It didn’t matter if they hired just one employee or hundreds. The six companies that were honored by Connect-Ability, the premier resource center for disability information in Connecticut, all share one common trait: their dedication to removing barriers to hiring and promoting people with disabilities.

The fifth annual Connect-Ability Top Employer Awards were presented in June at an Employment Summit in Hartford that brought together hundreds of employers, workers and advocates for people with disabilities, says Margarita Torres, the project coordinator for Connect-Ability, a federally funded initiative that seeks to identify and lower barriers of employment for people with disabilities.

Connect-Ability was formed in 2005 with the help of a Medicaid Infrastructure Grant to create meaningful policy change in Connecticut designed to help people with disabilities gain employment, Torres says.

Today, Connect-Ability serves as a single point of entry for two target audiences: people with disabilities seeking employment information and resources and employers of all sizes seeking to hire them. Connect-Ability currently funds the Connecticut Business Leadership Network as well, a growing coalition of Connecticut employers working together to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Torres says that by showcasing and honoring the work of outstanding employers, both big and small, Connect-Ability hopes to encourage more companies to learn more about recruiting, hiring and retaining employees with disabilities.

This year, Connect-Ability recognized the following companies for their leadership and dedication to hiring and promoting people with disabilities:

Green Demolitions (Norwalk)

In 2001, Steve Feldman founded Green Demolitions, whose sole purpose is to raise money to support recovering addicts. Feldman, a recovered addict, says his life was saved 21 years ago through a life-saving addiction-recovery program.

The idea for his company came to him one day when he drove by the former residence of Farah Pahlavi, the last empress of Iran, who had lived in a 10,000-square-foot Rockefeller Mansion. The “Demolition in Progress” sign in the driveway intrigued him, he says.

“The gates were open, so I drove up. The house was gone, so I had an idea. Why not start a demolition-donation program and earn the money [for charity] rather than ask for it?” he says.

The Green Demolitions business model is simple: Feldman persuades homeowners in the New York area to donate their unused or lightly used luxury kitchens, appliances, bathrooms and home décor to the company. Feldman then sends in a crew to dismantle and remove these items from the homes and proceeds to sell them for a fraction of their original retail price through his stores in Norwalk, Conn., Honesdale, Pa., Riverdale, N.J., and through his website, greendemolitions.org. All profits raised from the sale of these donated kitchens and appliances go directly to support his charity, Recovery Unlimited, which helps recovering addicts get back on their feet. The company, which also employs recovering addicts, has grown from a two-person shop in one Connecticut location to 37 employees in three states.

Dee’s One Smart Cookie (Glastonbury)

When professional baker Diane “Dee” Kittle was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2008, she thought her career was over. The certified pastry chef, who specialized in intricately decorated wedding and specialty cakes, was told she could no longer work with flour. But Kittle says the diagnosis turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder triggered by eating gluten, a protein found in wheat and other grains. Untreated, it can lead to a wide range of additional serious health problems.

The day after her diagnosis, she went to a health-food store and stocked up on a variety of gluten-free foods but was shocked by their lackluster taste and flavor. “They were really awful, just horrific,” she says.

At that point, Kittle had found her calling. She spent the next several months holed up in her kitchen, re-teaching herself how to bake in the gluten-free world.

“Our goal is not to just taste good for gluten-free or dairy-free. The goal is to taste great, regardless,” she says.

Kittle is also dedicated to hiring people with disabilities including depression and bipolar disorder to work in her bakery. Watching her niece struggle with bipolar disorder and slowly put the pieces of her life back together again inspired her to help others with similar disabilities.

Kittle’s bakery has been open for two years and business is booming. She says, “We’ve had a lot of requests to do things regionally and nationally. But I feel we have to walk before we run. We’re trying to control the growth at this point, which is a nice problem to have.”

Walgreens Distribution Center (Windsor)

Walgreen Co. of Deerfield, Ill., has long championed the idea of building a network of regional distribution centers where employees with disabilities are mainstreamed into the workforce.

The project is the brainchild of Randy Lewis, Walgreens’ senior vice president of distribution and logistics, whose 19-year-old son, Austin, has autism. In 2007, Walgreens formalized its plan to make bigger strides in the employment of people with disabilities with the opening of the first of its newest generation of distribution centers in Anderson, S.C. Today, people with disabilities make up 43 percent of the facility’s workforce, according to Deb Russell, manager of outreach and employee services for Walgreens. And last year, Walgreens opened a nearly 1-million-square-foot facility in Windsor, Conn., that serves Walgreens stores throughout the Northeast, where employees with disabilities are trained to work side by side with other team members.

Disabilities range from autism and mental disabilities to hearing, vision and other physical disabilities.

Originally, the goal of both distribution centers was that one-third of the workforce would be people with disabilities, Russell says. Both facilities have exceeded that goal, averaging between 40 percent and 42 percent. Each center currently employs about 500 workers but when the buildings are at full capacity should hire closer to 800 employees, she says.

St. Francis Hospital Food & Nutritional Program (Hartford)

St. Francis Hospital and Sous Chef Luis Guzman, who runs the hospital’s Food and Nutritional Program, were honored for their work training deaf students from the American School for the Deaf in the culinary arts.

So far, five students, between the ages of 18 and 20, have cycled through the hospital’s busy kitchen, which prepares 3,000 meals a day, Guzman says.

Target (Meriden store)

Target’s Meriden store was honored for its work hiring people with disabilities and making them part of its Target team. A recent hire, Paul, was named Employee of the Month by his peers at the store for his work ethic and job performance, according to Alison Carothers, an executive team leader in human resources at Target. She said Paul originally started working at Target’s Meriden store in November 2007 as a seasonal hire but was hired after the Christmas holidays on a permanent basis because he was an outstanding employee. Target is No. 40 in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®.

Russ McDaniel Carpentry (Old Saybrook)

Local carpenter and home remodeler Russ McDaniel was honored for his work training and coaching a young man with Asperger syndrome. Three years ago, McDaniel took on 21-year-old Jonathan Kruszewski as his apprentice to teach him the carpentry trade and the business of remodeling and renovating homes. They’ve been together ever since.

McDaniel said he lost his former assistant to cancer a few years back and was praying for a solution. One day, a woman at his wife’s job was admiring a stool McDaniel had constructed for her. McDaniel’s wife explained that her husband was a carpenter and had built it himself. This woman was an employment coach for people with disabilities and was trying to place Kruszewski in a job. McDaniel, who had worked as a youth director at his church for nearly seven years, agreed to train and mentor Kruszewski. Since then, McDaniel has attended seminars on autism and Asperger syndrome to learn more about Kruszewski’s condition.

“Working with young people was not something new to me,” McDaniel says. “It was a good opportunity to help someone else out and at the same time help me out.”