Adult dyslexics
Erin Brockovich
Consumer Advocate
Erin Brockovich is a modern-day David. She loves a good brawl with today’s Goliaths and thrives on being the voice for those who don’t know how to yell.
Over ten years ago the Oscar-winning motion picture Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts, turned Brockovich into a 20th century icon. At the time an unknown legal researcher, the film showcased how her dogged persistence was the impelling force behind the largest medical settlement lawsuit in history. Utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric was forced to pay out the largest toxic tort injury settlement in US history: $333 million in damages to more than 600 Hinkley, CA, residents for leaking toxic Chromium 6 into the ground water.
Today she is president of Brockovich Research & Consulting and is currently involved in numerous environmental projects worldwide. She is currently working on cases in California, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri, and has requests for help in ground water contamination complaints from every state of the U.S., Australia and other international hot spots.
Source: www.brockovich.com/index.html
Benjamin Foss
Inventor of the Intel Reader
Founder, Headstrong Nation
Executive Director of DISABILITY RIGHTS ADVOCATES
Benjamin Foss is dyslexic and was in special education throughout elementary school. He is currently Executive Director of Disability Rights Advocates, a national civil rights law center that fights for the rights of people with disabilities. DRA has offices in New York City and Berkeley, Calif. and counts Governor Mario Cuomo as a Special Adviser. Previously, he was Director of Access Technology in the Health Group at Intel Corporation. His group focused on improving communication and access to information for all, including those who are dyslexic like him. There he was awarded two U.S. Patents and developed the Intel® Reader, a device that CNN called “too groundbreaking to ignore.”
In 2003, he founded Headstrong, a California public benefit non-profit corporation, with the mission of forming a dyslexic community and encouraging LD people to join the disability rights movement.
Ben holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., a Masters of Science in Moral Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh where he was a Marshal Scholar, as well as a J.D./M.B.A from Stanford University.
Sources: www.dralegal.org and www.headstrongnation.org
Tracy Johnson
College Recruiter
EASTERN COLLEGE
Tracy Johnson was placed in special education classes in the sixth grade but was not identified as dyslexic until years later. Her story is notable for the many hurdles she had to overcome and her unremitting perseverance and willingness to work harder than most and for the support she received from others along the way.
With the help of a tutor using the Wilson Reading Program, Johnson went on to attend and graduate from Harcum College in Bryn Mawr, PA, with a 4.0 GPA. She also received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Cabrini College. She has been a spokesperson for The Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, a member of Chi Alpha Epsilon Honor Society, President’s List, and Vice President of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. She has done extensive volunteer work in helping other individuals with learning disabilities.
Today she is a college recruiter at Eastern University in St. Davids, and is currently pursuing a Master‘s Degree in Multicultural Education.
Jonathan Mooney
Dyslexia Activist and Learning Disability Mentor
Co-Founder, PROJECT EYE-TO-EYE
Author, LEARNING OUTSIDE THE LINES, THE SHORT BUS STORY
Jonathan Mooney is a dyslexic writer and activist who did not learn to read until he was 12 years old. He is a graduate of Brown University and a holds an honors degree in English Literature. He is a co-founder of Project Eye-To-Eye, a widely duplicated mentoring program for disabled students.
At the age of 23, Mooney’s Learning Outside the Lines was published. Part memoir, part alternative study skills, the book is now in its eighth printing. Mooney has established himself as one of the foremost leaders in LD/ADHD, disabilities, and alternative education. His second book, The Short Bus Story, is a work of creative non-fiction, part travel literature, part memoir, and part oral history that consists of true tales of physical and cognitive deviance from a cross-country journey through disabled culture.
Source: www.projecteyetoeye.org
Willard Wigan
World-renowned Micro Sculptor
Willard Wigan began his artistic life at a tender age. Struggling with dyslexia and learning difficulties at school, he found solace in creating art of such minute proportions that it virtually could not be seen with the naked eye.
“It began when I was five years old,” says Willard. “I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn’t hold me back and my teachers couldn’t criticize me. That’s how my career as a micro-sculptor began.”
Willard’s micro-sculptures have become so minute that they are only visible through a microscope. Each piece commonly sits within the eye of a needle, or on a pin head. The personal sacrifice involved in creating such wondrous, yet scarcely believable, pieces is inconceivable to most. Willard enters a meditative state in which his heartbeat is slowed, allowing him to reduce hand tremors and sculpt between pulse beats. Even the reverberation caused by traffic outside can affect Willard’s work. He often works through the night when there is minimal disruption.
Willard’s work is described as “the eighth wonder of the world”. He has been honored with an MBE from HRH Prince Charles for his services to art.
Source: http://www.willard-wigan.com
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