Employee of the Year: Don Swaney

“The thing that honored me so much about the award is that, to me, it meant I was doing my job,” says Don Swaney, assistant information technology manager and 2003 recipient of the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind’s Employee of the Year award. “It just made me feel really good.”

Don lost most of his vision due to a brain hemorrhage when he was only nine days old. As a child, he learned blindness skills such as reading Braille and how to travel independently using a white cane at the North Carolina State School for the Blind. He began attending public school in fifth grade, enrolling in five different schools as his family moved several times. Don learned an important lesson from these frequent moves. “It taught me to get along with all types of different people. It was either get along or die trying.”

Despite starting from scratch at a number of new schools and the invariable lack of support for blind students, Don excelled academically. Winning a scholarship to George Washington University, he completed his Bachelor’s Degree in International Affairs. Don went on to spend a year in the University of Virginia’s graduate school before leaving to pursue a job and a steady paycheck.

Don’s first job introduced him to National Industries for the Blind (NIB), when he went to work for an agency in Charlottesville, Virginia as a production worker. He was quickly promoted to quality control. “Contrary to popular belief, that didn’t mean I spent my time sleeping on mattresses to make sure they were comfortable,” he maintains.

Don, a self-described “weather bug,” then decided to move from the South to a cooler climate. After doing some research, he decided Seattle would be just right: a temperate climate, near the ocean and mountains, with an NIB agency paying competitive wages. He moved to Seattle and immediately started work at the Lighthouse in production.

A few years later, Don left the Lighthouse to care for his wife as she battled diabetes. After her passing, he went on to work in the field of home healthcare.

It was at his next job, working in customer service at Sears, that Don discovered his enthusiasm for computer technology. “I learned all that I could about computers and assistive technology while at Sears,” he relates. “Then a job opened up at the Lighthouse in the MSDS area.” Don went back to work for the Lighthouse, assisting federal customers seeking material safety data sheets.

Before long, Don was promoted to supervising the entire Customer Service Department. His expertise in assistive and computer technology soon became legendary throughout the organization, and he was recently asked to join the Information Technology Department. He is currently responsible for over one hundred adapted computer workstations throughout the agency as well as the systems at our four base supply centers. Don’s level of expertise continues growing.  Today he possesses consummate knowledge of all major aspects of assistive technologies, from purchase to installation to modification and use.

Terry Stokes, manager of information technology, characterizes Don as “a very dependable person. Don is someone I have been able to depend on in providing the Lighthouse with the best customer service we can possibly produce.” He adds that Don is “very customer oriented, very tuned into the Lighthouse mission.”

Don’s commitment to the mission is apparent to everyone who knows him.  Even while receiving his award, he says, “I was also hearing the message, ‘keep it up.’” Don declares, “I’m competing with myself to serve this population better in the future.”

While focusing intensely on work at the Lighthouse, he also pursues varied outside interests. He combines his love of learning and computers in doing research on the Internet. “When I was a kid, I wished I could think of any topic and just look it up, and now I can.” He also enjoys cooking and grilling, reading science fiction and mysteries, singing and playing guitar, and ballroom dancing with his wife, Nancy. Don and Nancy live on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill, “right by the Seattle Center,” with their guide dogs, Camber and Brady.

Don and Nancy also share a love of travel and plan to use Don’s $1,000 Employee of the Year cash award to help fund a trip to Hawaii. “We’re planning on flying to Hawaii and cruising from island to island. We’re combining a vacation with a cruise.”

In addition, as Seattle Lighthouse Employee of the Year, Don will travel to New Orleans this fall as our nominee for the NIB’s Milton J. Samuelson Career Achievement Award. The Samuelson Award honors leadership in the blindness field. It is presented to a blind individual working in an indirect labor position for an NIB associated agency. Don is especially looking forward to visiting New Orleans for the first time. “I’ve always wanted to go to New Orleans. If you had asked me if I could go to any city in the U.S., I probably would have said New Orleans.”

Don will represent the Seattle Lighthouse at the NIB national convention along with Samuelson Award nominees from over eighty blindness agencies from across the United States. “I don’t view it as a competition. Our records speak for themselves,” Don remarks. “The main thing is to be myself and let the chips fall.”