In this episode, Nicky and Terry are joined by Ed Birmingham, a Chicago blind entrepreneur who recently retired after a long career. The three discuss a number of issues related to Randolph-Sheppard and current events.
00:00:03 Intro Music
We are Randolph Shepherd Podcast.
00:00:08 Intro Music
We are Randolph Shepherd Podcast.
00:00:16 Intro Music
This is the We Are Randolph Shepherd Podcast, promoting blind entrepreneurship and independence.
00:00:22 Intro Music
And now here's the dynamic duo, Nikki Gakos and Terry Smith.
00:00:26 Nicky
Welcome to the We Are Randall Shepherd podcast for the month of February 2026.
00:00:32 Nicky
And of course, we need to thank our sponsors, the National Association of Blind Merchants, Blackstone Consulting, Southern Food Service, Commissary Services of Nashville, Sodexo InReach, Greenway Paper Supplies, Coca-Cola, Tyler Technologies, New Selected, Cantaloupe, Keurig Dr.
00:00:54 Nicky
Pepper,
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ECI Management, which is a new sponsor, and thank you so much for being a sponsor.
00:01:01 Nicky
Terry, we have a, remember the old days when the football commentaries had three people in the booth?
00:01:08 Terry
That's right.
00:01:09 Nicky
We're putting a third person in the booth tonight.
00:01:11 Nicky
We want to welcome Ed Birmingham, the first vice president of the National Association of Blind Merchants, who thinks he retired.
00:01:19 Nicky
He might have retired from
00:01:20 Nicky
filling vending machines, but he's got a full-time job watching grandkids, as we talk about a lot.
00:01:26 Nicky
And he's also done a ton of work for National Association of Blind Merchants.
00:01:31 Nicky
So Ed, welcome to the booth for the month of February to be part of the We Are Randall Shepherd podcast.
00:01:38 Ed
Well, thank you very much.
00:01:39 Ed
As always, it's a pleasure to be here.
00:01:42 Ed
This is the first time I've been on the podcast without being at Nikki's Bar and Grill, so I'm a little disappointed that there's no one here to buy me drinks.
00:01:51 Ed
I guess I'll have to tough that out, though.
00:01:53 Ed
But as always, I'm looking forward to talking with you guys.
00:01:59 Terry
Well, **** Ed, I will jump in here and welcome you as well.
00:02:04 Terry
You're no stranger to the podcast you've been on a couple of times.
00:02:07 Terry
It's sort of interesting, though, because we got introduced as the dynamic duo.
00:02:12 Terry
Now we're the dynamic trio.
00:02:14 Terry
And so if
00:02:17 Terry
Nikki is Batman and I'm Robin.
00:02:18 Terry
I don't know what that makes you.
00:02:20 Terry
So you have to figure that one out.
00:02:22 Terry
I have to be the Joker.
00:02:27 Terry
Well, whatever works.
00:02:28 Terry
That works fine.
00:02:30 Terry
So, but we're happy to have you.
00:02:33 Terry
know, I'm in the I'm in the South and I'm probably the only place in the country that didn't get a bunch of snow.
00:02:39 Terry
You guys snowed in up there where you are.
00:02:41 Terry
And just for so everybody knows we're recording this on January 28th.
00:02:46 Terry
So we just coming out of the blizzard that went through most of the country.
00:02:50 Terry
And we dodged a bullet in Tennessee, got some snow, a little mixed rain per ship, and then the heavy rain hit and the temperatures stayed above freezing.
00:02:59 Terry
And so we came through unscathed.
00:03:01 Terry
But 45 minutes away, they got slammed.
00:03:04 Terry
And we got vendors in Nashville that have been out of
00:03:09 Terry
power for three days and some of the commissary managers can't deliver commissary to the inmates.
00:03:14 Terry
And when that happens, that's pretty serious stuff because those inmates expect that commissary.
00:03:18 Terry
So you know it's serious when they can't get to the jail to deliver.
00:03:21 Terry
So how about you guys?
00:03:22 Terry
You guys okay?
00:03:23 Ed
Yeah, I can tell you, we got a lot of lake effect snow here in Chicago.
00:03:28 Ed
We got about 8 inches.
00:03:31 Ed
Our biggest issue right now is we just can't get out of the deep freeze.
00:03:35 Ed
I mean,
00:03:36 Ed
Our highs every day have been in the low to middle teens, 14, 15, 16.
00:03:42 Ed
The lows have been zero to five below.
00:03:44 Ed
The wind chills are 35 to 40 below.
00:03:46 Ed
So we're actually having a real winter here.
00:03:50 Ed
And we haven't had one of those in a long, time.
00:03:53 Ed
I think everybody's a little spoiled, but this is the way it used to be back in the old days.
00:03:58 Ed
So yeah, it's not that bad.
00:04:01 Ed
You're still able to get around and everything.
00:04:02 Ed
It's just you got to bundle up, stay warm.
00:04:06 Ed
Nikki, how about you?
00:04:07 Nicky
We had about 14 inches of snow on Sunday.
00:04:11 Terry
Oh no, 14.
00:04:13 Nicky
And I was praying that the power didn't go out so I could watch football games.
00:04:19 Nicky
And of course, it didn't matter.
00:04:22 Nicky
Maybe the power should have went out.
00:04:23 Nicky
But I had my transistor radio ready to listen just in case the power did go out.
00:04:27 Nicky
And just like Ed said, it's been, we have set a record for the most days under 20 degrees.
00:04:34 Nicky
in the history of this area since they started doing that.
00:04:38 Nicky
And it's not supposed to go for another 10 days.
00:04:41 Nicky
It's just crazy.
00:04:42 Nicky
It's cold.
00:04:43 Nicky
And there's a possibility of another Northeastern coming this weekend.
00:04:47 Nicky
So say prayers because as you said, Terry, I know that a couple of our guys down in Nashville are out of power.
00:04:53 Nicky
And I know that Mississippi, some of our guys down there don't have water and other things.
00:04:58 Nicky
So
00:04:59 Nicky
prayers go out to all our blog vendors and staff and everybody down south and wherever you are that everybody's staying warm and safe.
00:05:08 Terry
Well, now, yeah, you mentioned Mississippi and I was actually talking with those folks down there and yeah, no electricity or water.
00:05:17 Terry
Now that's a double whammy.
00:05:19 Terry
I know you've been trying to, you've helped them get water down there in the past when the hurricane hit.
00:05:24 Terry
And I know you're trying to do something this time to help them out, which, that's kind of stuff we don't give you credit for and people don't talk about much.
00:05:32 Terry
But yeah, a lot of people were affected and I'm glad that at this point we're going to, there's a lot at the end of the tunnel.
00:05:40 Terry
Ed, you retired and it's one of the reasons we wanted to have you on here was
00:05:47 Terry
to sort of recognize you for your years of service and all that you have meant to Randolph Shepard.
00:05:53 Terry
And you're a friend of ours, you're on the, you're the vice president of NABM and all of that.
00:05:59 Terry
But can you just sort of walk us through your career?
00:06:02 Terry
You know, how did you get started and sort of walk us through your career as a Randolph Shepard vendor?
00:06:11 Ed
I'm sure people are cringing as we speak and saying, oh my God, this guy's going to cover 43 years of his career.
00:06:19 Ed
We're going to turn this thing off and come back to it later.
00:06:21 Nicky
Oh, we need a couple of bourbons over here.
00:06:27 Ed
It's actually a very short story.
00:06:29 Ed
So back in probably 1982, I was actually working as a paramedic on the Chicago Fire Department.
00:06:37 Ed
And
00:06:38 Ed
unbeknownst to me, I had this rare eye disease, just kind of floating around, wasn't making itself, to where it had any effects on me.
00:06:49 Ed
And in one year, I went from, having 20-20 vision to being legally blind.
00:06:55 Ed
Unfortunately, at the time, I was engaged to be married to my wife, Debbie.
00:07:00 Ed
And I thought,
00:07:02 Ed
what on God's green earth am I going to do?
00:07:04 Ed
You know, why would she want to marry me if I'm unemployed?
00:07:09 Ed
So, you know, and I forget the sequence of events, but somebody said, you know, you need to go talk to a counselor in rehab and see what they suggest.
00:07:18 Ed
And I went and saw a guy, I still remember his name to this day.
00:07:21 Ed
His name was Jim Rhodes.
00:07:23 Ed
He told me that, you know, you're a good candidate for the vending facility program.
00:07:29 Ed
And I said, okay, what's that?
00:07:31 Ed
And then he went on to explain it to me.
00:07:33 Ed
And, as time goes by, I went, I went ahead and went through the training, did all that.
00:07:41 Ed
In those days, you had to do a psychological exam, which I'm not sure how I passed that, but somehow I did.
00:07:49 Ed
As a matter of fact, Raven Pulliam to this day kids me about it.
00:07:53 Ed
He pulled it out of my file and it said something to the effect that
00:07:58 Ed
he's smarter than most people and he can problem solve and all this nonsense that really wasn't true, but he gives me a hard time about that.
00:08:08 Ed
But anyway, I ended up in the vending facility program.
00:08:12 Ed
I can honestly say I think I've done something that probably not too many of our blind entrepreneurs have done.
00:08:17 Ed
And I've only had in those 43 years, I've operated 3 facilities, 2 1/2 years at a mental hospital.
00:08:28 Ed
that was in Tinley Park, Illinois.
00:08:30 Ed
And then I did 20 years at a Cook County hospital that was in Oak Forest.
00:08:35 Ed
That was great.
00:08:35 Ed
It was literally 5 minutes from my house.
00:08:38 Ed
That's when all my kids were young.
00:08:40 Ed
So it couldn't have been a better situation for me.
00:08:45 Ed
And that's why I learned, you know, you had to work, you know, if you wanted to make money, you had to work.
00:08:49 Ed
So I worked six, seven days a week because obviously being in a hospital, it was always open.
00:08:54 Ed
And then the last 21 years, I was at the Metcalf Federal Building in downtown Chicago.
00:08:59 Ed
So a little tidbit that it's kind of concerning is that all of these facilities, except for the Metcalf Federal Building, the state hospital and the Cook County Hospital, both have closed after I left.
00:09:15 Ed
I don't think I had anything to do with that.
00:09:17 Ed
At least I hope I didn't.
00:09:18 Ed
And
00:09:20 Ed
if you remember early on in the Trump administration, they were talking about selling off a lot of federal property.
00:09:26 Ed
The Metcalf Federal Building was on that list, but all that conversation has quieted down since then.
00:09:32 Ed
And so apparently I'm the grim reaper as well.
00:09:36 Ed
So, but yeah, three facilities in 43 years.
00:09:39 Ed
I'm kind of proud of that.
00:09:40 Ed
I'm not one of those guys that jumped around or anything like that.
00:09:43 Ed
I was very happy where I was making the money I was and all was good.
00:09:49 Nicky
So Ed, this is the 90th anniversary of Randolph Shepherd, and you've been in 43 years.
00:09:54 Nicky
What are the biggest changes you've seen from when you started to, you know, present time since you just retired a couple, you know, a month ago?
00:10:03 Ed
Well, Nikki, I know you've been around a long time as well.
00:10:06 Ed
And I guess the, you know, when I first came in, obviously we had a lot more Randolph Shepherd vendors than we do now.
00:10:14 Ed
So that's obviously a big change.
00:10:17 Ed
We operated these things called dry stands that sold newspapers.
00:10:21 Ed
I know the youngsters out there probably don't know what a newspaper is, but they sold newspapers, candy, and a lot of cigarettes.
00:10:28 Ed
And, you know, that was back in the days when you could smoke in buildings.
00:10:32 Ed
You know, everybody smoked.
00:10:33 Ed
No matter where you were, you could smoke.
00:10:36 Ed
So that's changed.
00:10:40 Ed
I would say, obviously, technology.
00:10:43 Ed
is a huge game changer.
00:10:47 Ed
there were no credit card readers back in the day.
00:10:50 Ed
There were no recyclers, you know, bill recyclers.
00:10:54 Ed
Everybody had a thing called a dollar bill changer and you had to lug bags of quarters everywhere you went to refill the dollar bill changers in order for people to use your machine.
00:11:03 Ed
So those are probably two of the biggest changes that I can think of off the top of my head.
00:11:12 Terry
You need to give your wife credit.
00:11:13 Terry
I mean, Debbie, you've got the best.
00:11:15 Terry
And, you mentioned her, but I want to give her a shout out because you've had a lot of support from her.
00:11:23 Terry
And so just want to acknowledge her because she, behind every man there's a good woman.
00:11:28 Terry
And so there you go with it's true in you too.
00:11:33 Terry
I did want to, I can't help but, but I had a blind vendor one time.
00:11:37 Terry
The bag of quarters triggered this, and so I apologize, but I had a phone call from the post office.
00:11:46 Terry
when I was a director in Tennessee.
00:11:48 Terry
And they were upset and they wanted his vendor removed.
00:11:52 Terry
And I said, well, what did he do?
00:11:53 Terry
And he says, well, every time he goes to his vending machines and he fills up his bag of coins.
00:11:59 Terry
And then he goes through the break room and he starts, and he hits us in the head because he won't use his cane in his bag of quarters.
00:12:07 Terry
He goes from one table to the other and hitting people with his bag of quarters.
00:12:11 Terry
And they were, they had all their money.
00:12:16 Ed
You can knock someone out with that bag.
00:12:18 Ed
I know it.
00:12:19 Ed
Because those bill changes hold a lot of money.
00:12:21 Terry
Yeah, they do.
00:12:22 Terry
They do.
00:12:23 Terry
It was sort of funny that some of the complaints you could get.
00:12:28 Terry
So Ed, keeping in sort of in keeping with looking back a little bit, what's been your most rewarding part of being a Randolph Shepherd vendor?
00:12:40 Terry
What sort of has been fulfilling for you in that role?
00:12:44 Ed
That's actually a, that's a very long list.
00:12:47 Ed
I've been very, very blessed.
00:12:49 Ed
Obviously, being able to provide for my family, put my 3 girls through college.
00:12:56 Ed
Now, and thank you for mentioning my wife, because she has been a huge support in this thing.
00:13:00 Ed
And, you know, she worked for
00:13:03 Ed
I don't know, 30 some odd years as a teacher, and she just recently retired about four or five years ago.
00:13:08 Ed
So, between the two of us, we were able to put our three kids through college.
00:13:14 Ed
That's obviously a huge, huge thing.
00:13:17 Ed
They were able to do it without taking out any loans.
00:13:21 Ed
We paid for their first two years, and then we made them pay for their last two years.
00:13:24 Ed
And that was one thing we kind of
00:13:28 Ed
made sure that they understood is that, you're not on the five-year plan, okay?
00:13:32 Ed
You're gonna be on the four-year plan.
00:13:34 Ed
And, you know, we know you don't have the money to pay for the last two years.
00:13:38 Ed
You know, we'll front that to you, but you will be paying us back.
00:13:42 Ed
And they were more than happy to do that.
00:13:44 Ed
So that worked out great.
00:13:47 Ed
But, you know, the other things that, you know, obviously being able to serve on our elected committee here in Illinois for 20 plus years,
00:13:57 Ed
I'd like to think, a lot of things we did made a difference.
00:14:01 Ed
We were able to improve things for blind vendors here in Illinois.
00:14:07 Ed
that was a 21, 22 year commitment.
00:14:10 Ed
And again, going back to my wife, when you do something like that, and you put your heart and soul into it, and you think you're doing what
00:14:19 Ed
what is right.
00:14:20 Ed
I mean, it's time consuming.
00:14:22 Ed
I mean, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it takes time away from your family life.
00:14:28 Ed
And to have someone who's willing to let you do that is just huge.
00:14:33 Ed
And, you know, I can't thank her enough.
00:14:39 Ed
Yeah, it's just, you can't, you know, it takes 2.
00:14:43 Ed
And she's been very, very supportive, as you said.
00:14:47 Ed
And of course, I could never be missed, but the, serving on the board of the National Association of Blind Merchants.
00:14:57 Ed
when I can remember the first day, Nikki called me and he said, hey, listen, meet me in the restaurant for breakfast with, I'm going to be down there with Harold Wilson.
00:15:09 Ed
And I went down there and met him for breakfast.
00:15:11 Ed
And he said, listen, I want you to be our second vice president.
00:15:14 Ed
And I mean, I almost fell off the chair.
00:15:16 Ed
I mean,
00:15:17 Ed
this was something that I had never done before, never served in any capacity outside of Illinois.
00:15:25 Ed
And I thought, what am I getting myself into?
00:15:28 Ed
But him and Harold talked me into it.
00:15:30 Ed
And at the time, Harold was first vice president and they were very supportive as well.
00:15:35 Ed
And, you know, getting to know Terry, I mean, Terry, I remember the first really in-depth conversation I had with you was that the
00:15:43 Ed
at the Hadley School for the Blind or whatever they call it now, the Institute.
00:15:47 Ed
I know they have a new name and I just don't remember what it is.
00:15:50 Ed
But we were doing the signing for the training that they were going to write the Randolph Shepard training, do all the modules and stuff.
00:16:00 Ed
And you know, you and Nikki were there, Colleen was there, Marco was there from Illinois.
00:16:07 Ed
And you said to me, you said,
00:16:11 Ed
I'm really looking forward to working with you.
00:16:12 Ed
He said, I don't really know you very well, but I think, this is going to be a good relationship.
00:16:18 Ed
And, I mean, I can't even put into words what the relationship that I have had with you two and how much I have learned and how I have grown because of you guys.
00:16:33 Ed
I mean, you look up professionals in the dictionary and there's a picture of both of you guys.
00:16:38 Ed
And your hearts are in the right places, your souls are in the right places.
00:16:42 Ed
And it just, it blows me away that there are those who, and Nikki, you can relate to this because you read the Daily Coach like I do.
00:16:52 Ed
You know, there's haters out there.
00:16:54 Ed
And it just blows me away that there's people who will always criticize, even though there is no reason to criticize.
00:17:03 Ed
And we won't get into all that stuff because I want to take this into some rabbit hole.
00:17:06 Ed
But
00:17:09 Ed
It's just been, it's been a tremendous experience.
00:17:14 Ed
I wish it could go on forever.
00:17:15 Ed
I really do.
00:17:16 Ed
I mean, and I'll tell you right now, if there's anything you need me to do moving forward, I'll be more than happy to do it.
00:17:22 Terry
But you are still vice president, by the way.
00:17:23 Nicky
Yeah, still vice president, till at least, till at least July.
00:17:27 Ed
Till at least July.
00:17:28 Ed
Well, no, I'm not going anywhere.
00:17:31 Ed
I'm not going to get on my white horse and ride out a dash.
00:17:33 Nicky
I already told him that too.
00:17:34 Nicky
I said, you're not going anywhere.
00:17:35 Nicky
He said, you know, if you need me to resign it.
00:17:37 Nicky
Oh, no, you're not going anywhere.
00:17:38 Nicky
You just, you haven't done, you know, so let me tell you this.
00:17:42 Nicky
So first of all, of course, you guys stole the Thunder with Debbie, but you know, we always talk sports, but I always think of us as a team.
00:17:52 Nicky
And Debbie comes to conferences and she jumps right in and gives out badges and does whatever we need.
00:17:58 Nicky
And all of our wives, the three of us, we couldn't do what we'd do if it wasn't for them.
00:18:04 Nicky
So shout out to all our wives.
00:18:06 Nicky
But the greatest thing, one of the probably the
00:18:09 Nicky
The biggest thrill that I've got is being president is that I've been able to travel and meet people.
00:18:14 Nicky
And I went to Illinois and it was a different organization at the time, but the friends and the people that I've met, and Ed's become such a good friend, Terry's become a good friend, not just business relationships, but
00:18:30 Nicky
friends that we are.
00:18:32 Nicky
I couldn't have done, and we could not have done what we've done at the National Association of Blind Merchants without you, Ed.
00:18:39 Nicky
You've taken up so many projects, the emerging leaders, working on social security, coming to trainings with us, being part of the buying group, getting that off and running, making the buying group even better with Sodexo, going to different conferences.
00:18:57 Nicky
I personally want to thank you for the work that you've done and will continue to do for us.
00:19:04 Nicky
And, you know, we've mentioned a lot of things that you've done and you've talked, and I think we could go on all day with this about the stuff we've done.
00:19:11 Nicky
But I personally, on behalf of the National Association of Blind Merchants, want to thank you for serving and continuing to serve and me as president to be, now that you're the first vice president also, to be there as not only as the
00:19:27 Nicky
vice president of the organization, but also a friend.
00:19:30 Nicky
So thank you very much for all that you have done and all that you will continue to do, because we still got a lot of work to do, my friend, and we want you to be part of that.
00:19:39 Ed
Yeah, that's really a bad thing.
00:19:41 Ed
There is still a lot of work to do, but thank you for those kind words.
00:19:44 Ed
And you will always be a brother to me, and Terry, you will always be my great-grandfather.
00:19:53 Terry
Hey, listen, I want you to...
00:19:56 Ed
Go ahead.
00:19:56 Terry
Don't let Debbie listen to this, okay?
00:19:59 Terry
Because if she, her head will be so big from all the good things we've said.
00:20:04 Terry
So don't let her hear this podcast.
00:20:07 Terry
But Nikki, Nikki all mentioned it just to twitch, but there's never been a podcast.
00:20:13 Terry
I don't think there's ever been one, Nikki.
00:20:14 Terry
Maybe I'm wrong, but we haven't at least brought up sports.
00:20:19 Terry
And you're a sports fan.
00:20:21 Terry
So you got to talk about it just for just a second.
00:20:25 Terry
So don't people don't turn don't have to turn it off.
00:20:28 Terry
We're going to talk about sports just for a second.
00:20:30 Terry
You're a Bears fan, correct?
00:20:33 Ed
Correct.
00:20:33 Terry
So you had something to cheer for.
00:20:35 Terry
You know, that's pretty good to see you're a White Sox fan.
00:20:39 Ed
Yeah, that's not a lot.
00:20:41 Ed
Let's move on to the next subject.
00:20:44 Terry
I think we need to go back to your psychological and see if we can figure out something in there that causes that.
00:20:49 Ed
Yeah.
00:20:50 Ed
Well, no, it's better than being a Cub fan.
00:20:52 Ed
Let's be perfectly clear, like my buddy Bill Finley.
00:20:57 Terry
And let's see, you're a Blackhawks fan.
00:20:59 Ed
Yes, sir.
00:21:00 Terry
Yeah.
00:21:02 Terry
And a Bulls fan, I guess.
00:21:04 Terry
Are you a Bulls fan?
00:21:05 Ed
I never heard that.
00:21:06 Ed
Well, it's supposed to be a Bulls fan these days.
00:21:09 Ed
That organization hasn't done anything since Jordan has left.
00:21:13 Ed
I mean, they've been mired in mediocrity.
00:21:18 Ed
So, it's hard to be a Bulls fan, so let's bypass that one as well.
00:21:22 Terry
So, what's #1 in your heart?
00:21:23 Terry
Which of those four teams is #1 in your heart?
00:21:26 Ed
Oh boy, that's tough.
00:21:27 Ed
I mean, I would say the Blackhawks and the Sox are 1 and 1A.
00:21:31 Terry
Oh, really?
00:21:32 Terry
I thought you said the Blackhawks, yeah.
00:21:34 Ed
And then and then the Bears are, you know, the Bears are right there, obviously, because
00:21:39 Ed
but again, prior to this year, there's been not a whole bunch to cheer about with the Bears.
00:21:43 Ed
So, I'd like to think, listen, I'll tell you this, we got the right coach.
00:21:48 Ed
I think we got the right quarterback.
00:21:50 Ed
Now let's see what we can do to build around them.
00:21:53 Ed
I mean, obviously, New England, whatever New England, they brought in a lot of free agents and they hit on every one of them.
00:21:59 Ed
So that's what the Bears are going to need to do as well.
00:22:02 Ed
So we'll see what happens.
00:22:03 Nicky
Don't have Terry picked the Bears next year because the coach might get fired.
00:22:06 Nicky
But
00:22:08 Nicky
But Ed brought up the story where Howard Wilson and I had breakfast with him.
00:22:12 Nicky
But first time I met Ed, I need to bring this up.
00:22:15 Nicky
I went to the Illinois Committee Blind Statewide Meeting.
00:22:18 Nicky
And at their luncheon, Ed was the master of ceremonies.
00:22:22 Nicky
And every joke he told was about the Cubs.
00:22:25 Nicky
And I just sat there and laughed and said, this guy's pretty funny.
00:22:29 Nicky
And they're pretty good jokes.
00:22:31 Nicky
And he gives a good delivery.
00:22:33 Nicky
And that's the first time I met him at that meeting.
00:22:37 Nicky
And that's how it's grown from there and there.
00:22:40 Terry
Well, they're only good jokes if you stole any of them.
00:22:43 Terry
So did you steal any of them?
00:22:45 Ed
You know, I want to say a lot of them came off the internet, to be honest with you.
00:22:51 Ed
So thank goodness for the internet.
00:22:54 Terry
All right.
00:22:54 Terry
All right, guys.
00:22:55 Terry
That's enough about you, okay?
00:22:57 Terry
That's enough.
00:22:58 Terry
We got some other things we want to talk about.
00:23:00 Terry
And before we do that, I want us to hear from our newest sponsor.
00:23:06 Terry
Something we're doing this year is we're going to take a two or three minute spot in each of our podcasts to hear from our sponsor.
00:23:12 Terry
And we're going to start with our newest sponsor this year with ECI Management.
00:23:17 Terry
So take a listen.
00:23:18 Speaker 1
Hello to everyone.
00:23:19 Speaker 1
When Terry asked me a couple of days ago to provide a three-minute introduction of ECI Management Group for the podcast, my first thought was, wow, yes, sir.
00:23:29 Speaker 1
I welcome the opportunity.
00:23:30 Speaker 1
And I thought, how am I going to talk for three minutes?
00:23:33 Speaker 1
So let me give you a short version of where ECI came from and how a few dumb decisions turn into some smart lessons.
00:23:41 Speaker 1
My name is Frank Riccapati, president of ECI Management Group.
00:23:46 Speaker 1
ECI really started back in the mid 90s as Rick and Patty's Pizza.
00:23:50 Speaker 1
I moved to Houston, Texas, right out of high school from a small town in Michigan called St.
00:23:54 Speaker 1
Clair Shores in the Midwest at the ripe old age of 18.
00:23:58 Speaker 1
And to be completely honest, I made that move after getting into a little trouble.
00:24:04 Speaker 1
Good thing I only have 3 minutes and I can't elaborate on that.
00:24:08 Speaker 1
But the upside of doing dumb things when you're young is that you learn early.
00:24:12 Speaker 1
So I landed in Houston with no family.
00:24:16 Speaker 1
dug ditches for a living, worked multiple jobs, and went to an IT trade school.
00:24:21 Speaker 1
But I always knew I wanted to be in business for myself.
00:24:24 Speaker 1
So eventually I rented a 400 square foot kitchen, bought 3 white cargo vans, and put pizza warmers in them, and sold slices of pizza in a Coke at private schools for $2.50, giving each school 1/4 of that.
00:24:42 Speaker 1
This concept gained momentum at small private schools throughout Houston, and eventually we had a dietitian, we added a cook, we added five-day menus, scratch cooking, and eventually operated directly out of our clients' kitchens.
00:24:58 Speaker 1
This is when ECI Management Group was really born and how it started.
00:25:03 Speaker 1
For the next 25 years, ECI built a reputation on food quality, scratch cooking, and exceeding expectations as much as we could, primarily in the education sector.
00:25:14 Speaker 1
In that 25 years, we had a great foundation in the education market, but still a very small company of about 200 employees.
00:25:22 Speaker 1
Then came March of 2020.
00:25:24 Speaker 1
We all remember March of 2020.
00:25:26 Speaker 1
COVID shut down all 21 of our accounts overnight, really.
00:25:30 Speaker 1
So once
00:25:33 Speaker 1
That happened, we had to pivot.
00:25:35 Speaker 1
So we looked at different things, but eventually we moved into federal contracting.
00:25:39 Speaker 1
It took over a year, but in 2021, we landed our first federal account at Wisconsin Military Academy.
00:25:47 Speaker 1
Today, we operate six federal contracts, including Fort Drum in New York and Fort Stewart in Georgia, where we're proud to team with the GVRA and my teaming partner, Zach Thomas.
00:26:01 Speaker 1
That brings me to what the RSA and Randolph-Shapter Act program means to me and means to ECI.
00:26:08 Speaker 1
This RSA program isn't just about contracts to me, it's more about opportunity for everyone.
00:26:16 Speaker 1
It creates real business ownership, real leadership roles, and real economic independence for blind entrepreneurs and their families.
00:26:23 Speaker 1
It turns ability into opportunity and partnership into long-term success.
00:26:29 Speaker 1
ECI feels truly privileged to partner with the SLAs and with blind vendors like Jack Thomas and Raj Mehta and Jerome Davis.
00:26:38 Speaker 1
While ECI has certainly benefited from these partnerships from a business standpoint, the relationships I've formed are far more valuable, to me anyways, than any monetary reward.
00:26:49 Speaker 1
Through this journey, I've gained a deep appreciation for the opportunity the RSA provides to the blind community, not just a pathway to employment, but as a means of independence, dignity, and long-term stability for so many families across the United States, really.
00:27:06 Speaker 1
Being trusted as a partner in that mission is something I don't take lightly at all, and it's something ECI is very proud to support every single day.
00:27:15 Speaker 1
I promise you this, ECI will do its part to fight for the RSA program.
00:27:22 Speaker 1
Thank you, Terry, for the time and opportunity to share my story.
00:27:25 Nicky
Thank you, ECI.
00:27:26 Nicky
Thank you, guys.
00:27:26 Nicky
Thank you for being part of the podcast, and thank you for being a sponsor.
00:27:29 Nicky
We thank you very much.
00:27:31 Terry
So, Ed, you're a regular listener.
00:27:33 Terry
I know that much.
00:27:34 Terry
And you know that Nikki and I always do a segment called What's Up, and that's where we just sort of
00:27:41 Terry
talk about, what's up and in our lives or what anything we want to talk about.
00:27:46 Terry
And so as our special guest for this episode of the We Are Randolph Shepherd podcast, tell us what's up, Ed.
00:27:54 Ed
Well, we kind of talked about this earlier, but what's up is the weather.
00:27:57 Ed
What is going on with the weather?
00:28:01 Ed
Places are getting snow that aren't supposed to be getting snow.
00:28:05 Ed
It's cold everywhere.
00:28:07 Ed
Like I said, in Chicago here, we're having a real winter and it sounds like on the East Coast, you guys are dealing with the same thing.
00:28:14 Ed
So to me, the weather is what's up.
00:28:17 Ed
So, it is January going into February.
00:28:22 Ed
So, this is to be expected.
00:28:24 Ed
But when you have, 5, 10 years of
00:28:28 Ed
above average temperatures, it just kind of hurts when it hits home.
00:28:34 Ed
And we had a forecaster the other day say that right through February, from what he can tell from his long range forecast is we're going to have above average snow and below average temperature.
00:28:46 Ed
So that's not a good combination.
00:28:49 Ed
So Nikki, what's up with you?
00:28:52 Nicky
This is February and this is Valentine's Day.
00:28:54 Nicky
So I want to give a shout out to my Valentines, my wife and my 4 grandchildren of Jasmine, Mackenzie, Samantha, and Gracie.
00:29:06 Nicky
And I hope that at this time, that during this time that we're going through too, that everyone has a heart.
00:29:12 Nicky
and thinks about other people and thinks about, working with others and gives their heart to, and does something.
00:29:20 Nicky
It's also Lent that's coming up.
00:29:23 Nicky
And I know that, and I talk about this a lot, and, don't give something up, do something during Lent and use your heart to help others, help people in Randall Shepard, help support the initiatives that we have going on, help support the
00:29:42 Nicky
conferences that we have coming up and do that.
00:29:44 Nicky
But a big shout out to my Valentine's and a big shout out to everyone to really show some heart and take care of yourself too.
00:29:53 Nicky
It's also American Heart Month too, and take care of yourself.
00:29:57 Nicky
We want to make sure everybody's healthy and all that stuff.
00:29:59 Nicky
So have a big heart this month.
00:30:01 Nicky
That's what's up with you.
00:30:02 Nicky
And Terry, what's up with you?
00:30:04 Terry
What's up with me is I'm single and, well, not really single.
00:30:09 Terry
My wife left me for six days.
00:30:11 Terry
I'm batching it for six whole days.
00:30:15 Terry
And she has gone to San Francisco, Northern California area to visit with family.
00:30:24 Terry
And so I get six days of watching what I want to watch on TV, eating what I want to eat for dinner.
00:30:32 Terry
I will miss her very much, but I do enjoy sometimes some quiet time like that.
00:30:37 Terry
So I hope she has fun.
00:30:39 Terry
And the other thing is, February is, I don't think I have any business trips planned unless something pops up.
00:30:49 Terry
I don't have any travel planned, but I will be going to
00:30:54 Terry
South Carolina, and I get to see Henley compete in gymnastics again, and I'll get to see Milo play baseball again, or no basketball.
00:31:03 Terry
It'll be his last basketball game of the year, but they're up before baseball starts.
00:31:07 Terry
So I'll get to see them, then we'll go to San Antonio, and the next weekend, the last weekend in February, and I'll get to see Charlie and Ford and
00:31:15 Terry
Charlie has started guitar lessons and has really taken it up quickly.
00:31:19 Terry
So I got Milo doing guitar, Charlie doing guitar, Henley doing piano, and we're still waiting on forward to see what he's going to play in the Smith family band.
00:31:30 Terry
And who's going to be the vocalist and it won't be Pops.
00:31:34 Terry
Count me out of that.
00:31:36 Nicky
You'd have the lead singer.
00:31:37 Terry
No.
00:31:40 Terry
Absolutely not.
00:31:42 Terry
Guys, I'm going to be a little petty for just for a second.
00:31:45 Terry
And I sort of thing that frustrates me, and I look around and I see how bureaucratic things have gotten and how sometimes it's just hard to get information out of state agencies.
00:31:59 Terry
And, the lighthouse training
00:32:03 Terry
They have a training module.
00:32:05 Terry
In one of the modules, they list each state and they list a couple of facilities in that state just sort of give you an idea of what kind of facilities are in that state.
00:32:13 Terry
And so I said, this is sort of outdated list and it's not very impressive.
00:32:18 Terry
I said, I'll update this for you.
00:32:20 Terry
And a lot of states I knew were, you know, I could name facilities without having to contact the state.
00:32:25 Terry
But
00:32:26 Terry
some of them I contacted the state and I said, hey, can you give us a couple, give me a couple of facilities just to highlight in the training module.
00:32:33 Terry
And some of them just wouldn't give me, wouldn't do it.
00:32:37 Terry
And, but then the topper was, I mean, it's like,
00:32:42 Terry
I mean, they were guarding them like nuclear secrets.
00:32:45 Terry
But the topper was, we're getting ready for the lawsuit that we'll talk about in a minute.
00:32:52 Terry
And I was trying to get all of our records straight on where we were on our army bases.
00:32:58 Terry
And I wasn't sure, you know, Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, we had reported had closed down.
00:33:07 Terry
And I wrote the director in Kansas.
00:33:11 Terry
And just a quick e-mail.
00:33:13 Terry
I said, hey, how you doing?
00:33:13 Terry
Hope you're doing well.
00:33:14 Terry
I just wanted to double check and make sure my information is correct.
00:33:18 Terry
Did Fort Leavenworth close?
00:33:21 Terry
And I get this e-mail back saying, anybody seeking information from our agency must submit a Freedom of Information, a FOIA request.
00:33:32 Terry
And I said, what?
00:33:35 Terry
I just want to know if this facility was still open and they want me to submit a FOIA request, which I did not do.
00:33:43 Terry
But I mean, that's what we've come to with the bureaucracy that we face.
00:33:51 Terry
And the Committee of Blind Vendors, if they want information, they got to go FOIA request.
00:33:54 Terry
Just absolutely insanity.
00:33:56 Terry
But I just want to express that.
00:33:57 Terry
I don't know, you guys probably have frustrations too.
00:33:59 Terry
Is there anything you guys that frustrates you?
00:34:02 Nicky
Well, I think the biggest thing that still frustrates me, it still is when you talk to blind vendors around the country that they're still fighting the same old things that happened in the '90s and the 2000s and crazy things like that.
00:34:15 Nicky
And situations that we had that Coca-Cola had a price increase here in the Northeast and around the country.
00:34:25 Nicky
And this happens every year that the pricing was wrong.
00:34:31 Nicky
And, but boy, did I get emails and phone calls.
00:34:35 Nicky
What are you going to do about it?
00:34:37 Nicky
Well, if we're entrepreneurs, can't you call up and say, this is the wrong price.
00:34:42 Nicky
What is the new pricing coming up?
00:34:44 Nicky
I mean, it seems like it's like every year the same thing happens.
00:34:49 Nicky
Now we got it straightened out and the pricing is much better than we thought it is and stuff like that.
00:34:53 Nicky
But I guess the frustrating thing is when something goes wrong, you're the bad guy.
00:34:58 Nicky
And when something goes right, you get your number.
00:35:06 Ed
Unfortunately, this is kind of a long list for me.
00:35:13 Ed
normally my pat answer would be apathy.
00:35:16 Ed
But since this waiver was granted by the Department of Ed for the Army, we seem to have awoken a sleeping giant.
00:35:24 Ed
It's not just the military guys who were upset about this.
00:35:27 Ed
It appears that every blind vendor in Randall Shepherd is upset about it.
00:35:31 Ed
And well, they should be.
00:35:33 Ed
This is an attack on our priority.
00:35:36 Ed
And we need to stick together, work together, communicate together, and do everything possible in order to defeat this.
00:35:44 Ed
But, you know, some of the other things that, you know, and I've mentioned this on countless of occasions, you know, the fact that we have, whatever, 49 different programs, 50 different programs,
00:35:56 Ed
And they're all run differently.
00:35:57 Ed
I know we've talked about a national nominee agency and that would be great.
00:36:02 Ed
I don't know how we would ever get that done.
00:36:04 Ed
I'm just not smart enough to figure that out.
00:36:07 Ed
But it does bother me that every state is run differently than the next, whether it's their rules and the fact the vendors can't go from one state to the other state and run a facility without going through their training program.
00:36:22 Ed
I mean, it just drives me nuts.
00:36:24 Ed
And
00:36:26 Ed
the other thing that Terry talked about, and he can, I know he's familiar with this, is the bureaucracy.
00:36:33 Ed
the SLAs, no fault of their own, they're not in the business of doing business.
00:36:38 Ed
You know, if you want to do business, you need stuff yesterday.
00:36:41 Ed
You can't wait for bids to go out.
00:36:44 Ed
You can't wait for RFPs.
00:36:47 Ed
You can't wait for contracts to be approved.
00:36:49 Ed
If you need something, you need it yesterday.
00:36:53 Ed
So that frustrates me, the fact that they, but basically, when it comes to our rules, what I was talking about Terry.
00:37:03 Ed
So we recently, Terry helped us rewrite our rules and our procedures manual.
00:37:09 Ed
And to this date, our rules and procedures manual were approved by RSA, but they have to, in Illinois, they have to go through JCAR.
00:37:20 Ed
they haven't even gotten to JCAR yet.
00:37:22 Ed
So long story short, is that when they go to JCAR, God forbid there's changes made, because if there's changes made, they have to go back to RSA for approval.
00:37:33 Ed
So by the time this whole process is finished, our rules and procedures will probably have to be rewritten again.
00:37:39 Ed
And
00:37:41 Ed
That's the kind of stuff that just drives me nuts, is the fact that everything takes, and again, I'm not pointing the finger at anybody.
00:37:48 Ed
It's the rules that everyone has to follow, but it's just not in the best interest of the Randolph Shepard program.
00:37:57 Ed
And again, I don't have the answers on how to fix it.
00:38:00 Ed
Obviously, I can't change state policy and procedures or anything like that, but it is, it's very frustrating.
00:38:09 Terry
I want to make it clear that, I don't blame the director that I wrote in Kansas for the response.
00:38:15 Terry
I think that's coming from the attorney, which is then just sort of the same frustration at the next level is that how many state attorneys are running the BEPs now.
00:38:27 Terry
And, you know, that is very frustrating and I think it's bad for the program.
00:38:31 Terry
I think it's very bad for the program.
00:38:33 Terry
Now the attorneys can help support the program and do wonders for the program, but
00:38:39 Terry
it's everything you do nowadays it says well I got to send it to legal I have to send it to legal and they're making decisions about things that are go way beyond what would you operational things that they really don't need to be involved in but they are so but I mentioned the the frustration but I got to flip the switch a little bit and it's not all it's not all bad I mean we got some state agencies out there doing good things and I told you I was putting together the list
00:39:07 Terry
for the Lighthouse training.
00:39:11 Terry
And I was, I reached out to the new BEP director in North Carolina, Scott Lassiter.
00:39:19 Terry
I got to meet Scott personally at Cantaloupe University in Arizona this month, really good guy.
00:39:24 Terry
I got to spend some time with him, liked him a lot.
00:39:27 Terry
But I reached out to him and said, hey, give me, you know, give me a couple of facilities that you would highlight.
00:39:31 Terry
And I'd forgotten about it, but one of the ones that they wanted to mention was they actually have vending on a train, which I think that's pretty cool that they have a, it's a local train and they actually have vending machines that are on this train.
00:39:48 Terry
So, you know, kudos to North Carolina for that.
00:39:52 Terry
I know at one time we talked to them about Amtrak.
00:39:54 Terry
Amtrak's not covered by the Randolph-Shepard Act.
00:39:56 Terry
They were very interested in maybe pursuing that, but you know, there's nothing since you
00:40:01 Terry
can't do vending on a train, and that's what they're doing.
00:40:03 Terry
So congratulations to North Carolina.
00:40:06 Terry
So let's get on with our, talk about a few things here.
00:40:11 Terry
And most of it's going to center around DOD.
00:40:13 Terry
But before we get into that, Nikki, we got some things coming up over the next month or two.
00:40:18 Terry
You want to sort of hit the highlights of what's coming up.
00:40:23 Nicky
We do.
00:40:23 Nicky
And thanks for giving us that weather, because I don't have any travel coming up in February either.
00:40:28 Nicky
So with this weather coming, it's good that we're going to be staying home.
00:40:31 Nicky
And I think that I think you might have South Carolina on your calendar at the end of February there, Terry, just in case they're listening.
00:40:38 Nicky
I know how much they love you down there, as they told me when they invited you to come.
00:40:43 Nicky
But we do have, I guess our first big event is the we will be doing a training.
00:40:50 Nicky
The three of us will be in Florida, March 5th and 6th.
00:40:53 Nicky
to do a training for the Committee of Blind Vendors in the state of Florida.
00:40:58 Nicky
And then we'll be back in Florida at the end of March, March 29th and 31st at the Blast Orlando and the training that we'll be doing down there on Monday, the reception on Sunday night the 29th, training on the 30th, and then the Vistar Show at SeaWorld.
00:41:18 Nicky
And they have about 175 booths now, plenty of room for you to come.
00:41:23 Nicky
We have hotel space and meals and stuff.
00:41:26 Nicky
And it'd be a great time to come.
00:41:27 Nicky
There's a lot going on that we need to talk about.
00:41:30 Nicky
And then of course, NAMA is at the end of April, April 22nd, 24th in Los Angeles, California at the Coliseum.
00:41:38 Nicky
And then after that, we have a lot of state meetings coming up.
00:41:40 Nicky
I know Virginia and Illinois and a number of other states.
00:41:44 Nicky
And then of course, taking us to a national convention in Austin, Texas in July.
00:41:51 Nicky
And we've also
00:41:52 Nicky
Talking about possibility of doing a fly-in sometime if things are going the way they're going with also, with what's going on in this country.
00:42:01 Nicky
And also excited to the fact that I did have a call with Demetria Summers from GSA, who will be speaking virtually at BLAST in Orlando.
00:42:11 Nicky
She is our Randall Shepard contact, and she's looking forward to grow the program with Randall Shepard.
00:42:17 Nicky
So it's good that one fellow agency wants to grow it when one wants to take things away from us.
00:42:23 Terry
I think the South Carolina meeting's in March.
00:42:27 Terry
I better be in March.
00:42:28 Terry
That's what I have on my calendar.
00:42:29 Terry
But I need to double check that, but because I don't have anything on my calendar in February.
00:42:34 Terry
So we'll make that.
00:42:37 Terry
And so we'll look at looking for that.
00:42:39 Terry
And so Ed, will you be at the Illinois meeting now that you're retired?
00:42:42 Terry
Do they let the old guys come back?
00:42:46 Ed
Listen, I'm going to go there whether they want me or not.
00:42:50 Terry
Nick and I will both be there.
00:42:52 Terry
That's in April.
00:42:53 Terry
And so we will both be there and hopefully get to see you there because I'm sure you'll want to buy us a drink.
00:43:00 Ed
Oh, absolutely.
00:43:01 Ed
It's the least I can do.
00:43:04 Terry
So we're going to get on and talk about some of this, the DOD stuff real quickly.
00:43:10 Terry
And you know, we're not going to, we got to sort of be careful with some of the stuff we talk about.
00:43:14 Terry
I'd really like to really, you know, go into a lot of detail about some of this stuff.
00:43:18 Terry
But we do know that folks at the Department of Defense listen to this podcast.
00:43:22 Terry
And we know that people at RSA listen to this podcast.
00:43:25 Terry
So we're not going to go into a whole lot of detail about what's happening.
00:43:32 Terry
I will say, Nikki, you and I had a meeting with the Department of Education.
00:43:39 Terry
We got almost to the secretary, one step below the secretary with the chief of staff.
00:43:46 Terry
We had the meeting set up, and then we found out about the waiver after the meeting was already set up.
00:43:52 Terry
We went ahead with the meeting, and I thought it went very positive, didn't you?
00:43:55 Nicky
I think it went very well.
00:43:57 Nicky
It was good to be there, and we had 30 minutes, and I think we got close to 50 minutes.
00:44:01 Nicky
So that's also a big positive.
00:44:05 Terry
It was.
00:44:05 Terry
We had a good exchange.
00:44:07 Terry
It was the Assistant Secretary for OSERS, and it was the Chief of Staff.
00:44:13 Terry
And we had some really good dialogue.
00:44:16 Terry
They were very interested in our views.
00:44:19 Terry
We did not go in with a request of any kind because we knew there was no sense that we weren't going to try to convince them to withdraw the waiver.
00:44:26 Terry
The idea was to establish a relationship, start the communication, and then
00:44:32 Terry
have the see where we are.
00:44:35 Terry
Just to recap for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, the Department of Education granted a waiver to the United States Army saying that they do not have to comply with the Randolph-Shepard priority in future Army dining contracts.
00:44:51 Terry
It does not affect, I get this question a lot, it does not affect permits.
00:44:56 Terry
vending, any of those kind of locations, but any of the dining contracts, which are basically, I think 30 or 40% of our national sales come from those 20 plus vending facilities.
00:45:09 Terry
So it would be a huge blow to our program nationally, not to mention the vendors that run those locations and the state agencies who collect set aside from those locations.
00:45:19 Terry
So we're very, very concerned about it.
00:45:21 Terry
Nikki and I met with the Army
00:45:25 Terry
a couple of weeks ago to talk about what their plans are moving forward in terms of the contracts.
00:45:30 Terry
Don't think anything's going to be happening really fast.
00:45:32 Terry
They're extending contracts as we as we speak, and they will be going through the normal process with the sources sought and then the solicitation and those kinds of things.
00:45:45 Terry
So the it's not this isn't something that's going to be happening in the next two or three weeks, but it was still
00:45:54 Terry
even it was a very professional meeting.
00:45:58 Terry
I thought, Nikki, it wasn't, there was no, it wasn't contentious or anything like that.
00:46:03 Terry
It was, very matter of fact sharing information.
00:46:06 Terry
Do you agree?
00:46:08 Nicky
And because when we went to the table for both education and with the army, we realized that there are issues that we need to work out and things to make better for our troops and also for, the governments and for money savings and stuff like that.
00:46:23 Nicky
And there's things that we can do.
00:46:25 Nicky
me, I've always thought that once we get this settled and we're going to get it settled, that we're going to end up with, a better Randall Shepherd program than we had going into it.
00:46:33 Nicky
So I think, but the meeting was very professional.
00:46:35 Nicky
They were, you know, I never thought we were going to get to meet even with education after the waiver or with the army, but, you know, we laughed with the army, but it was good.
00:46:46 Nicky
I mean, you know, we had some point by questions and answers.
00:46:50 Nicky
And they said, it's not going to happen right away.
00:46:52 Nicky
And thank God that, nobody's been thrown out of a facility yet, no contracts thing.
00:46:58 Nicky
There's been some extensions, not as long as we'd like some of the extensions, but they're there and people are still working.
00:47:05 Nicky
So let's keep it going and let's keep the ball going.
00:47:09 Terry
The most encouraging thing about the meeting with the Department of Education was the fact that they were trying to set up some meetings with the Department of War and try to facilitate some meetings between us and the Department of War.
00:47:21 Terry
Those have not happened yet.
00:47:23 Terry
And I don't think they will happen now because if you are listening to this on February the 1st, then our lawsuit has been filed.
00:47:34 Terry
So
00:47:36 Terry
We are challenging the waiver, and we believe that the waiver that was granted was illegal on a number of fronts.
00:47:47 Terry
Brown, Goldstein, and Levy is representing us.
00:47:51 Terry
We have four blind vendors who are plaintiffs in that case, along with the National Association of Blind Merchants.
00:47:57 Terry
So we're thinking that
00:48:00 Terry
that case is going to be filed.
00:48:01 Terry
The attorneys are telling us this is not a two or three-year kind of case.
00:48:04 Terry
This is a six month kind of case.
00:48:07 Terry
So we're going to see what we can do about getting that waiver set aside.
00:48:13 Terry
I don't think, I think so much has happened.
00:48:15 Terry
I don't think, I think the status quo is probably not what we're fighting for right now.
00:48:20 Terry
I think we're, you know, we're fighting to get that opportunity to
00:48:24 Terry
still make changes, but do them the right way and to fix the problems and address the concerns that they have.
00:48:32 Terry
Nikki, I've been really surprised, or not surprised, but pleased with the response we got in raising money we've, you know, to pay these attorneys.
00:48:43 Terry
The, we've been, we had a goal that we needed to reach in order to file, and then we needed commitments.
00:48:52 Terry
In case, in case it goes to the Court of Appeals, and we are very, very, very close to reaching those both of those goals, so the and, as Ed said, it's not just the military guys, we got guys who aren't impacted by this at all directly.
00:49:10 Terry
who aren't on military bases at all that are making pledges.
00:49:14 Terry
We have committees of blind vendors making pledges.
00:49:17 Terry
We have, I know Ed, you're with the Illinois Association of Blind Merchants.
00:49:21 Terry
You guys stepped up to the plate.
00:49:23 Terry
What was it?
00:49:23 Terry
You guys pledged what, $5,000?
00:49:26 Ed
Yes, sir.
00:49:27 Terry
So, you know, that's much appreciated.
00:49:29 Terry
So everybody's sort of coming to the table and just been really pleased.
00:49:36 Terry
I know you have too, Nikki.
00:49:39 Nicky
I am, and it's still not too late when you listen to this podcast.
00:49:43 Nicky
I mean, there's, to me, I've always said there's no reason that every blind vendor in the country shouldn't give something.
00:49:48 Nicky
It could be $50, $100, $200.
00:49:49 Nicky
It doesn't have to be the thousands of dollars, but we're still going to need this to, you know, to fight this fight and win this war.
00:49:57 Nicky
And, you know, it's not always that the National Association of Blind Merchants,
00:50:02 Nicky
goes out and sues the United States Department of Education and, stuff.
00:50:07 Nicky
But so please, thank you, everyone that's donated.
00:50:11 Nicky
And thank you for those that will continue to donate and keep that alive.
00:50:15 Nicky
It was very shocking to me.
00:50:17 Nicky
I said, boy, if we don't get this money,
00:50:19 Nicky
We're not going to be able to afford to do it, but people came up big.
00:50:23 Nicky
So thank you to the Arizona Committee, the Illinois Association of Blind Merchants, and the number of people that have donated.
00:50:32 Nicky
Thank you very much.
00:50:33 Nicky
We're going to go win this thing for you.
00:50:35 Nicky
So thank you for your support.
00:50:38 Terry
And we'd be remiss if we did not mention the Dynex.
00:50:41 Terry
That's the RFP that's on the streets now.
00:50:43 Terry
The Army has put out to do some a pilot project at Fort Rucker and Fort Lee.
00:50:48 Terry
That it came out without the Randolph-Shepard priority, and because there is no Randolph-Shepard priority right now, so they have a waiver, so they haven't violated the Randolph-Shepard Act.
00:50:59 Terry
They are using a little-known procurement method to do this with, which we think is problematic and perhaps illegal.
00:51:07 Terry
There are a lot of people thinking about how they challenge the use of the procurement process they're working at, because it actually, we could win the waiver and still lose the war if this Dynex thing goes through, because whoever gets the bid for the first
00:51:22 Terry
base, Lee and Rucker, first two bases, then they can just automatically be automatically awarded the contracts for the others and all the others are Randolph Shepard facilities.
00:51:32 Terry
So we have to really address that.
00:51:35 Terry
People keep asking about that.
00:51:37 Terry
We're fully aware of it.
00:51:39 Terry
We're addressing it.
00:51:41 Terry
I'm having conversations hours every day.
00:51:44 Terry
I've probably been on the phone three hours today just talking about Dynex, so we are well aware of it.
00:51:50 Terry
We have to win the waiver or Dynex doesn't matter.
00:51:53 Terry
So all the attorneys are focused on filing that suit.
00:51:59 Terry
Then we can turn our attention to see what we have to do with Dynex.
00:52:01 Terry
But if we don't win the waiver case, it doesn't matter.
00:52:03 Terry
They can go do what they want.
00:52:06 Nicky
And just so everybody knows, too, the AFES arbitration is on hold right now until we get this.
00:52:12 Nicky
is top priority to win this waiver.
00:52:14 Nicky
And then after we win that, then we'll come back and start working on the AFES arbitration again.
00:52:20 Terry
So and the reason the reason is not because it's not important or you only have so much resources and we're using the same legal firm for both of those cases and we just don't have they don't have the time to tackle two major cases like this.
00:52:38 Terry
So hopefully that's going to come back up.
00:52:41 Terry
We know we got to get through this and then
00:52:43 Terry
then revisit that.
00:52:45 Terry
So it's not really, it's just sort of sitting out there now.
00:52:48 Terry
It's not, we haven't left it or anything like that, and we've got to sort of reevaluate that once we get through this waiver thing.
00:52:55 Terry
So that's sort of a recap of everything going on with DOD.
00:53:00 Terry
I know we've had town hall meetings and discussed that.
00:53:02 Terry
There's probably not anything earth-shattering in there.
00:53:06 Terry
that we've talked about, but just wanted to make sure everybody knew the latest when it comes to what's going on with that.
00:53:15 Nicky
And we'll continue to have a town hall meeting as needed to get information out to our blind community to do that.
00:53:22 Nicky
So this is February, shortest month of the year.
00:53:26 Nicky
We'll be back in just a few weeks to do our March podcast.
00:53:30 Nicky
Terry, another great job.
00:53:31 Nicky
Ed, once again,
00:53:34 Nicky
Thank you for everything you've done.
00:53:35 Nicky
Thank you for everything you will continue to do.
00:53:37 Nicky
A great job on this podcast.
00:53:39 Nicky
But one last question I have for you and Terry.
00:53:42 Nicky
Seattle versus New England.
00:53:46 Nicky
Ed, you get to go first.
00:53:48 Ed
Well, first of all, thank you for having me once again.
00:53:51 Ed
It's been an honor and a privilege to be on this board and to work with you guys as closely as I have.
00:53:57 Ed
But hands down, Seattle,
00:54:02 Ed
Handily beats the New England Patriots.
00:54:05 Nicky
Terry Smith, are you on with the coach from Tennessee or what are?
00:54:10 Terry
You going to do here?
00:54:11 Terry
See, this bothers me because I've never been a New England hater like a lot of people are, the Patriots hater.
00:54:20 Terry
I actually pulled for Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
00:54:23 Terry
But it's killing people in Tennessee that our former coach that we fired two years ago is now playing in the Super Bowl just two years later.
00:54:33 Terry
You know, and I'm sort of struggling.
00:54:35 Terry
You know, if I pick a team, they lose, but I cannot pull for the Patriots.
00:54:40 Terry
And I'm going to go against my tradition of not pulling for a team.
00:54:44 Terry
And I am going to pick the Seattle Seahawks and I hope they beat the stuffings out of the Patriots.
00:54:51 Nicky
Okay, so we're two for two on Seattle.
00:54:53 Nicky
And I'm going to tell you, Sam Donald was the second draft choice or #2 draft choice for the New York Jets.
00:55:00 Nicky
And he's played for how many teams?
00:55:02 Nicky
Carolina, Minnesota, Seattle, San Francisco.
00:55:08 Nicky
He's played for a number of teams.
00:55:10 Nicky
And he's taken a bad rap and stuff, you know, fumble and all that kind of stuff.
00:55:13 Nicky
But you know what?
00:55:15 Nicky
He's a graduate of USC and everybody knows the Jasmine's a sophomore at USC.
00:55:20 Nicky
So you know what, guys?
00:55:20 Nicky
It's 3 for three.
00:55:21 Nicky
We're going to go Seahawks to kick some **** of New England because, you know, I'm a Brady guy too, and Terry knows that.
00:55:27 Nicky
Ned knows that.
00:55:28 Nicky
I've always liked Brady because he was an older guy and he won.
00:55:30 Nicky
And I like older guys that win.
00:55:33 Nicky
So, but the thing is that I'm not a Robert Kraft fan at all, and we'll get into that some other time.
00:55:39 Nicky
But go Seattle.
00:55:41 Nicky
And so there you go, guys.
00:55:44 Nicky
Go make your bets and donate the money back to help support the cause.
00:55:48 Nicky
Go Seattle.
00:55:50 Nicky
Ed, thank you so much.
00:55:51 Nicky
Terry, thank you so much.
00:55:53 Nicky
And we'll see everybody next month.
00:55:56 Ed
Thank you.
00:55:56 Ed
It was a pleasure, as always.
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