Kyle: What brought you to have a heart for autism?

Crazy Aaron: There’s two parts to this story. When I was a young boy, my aunt had multiple sclerosis, and so a lot of my childhood was spent visiting her in various hospitals. And then ultimately she ended up in a long-term care home for individuals with physical disabilities, primarily, where many people… say if someone had fallen off a horse and become quadriplegic and couldn’t care for themselves, they would live. My aunt was maybe more unique in that she was in a sharp decline because of her disease, but my childhood was spent surrounding myself with individuals with lots of medical equipment, whether it was chairs or maybe a special tool that they could use their tongue to move their wheelchair. I became very comfortable in that environment.

And then later on in high school I worked in a factory that made dog tags for animals, like little pet tags, Fluffy and Spot, and had your address on it. When I worked there, I noticed that the owner had lots of different kinds of employees, like I said, different kinds of people, some of whom had intellectual disabilities. I don’t know looking back whether they were autistic, but I noticed that those individuals were the ones who came into work most excited, with the most spring in their step, and found the work that they were given to be challenging and were proud of it, that many of the other employees… and I was in high school, so I was there for a period of time and I knew I was moving on to other things in my life. But the employees who had been there for a longer time were a little less happy.

And then when our [inaudible 00:01:49] business got to a point where we needed help and we couldn’t do all the work ourselves, I thought to myself, “Well gosh, I don’t want to have to manage people that don’t want to be here. I want workers who are excited.” And my memory was that individuals with a variety of special needs would be excited, and it was also a population that I was very comfortable working with, and so that’s how we got started.

Kyle: That is awesome.