deafblind.
4. What do you consider to be the most important challenge facing ACB? How will you work to address it?
The strength of ACB lies in its state and special interest affiliates. Yet, many of our affiliates, large and small, are facing huge financial challenges. We’ve lost affiliates in places such as Alaska and Idaho, and in special interest areas such as Human Service Professionals. I’ve spoken with people even in larger affiliates about financial challenges they are experiencing. I’d like to see ACB take a three-pronged approach to helping our affiliates address these challenges. First, set aside funds in an account which could be used to provide grants or short-term loans to our affiliates to help them address the financial challenges they face. Second, provide training to individuals in affiliates on grant writing, obtaining sponsorships, identifying funding opportunities and other things to help them access funding for their programs and services. I believe there are funding opportunities available to our state or special interest affiliates, but our folks either don’t know about them, or, don’t know what they need to do to access them. Third, work with our sponsors and encourage them to also help our affiliates. I spoke with one ACB sponsor about helping my state affiliate with a conference and convention sponsorship and was told they chose to contribute to the ACB National Organization and not the state affiliates. While I respect their decision, I think ACB could leverage our relationships to encourage sponsors with a major presence in a given state to also make resources available to our affiliates. The contributions made by AIRA to several affiliate conventions, providing free access and training, are examples where a sponsor has helped both ACB and its affiliates.