FROM LOW-TECH TO HIGH-TECH: JED’S SUCCESS STARTS WITH PARTS
When Jed Hall was only 7 years old, he presented his mother,
Kim, with a shoe box which contained a simple circuit. This shoe
box had a light switch, a 9-volt battery and an erector set
motor all connected with wire and alligator clips. The motor
prong was sticking out of the side of the shoe box with a little
paper fan that Jed had constructed. When Jed flipped the switch,
the fan blades turned. This was not Kim’s first indication that
Jed possessed unique skills. By this time, Jed had already been
taking apart toys with screwdrivers for quite some time. He was
even requesting broken appliances for Christmas so that he could
dismantle them. As Jed grew, he began collecting circuit boards
and tracked which boards came out of which appliances.
Jed was first diagnosed with Autism at the age of 5, just prior
to beginning Kindergarten. Although he struggled initially in
school, Mrs. Hall, a life skills teacher at a local elementary
school, worked hard to assist Jed in developing skills to
overcome his challenges.
“When I first met Jed while working as a transition counselor at
REL HS in Tyler, I was struck by his excellent interpersonal
skills. He was very friendly, funny, talkative and motivated to
find a job he was interested in doing,” said DARS Vocational
Rehabilitation Counselor Jennifer McCurley.
“We soon enrolled Jed in Work Adjustment Training at Goodwill
Industries and with the assistance of his trainer, Steve
Houston, Jed excelled. He began working in a part of the program
that recycled computer parts. Jed quickly dismantled the
computers and sorted the internal parts for recycling. The
basement once filled with old CPU, quickly emptied as Jed was
able to dismantle up to 25 computers in a short 4 hour work day.
Once Jed had met all his goals, he was ready to move on, yet was
quite apprehensive that he would not have friends like the once
he made at Goodwill in his new job.”
With the help of job placement specialist Elaine Mayo and Kristi
Gluck of Client Services of East Texas, Jed quickly found the
job he was looking for. He was able to obtain a position with a
local company, MicroLogic Systems Inc. as a printer technician.
In the 32,000 square foot facility, MicroLogic is committed to
providing quality printer parts and services to their customers
as well as their community.
The caring people from MicroLogic have taken Jed in and
patiently taught him each step of his job. His manager, Bob
Majors has been quite impressed with the speed and quality of
Jed’s work and states MicroLogic is willing to teach Jed as much
of the process of refurbishing print heads as he is willing to
learn.
Before Jed joined the company, they were rushing to meet
demands, but with Jed’s assistance in preparing and cleaning the
print heads, they have been able to easily fill their demand.
Jed is now in the beginning stages of learning laser welding to
repair the print heads.
Jennifer said, “At a recent visit, I was quite overwhelmed with
the love and support Jed receives on his job. He has his own
work area and his coworkers have learned about Jed’s fascination
with trains and pipe organs and have decorated his work station
with color photos of both. Mr. Majors feels Jed has been a
blessing to the company and is truly an asset. They have even
asked him to consider increasing his hours at work.”
Jed said, “I like my job and what I am doing. Everyone is nice
and everyone is easier to deal with than anywhere else.”
