I broke my neck body surfing on New Year’s Eve while vacationing in Puerto Rico. The year was 1980, nearly 30 years ago. After a nine-month recovery at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation in New York, I began my life anew as a C5-C6 quadriplegic using a powered wheelchair.
In 1983, the company I was working for at the time of my accident, IBM, asked me to come back to work in a wheelchair. I was relocated to White Plains, N.Y., from 205 East 42nd Street in Manhattan, which was down the street from the United Nations building and across the street from the “Daily News.” (IBM is No. 8 in The Fair360, formerly DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity.)
I married the love of my life, Maggie, in 1988. Since then, we have raised two children, both now living in Boston: our daughter, who is now an attorney, and our son, who is finishing up college at Northeastern University.
