[Andrew Dixon]: Hello, and welcome to another edition to the Journeys to Inclusion project. My name is Andrew Dixon and I'm a research associate with the Inclusive Design for Employment Access Social Innovation Lab. These are stories of people with disabilities who have found meaningful work and thrived, and of the workplace leaders who have the confidence, skill and commitment to hire and support them. These stories are powerful tools for creating inclusive workplaces. They provide real world examples of how evidence-based solutions can be put into practice in different contexts. They put a human face on the challenges and rewards of building inclusive workplaces. And they build communities and encourage dialogue around workplace accessibility and inclusion. And perhaps most importantly, inspire other employers, community organizations and persons with disabilities to embark on and persist in their own journeys.

So today I'd like to welcome Paul Walsh from the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador. So without, without hesitation, we'll jump right into it. Can you tell us about your journey, both professionally and personally, that led you to become a leader in disability inclusion? 
[Paul Walsh]: It's an honor to be described as a leader in disability inclusion first place, because to me, I'm just me and I do what I do. So, my disability journey started on the way out of the womb. So, my disability occurred at birth. I have cerebral palsy. It happened twice, once as I was being born and once a few hours thereafter in terms of a seizure, as it was called in those days. So, left me with what they describe as impairment in my right leg and my left hand. So, a little bit of dexterity in the left hand and a little bit of unique walking style because of my right leg, but I really didn't think about that. And I don't have a lot of memories of being really young, but I never really been, never really recall understanding that I was disabled or any different than anybody else I knew. I didn't particularly catch real well playing baseball, but I couldn't skate. But other than that, I don't recall a whole lot of difference.
In 2012, my dad, who was a business leader, was asked to chair the board of directors of the first chapter of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, Newfoundland, Labrador. And no connection to paraplegia whatsoever, they sought him out as a community leader. So all of a sudden these folks started showing up for board meetings at our house and they were all in wheelchairs and they all were young, 20 year old, mostly athletes who really believed in the concept, they taught me concept of inclusion and accessibility. And among those were the late Mel Fitzgerald, as well as my mentor in this whole area, who is Paralympian, Joanne McDonald. So I got to know Joanne then and learned that I had a unique opportunity in life and I had to grow into this. I didn't realize it at 12, but I had a unique opportunity to see the world through a different lens. Through a lens that a lot of the people who were around me, who were able bodied, as the definition goes, really didn't see the world that way and didn't question the world that way. And that. That was a gift. I wasn't shy about saying, well, hang on, what about this? Or what about that? So through time and through better understanding of disability culture and what it is to be disabled and the whole Eli Clare concept of brilliant imperfection, which you introduced me to, to realize that I have the ability, because of the lens I've been given, to try and influence public policy and towards inclusion. 
[Andrew Dixon]: I mean, you've had a long and varied career from banking to power utilities to executive leadership now in a nonprofit. What values or motivations guided your career choices? 
[Paul Walsh]: I think the values I learned came from my parents. And the values were, you know, the old, I don't know, Victorian hard work kind of stuff. I worshiped my dad. My dad worked in banking. He was unfortunately taken from me about a month before I turned 16 because of a tragic accident. But his influence on me dated back. He was a member of one of these service clubs and he was the secretary and he had a bunch of other, I don't know, they were. But turned out to be pretty prominent business people. And he had to call them once every two weeks. And truthful statement, he hated using the phone. So he made me, at 12 or 13 do that. So I get to meet these people. And though I didn't realize too many years later, I learned the concept of networking from a business point of view because I followed my father. I wanted to be a business person. I wanted to go to university to learn business. So I went into, went in and did a business degree in finance and then went in the bank and spent two years in the bank and went, no, I don't want to do this. That was my dad's career. That wasn't me. So I went back to university and got a graduate degree in business and ended up very fortunately with two or three opportunities, one of which was in the, in the private sector in power utilities, and spent 33 years there in a variety of different roles and took early retirement from that when this opportunity at the Autism Society came up. So that was kind of how I meandered through my career. But in terms of motivations, it was to do your best and to, you know, find things that made you want to do them. 

[Andrew Dixon]: I would like to focus a little more on your time at the Autism Society as CEO. Can you tell me how your style of leadership helps ASNL become a more inclusive organization? 

[Paul Walsh]: Everybody on this team, I'd like to think, me included, brings a skill set, and collectively, we bring that skill set together in a way that by listening to those who we serve in the organization, the autistic community helps us move the agenda forward. And we can't do it alone. We are blessed to have staff that has lived experience, and I can get informed by them, get challenged by them a lot, have a leadership team within which one person has some parental lived experience, other person has actual lived experience. And I mean, the decisions, the final decisions in terms of their impact, if something goes wrong, rest on my shoulders. And that's part of signing on saying, I'll take the job as CEO, but we make decisions in a very collective way. 

[Andrew Dixon]: You mentioned lived experience a couple of times. So how do you think the lived experience of your employees has shaped the Autism Society?

[Paul Walsh]:Eentirely, is how it's shaped the Autism Society. So when I came to the Autism Society, I was nearing the end of a career in cost management at the power company, and a friend of mine came to me and said, there's a job out there you should look at. And the good Newfoundlander that I am, I said, Bob, I'm not looking for another job. I'm looking to retire. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. You need to look at this. So I pick it up, and it was the CEO of the Autism Society. And they wanted someone to give the short answer who understood, you know, administration and financial management and how an organization worked, but also who had a lens on disability. And it didn't say autism, it  said disability. So of course, my career had brought me the former, my life had brought me the latter. So, you know, you dwell and you think about it and say, what the heck, I'll put my name in for it. And long and short of it is, shortly thereafter, it was offered the position and took early retirement and came here. 

So I got here, knew nothing about autism. Like the old joke, if you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism. I knew one person with Autism literally. So I had to really school myself up really quickly. So I needed those people around me to help school me up. And also I did a ton of reading. I said, I've said repeatedly that in the now four and a half years that I've been at the Autism Society, I've read far more about autism than I have read about cerebral palsy in my entire life. And I have cerebral palsy. So that shaped me because I realized what I don't know. And then those with lived experience, especially the community, went on ask and they said, well, that's not what we want you to do. We want you to do this. Okay, we'll do that. And then we try a few things. Yeah, yeah, but make it tweak, tweak it this way. So that's really shaped how we operate from an advocacy point of view, from a, both systemically and individually, from a programming point of view, from a service point of view. So in anything that I do, and I often get on this soapbox, if you don't have lived experience, then you're doing it wrong. 

[Andrew Dixon]: You've taken your lived experience to many places. You've chaired multiple provincial and national accessibility initiatives. So through all that experience, what have you learned about the challenges and rewards of leading disability inclusive change at a systems level? 

[Pul Walsh]: The rewards are when something happens, the challenges of the process. I go back to my mentor, Joanne McDonald, because Joanne and others were starting and I was in high school, so I went to high school. There wasn't a wide door, there wasn't an automatic door opener. There wasn't a curb cut, There wasn't a fill in the blank. There wasn't an elevator to get you to the second floor. She and others initiated those changes, but it took 40 years to see to make them a part of society that nobody questions anymore. Yeah, yeah, of course we have that. I mean, there's still gaps. There's a. There's a pretty questions. When they see a curb cut, actually everybody uses it because it's very universal or they see a blue zone parking space or whatever. So they're generational changes which require a lot of patience. And the frustration comes in the patience in these generational shifts that you just mentioned. 

[Andrew Dixon]: You know, you talked about the people that have come before. Now we're going to talk about those who you see coming after you. Can you share a moment when you mentored. So now you're taking the lead, picking up the torch, as it would be, and making a real difference either to you or to someone else you supported? 

[Paul Walsh]:  Absolutely. And perhaps it's the most favorite thing I do because I benefited so much from so many in the same way. The best opportunity I've had to do that till now has been through the students that I've encountered teaching at the faculty of Business, some of whom still come to me looking for advice. Former students drop in and ask questions and they have introduced me in places as their mentor. One of my colleagues in the, in the, in the, in the disability movement, who chairs the Coalition of Persons with Disability, recently introduced me as her mentor. I really thought of it that way because I think of her more as a colleague, but I guess there's enough age difference between us that she's picked up some things that way. And then, and then here I'm being mentored and the ability to mentor every day by the people that are around me. And, you know, I have things that I can share. I read a book one time called Shared, Sharing Wisdom. And its basis was that we all have a certain level of wisdom and we all have an opportunity and an obligation to share that wisdom across. And I really think that's what mentoring is, because I don't think you can be a mentor without receiving mentoring at the same time from the same person and vice versa. It's. And I really. This is going to sound weird. I've really been lucky to always be surrounded by really bright and specifically young people. People my own age sometimes are a bit jaded, whereas people who are moving up in their careers and are younger, they're more sponge like and they want to learn. And. I like being around people who will listen and say, you know, what do you think of this? And then we'll bounce ideas back and forth. I'm a, you know, my background is heavy in public speaking and debating, so I like that intellectual challenge from time to time. 

[Andre Dixon]: What advice would you give to leaders looking to become more effective mentors for employees with disabilities? 

[Paul Walsh]: Again, look at what the employee brings, look what the staff member brings. See where it's different from what you have. See what, from what you have that you compliment what they bring and say, you know, you're serving this community, this community is great, this community want so much. But when you're serving them, you know, let's, I really want you to harness that energy and that, that, those ideas that you have. But let's talk about how we can do it so that about go about. things in the most effective way. That's at the end of the day, especially in this industry and not for profit. You know, it's, you know, business was really easy, it was really easy to measure because you were measuring things on return, on investment and you return measuring things on profitability, shareholder value and so on. It's not that way here. It's about. And you can get very Much taken away by the end goal and lose sight of the steps sometimes because everybody has that outcome they want. So it's helping people to keep on the steps as they get there as well. So now we're going to talk, we're going to shift a little towards talking about inclusive design and organizational change. 

[Andrew Dixon]: In your role as a Newfoundland Power and the Autism Society, how have you championed inclusive design in organizational strategy, services or decision making?

[Paul Walsh]: Asking questions, always saying, you know, okay, we're going to do this. Is it neuroaffirming? Have we set up the space, the space to be neuro affirming and to be accepting and can everybody participate and. And it's down sometimes. I always talk about accessibility. You know, I feel guilty sometimes as somebody with a physical disability because we've really been the bullies in this. Right. We pushed through and made sure we're, we're going to get our accessibility. We haven't really thought about a whole lot of other group very well. So yeah, I'm going to make sure that the door opener works every day and when it doesn't, I'm going to ask somebody to fix it. But you also want to make sure that the lighting is appropriate, the colors are appropriate, that the space is appropriate, that and all those kinds of things. So you're just trying to get that holistic view of everybody welcome. And I did an interview recently and Joanne McDonald was there and we were all asked what we think about inclusion. How do we define that? Inclusion is not having to ask. So right now, as somebody with a physical disability who has certain walking challenges, if I check into a hotel, I have to ask, is the entrance accessible? Do I have to go through a lot of steps? Can I have a walk in shower? Da da da da da da. Inclusion means I don't have to ask that it's going to be there. I think that the better we can design spaces generally that you don't have to ask, you achieve that end. 

[Andrew Dixon]: Can you share a time, an example of a time when accessible practices improved organizational outcomes not just for individuals with disabilities, but for the whole team? 

[Paul Walsh]: Yes. Working on a project back in my Newfoundland Power days and I wasn't the only participant with a visible disability, let alone a disability. And the person who led that brought this team together says, now I want all of you because of everything you bring and I want to know what all of you need to be successful. And the key word there was need because there was able bodied people and not able bodied people and there was people with disabilities and not People with disabilities. And it was the fact that everyone there needed something. There was no special needs. They were just needs. So I saw a work environment envelope created that met everybody's needs, whether that was for quiet space, whether that was for everybody on the one floor, whether that was for whatever, whatever. You know, somebody mentioned the other day, it's just a need. It's. Especially when it's a special need. And you go and say, I need an ergonomic chair because of my disability. You fill in 16 forms and you send it through procurement and so on. But if you went in Monday and said, yeah, tweak my back playing golf Sunday, can I get an ergonomic chair? You know, till it gets better, it's done in an hour. We need to get to the point where all of it's done in an hour. 

[Andrew Dixon]: Now, aside from, you know, accessible practices and looking at organizational outcomes and that stuff, you've also been involved in so many other areas of accessibility, inclusion. What we'll look at now is around transportation and community accessibility. You chaired the St. John's Transportation Commission. What role does accessible public transport, transportation play in enabling inclusive employment? 

[Paul Walsh]: What role does it play or what role should it play? Well, you can play with either one of those. You tell me the story properly. Effective municipal transit that's accessible to everyone is key to employability of all citizens. We're seeing that more in this city, which has always been a car culture, as we see more diversity in our labor force. All of a sudden, the last couple of years, yeah, you see the bus driving around. Now it's full. And it's just because people that have a different mindset are coming here and they're demanding better service, which is important. Paratransit is a real challenge. Yeah. I mean, getting back and forth to work is a requirement unless we're in a virtual workspace, which is another element that has emerged, certainly since the pandemic. But getting back and forth to work is mandatory. So if you can't. So, I mean, I'm lucky. I could drive a car. Some people could drive a car with a little bit of adaptation. Some people can't drive a car at all. Or maybe that. Maybe the barrier isn't driving the car. Maybe the barrier is the cost of the car. Because there's real challenges around affordability in the disability community, too. 85% of the disability community in Canada is  unemployed. And those who are employed, many of them are not making living wages. So there's all kinds of barriers there. But that provision of public Transit? Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it, it remains a key barrier to employment. 

[Andrew Dixon]: Now, we talked a little bit about the challenges that are associated with transit. Can you recall or can you think of any major breakthroughs that occurred? 

[Paul Walsh]: Well, I mean, the, the, the introduction by our provincial government of funding for an accessible taxi program was a breakthrough. And I was privileged enough because of the role I had at the time to be at the press conference for that. And the fact that for the first time that anybody knew somebody in a, who was a chair user could get a taxi without having to be physically lifted by two people out of their chair and laid in the back of a vehicle and belted in so they wouldn't roll over and their chair potentially somewhat callously thrown in the trunk, they could actually take a taxi like anybody else. I think that was, that was a pretty big breakthrough. It's not perfect. I think that that was a breakthrough. Paratransit itself was a breakthrough. The fact that you could get a bus and not just the paratransit vehicles, which are 27 foot vehicles that are adapted with ramps and things like that, but you have buses, 40 foot buses, 30 foot buses that kneel, roll out a ramp and you can roll on and you can, you can latch into a space inside the bus. Those are available. Works really well in July. February is a little more challenging and always not great in terms of where you get off. And I'm not a chair user, so I don't have that lived experience. But having talked to CHEER users, when you stop on the top of a hill and you get off and you know, your first exit out of the bus is 40 degrees straight down, as my friend likes to say, gravity is not your friend. So, you know, there's still challenges, but it's available. So those buses were a breakthrough as well. Because, you know, again, back when I was in high school or even later in university, thought of somebody in a wheelchair riding a bus that just, you just said, well, that's not possible, and people dismissed it. 

[Andrew Dixon]: Well, you certainly have seen a lot of changes, you know, over the past. 

[Paul Walsh]: That, that just means I'm old, Andrew. 

[Andrew Dixon]: Well, I was going to talk about the sort of the breadth of your experience in multiple aspects of accessibility and inclusion. But we'll move on to something a little bit different now and we'll switch back to the workplace. We'll talk about sort of onboarding and accommodations and flexibility. What do you think, you know, inclusive onboarding looks like? 

[Paul Walsh]: As a leader and an advocate, you do interviews to Hire people. So it starts at that recruitment process, at that interview process where you say to people first of all, if I'm doing an interview, I don't care what your needs are. If I'm going to interview you, I'm sending you the questions ahead of time. Because this is not a game of surprise. This is a game of I need to know more about you. So I'm going to send out the questions ahead of time. You have time to prepare. There's a really cool, When I did an interview once, there was a really cool website that actually allowed you to save your answers in an electronic format. So if we were, and the interview was in this kind of space so that your answers that you prepared could be on the side of the screen, but only you could see them and the employer was providing that. So you're creating a space where everybody can feel comfortable. So it starts there and then you're then eliminating all those things that are outside of the person's ability and skill. And then you're just judging candidates on their ability and skill on the fit for the job. So then you pick your, can you pick your candidate? What do you need to make yourself successful? And then you work in that space. And I think when we talk about onboarding, which is kind of the, the 2020 plus word for orientation, I gotta create. And I say, I, I'm just putting myself in the position of sort of leading that process to do whatever it takes to make you successful. Maybe that's, you know, we talk about, you know, the nine to five. Maybe nine to five doesn't work for people. Maybe people need to work, you know, two days for 12 hours, have day off and whatnot. That incredibly brilliant concept that has come to me from the autistic community of spoons and how many spoons. You start each day with a certain number of spoons and at some point you run out and you're. And maybe that happens at 2:30 in the afternoon. I know it does for me some days and you just say, okay, you know, kind of, you know, wasting people's time by hanging out. I'm going to go, I'm going to come back early tomorrow morning. So as opposed to Monday to Friday, you know, each day is 7 hours, 35 hours a week, 70 hours, a bi weekly pay period. You say to people over the next 14 days, I need you to work 70 hours. How does that go? How does that look for you? And how does that, how can we make that look the way you need it? That still serves our community and Our team and you work through those kinds of things. So it's all about what the individual employee needs to be successful. I meant you've mentioned making these adjustments for people in their workplaces and how they come to work and all. And do you have anything specific where you can think of where it was effective accommodation or a flexible policy that made a big difference for a particular team member? Yeah. Without getting really specific, I think there's certain members of our team here that what I just alluded to earlier about sort of the be in by 9, work through your hour to lunch and so on, so forth, it just not working for them. You know, some people have. The way they work is such that they're better in the morning or the afternoon or they're better. They need, they need a day off every two or something like that. You know, we've seen that in a couple of cases on our team and we just have to find. So let's build a schedule for you so that you can do all the work we need you to do and you can give back everything you need to give back to the team around you. But it's a schedule that works, you know, So, I mean, child care is the perfect example that outside disability, you know, there are lots of. Because we have lots of young people. And this horribly, and I say horribly, falls disproportionately on the female population. Moms, which I think all of us as not moms should be ashamed of. But that's another story, you know, so what's my choice? So, you know, this individual says, so I'll be in first thing in the morning, but I gotta leave by 2 o' clock and work from home after that because I pick my kids to school. So what's my choices? Say, Say, well, gee, you know, I'm gonna deprive our organization of all that skill and talent that you have because you can't be here till 4. No, I'm gonna say, all right, you know, might be a few days. We need to juggle things around. You might, you know, see what works. But. But for the most part, let's see how it goes. And it's done in a number of occasions. And it works because, you know, otherwise if you go the other way, you're going to take this hugely talented human that's adding so much to you and you're going to annoy the crap out of them and they're going to go somewhere else. Who loses? The organization.

[Andrew Dixon]:  So speaking about organizations, the role that community organizations play in helping support employment as you know, being a leader is very important in your own words. You, when you know, what do, what role do community organizations play in building wraparound supports that lead to sustained employment for persons with disabilities? 

[Paul Walsh]: I think what community organizations in this sort of neoliberal era whereby they're filling the gaps can do is show the art of the possible. So you build the workspace that's inclusive and you show it as a success and it show its effectiveness. And you, somebody, when somebody says that won't work, you say, oh, really? So here's how it works. And you become the role model. And there are, I will, I will admit community organizations who will talk about, you know, organizations have to be more welcoming to employees, but they're not doing it themselves. You can't do that. You have to, as the old expression goes, you have to walk the walk. You have to show how to do what you're saying you're doing. So that when somebody says, well, I tried and it didn't work, you say, okay, well, we do it. Let's compare notes and see what happens. Why it didn't work for you in most cases, not pessimistic about it, but in most cases, people didn't want to go to the troubles. Why it didn't work. Showing it, showing, being, showing the proof of concept of the benefit and the return and the, and the, and the, and the extraordinary contribution you get when you do create a inclusive employment space. It's the community groups that are showing, showing the art of the possible. But yeah, I think that creating that, that understanding, that proof of concept, to use a very businessy term of how it works is how community groups can partner, go into a business, say, here, do it this way. Here's a, here's example. You have had success sort of moving that needle along inclusion. And I recognize there is a way to sort of a ways to go. Can you think of times where these partnerships have, you know, really yielded something good, Spectacular. Maybe the one that comes to mind for me immediately is the work that ASNL has done with the St. John's International Airport Authority. And the airport came to us with a recognition specifically around neurodiversity and autism, of listen, we're hearing from families that they can't travel because of the barriers we're putting in place for their family members. Help us understand that. So we went and worked with them and now they have a social narrative on their website so that a person going to, going, going on a trip can see what can expect. You know, you know, when the airports like announcements and all that kind of stuff can have that expectation before they get there, which by the way, benefits everybody. And then they do all kinds of things within the airport. Whether it's recently introduced in the airport was the Sunflower program, which some people really like, you know, so that, you know, and then they're training staff to be more, more neuro understanding. They have done neuro inclusive training in their, in their emergency folks and they have our emergency kits aboard the fire engines for example. If something happens, they're able to understand those situations better. And right now they're talking about doing actual. Working with seven airlines to do actual flights, fly around to simulate travel so that the person and their family would come to the airport, they go through the whole process, get on the plane, built in the plane takes off, flies around for half an hour and then comes back and lands. So you have this total understanding of the process. They have been incredible partners with us because they said we want these families to travel, to have a positive travel experience. They call it from curb to flight deck. So from when you arrive at the airport to when you step on the airplane, because after that, here the airline's concerned, help us do that. And they've reached out to us countless times and the feedback we get is that it has made a difference for a number of families. 

[Andrew Dixon]: I think, I mean, I think that's very, very impressive. I mean, getting that kind of change, getting that kind of meaningful engagement and seeing results, I think is something that the Autism Society of Newfoundland and Labrador should be really proud that it was part of that. Thank you for sharing that story. 

[Paul Walsh]: We are, and I thank you for saying that. But like I said, full marks to the St. John's International Airport Authority for being willing to playing in that space. 

[Andrew Dixon]: So we're moving now towards the end of the interview. Sad. You mean we could talk all day? Of course we could. Of course we could. So when you look back at your journey to this point, what has surprised you the most about your journey towards inclusion?

[Paul Walsh]:  That's a very difficult question. Well, let's split it in two. Maybe some good surprises and maybe not so good surprises. Okay. The good surprises is learning about broadening my disability lens past physical disability and understanding the world of the autistic, understanding the world of the, of the vision impaired and so on and so forth. And that really didn't happen to me till 15 years ago when I was involved in cross disability groups. Other than that, I was always, you know, in my own little silo. The other side, the surprises have been the resistance, the unwillingness to. Not only to change, but sometimes just to listen. The outright, this is not for you people. Why are you people always wanting to change the way we do it? Kind of attitude which I continuously hear when we say, well, you know, we think you have a really great event, but we need you to make it more accessible. Yeah, well, we don't want you here, so we're not going to do that. And I'm like, what? You still get that? And we'll continue to get that. And people who really say, well, you know, all this inclusion stuff has ruined this or ruined that. I. Yeah, that. That angers me. And I don't get angry very easy, but it angers me. And it really makes me very reflective and sad that there's those in society who really don't want to include somebody who doesn't fit their description of. And I would never use this word, normal.

[Andrew Dixon]: Well, I mean, when we look back at all the different things that we've talked about today, I mean, there have definitely been challenges, but I think, you know, it's been really great to hear about the brighter aspects as well. Like the St. John's Airport stuff that you just talked about. You know, your experience is moving through the organization. I think it has been. It's. And it's really important for people to hear that too, because sometimes we can get a little focused on the harder bits. But, you know, when we're taking this forward and we're trying to carry something where you can say, you know, this is helpful, this is good, you know, for employers who are just beginning their inclusion journey, what's the one thing you really want them to understand? 

[Paul Walsh]: That you have one mouth and two ears. So you need to listen twice as much as you talk. 

[Andrew Dixon]: Fair enough. Now, when you think about all the different aspects of inclusion and all of the different experiences that you've had, how would you. Or how would you describe or what do you think a truly inclusive workplace looks like to you? 

[Paul Walsh]: Not just in policy, but in practice. And that. That's where I wrote down that quote that Joanne had of not having to ask. Because in practice it means, yeah, I'll just go to work there. Cause I don't need to ask if what I need is there. Cause I know it'll be there. That's, you know, I'll call it aspirational. Some would call it bit unrealistic. I like aspirational better. Certainly utopian in certain ways, but that's where you try to be. Nationally, for example, there's a accessible standard for building a house. If you follow the standard, you will build a house that nobody has to ask because no matter what your disability, it'll fit you. But it's a really freaking expensive house to build because of that. So there's also standards under that of saying you build your house, but think about getting older and let's build your house so that when you get older it's cheaper to make it fit what you need. Right. So that's called accessible ready. Yeah, no, and I think you can truly appreciate that. I mean the name of the Social Innovation Lab is inclusive by design, right? Exactly, exactly. And I think you, you touched on a couple of those points, the need for being inclusive by design because it, it saves the retrofits later on that can be much more difficult. If you build them an accessible ready standard. Architectural studies have shown that the conversion to whatever you need will be about 25% of the cost as if you had built to a non accessible standard in the first place. Makes it much more achievable.

[Andrew Dixon] I want to thank you again for doing this interview today. I really appreciate sort of the way you took this from the very beginning, literally from the womb right now, different layers, different levels, different times. It's been great. So I really want to thank you very much. 

[Paul Walsh]: Thank you for the opportunity. It's been a great conversation.