Blind Leadership in Action: How Bob McPherson Is Creating Community After Vision Loss

By Jeanne McClellan

Bob McPherson’s story is one of incredible resilience, entrepreneurial spirit, and visionary leadership, despite the loss of his sight. From overcoming racial adversity in the American South to becoming a successful entrepreneur and later a blind advocate, Bob’s journey is a testament to what’s possible with the right combination of courage, determination, and community.

Bob was born in Shannon Mississippi in 1957. When he was two years old, racial violence rocked his world. His father, a barnstorming baseball player competing in Little Rock, Arkansas, was assassinated by a local sheriff “For no other reason than being Black.”

“Back then in the South,” Bob remarks, “they were still burning crosses on people’s front lawns.” His mother remarried, but in 1960, his stepfather was “run out of town for getting into it with a white person,” Bob says. So the family relocated to the growing city of Detroit, Michigan. His stepfather got a good job in the construction industry and provided a comfortable middle-class lifestyle for the family.

All that changed, however, when Bob’s parents divorced and his mother and the kids moved into a low-income neighborhood. 

Bob describes the discouraging environment in which he now found himself. “They were not supportive. The people had a different attitude about things. I didn’t want to be in that neighborhood. I wanted to come up with a way to move out of there. They had no goals, no plan,” Bob elaborates. His mother, however, was the only person who told him he could “do whatever I set my mind to,” Bob says. And that would be his guiding light. 

Bob was an excellent student and that was his ace in the hole. But when, at the age of 17, recruiters were offering him scholarships for 6 more years of schooling, this precocious young man could not wait that long to get on with his life, and get out of what he felt was a stifling stagnancy.  Instead, he did his research and found a trade school for computer training that only took 18 months. But even that was too long. Bob completed the program in three months and graduated with the highest score the school had ever seen. He was on his way.

Despite his exemplary background, job finding proved challenging. In 1977 there weren’t a lot of young Black men doing computer installation. “When I went out on these interviews, they would tell me the position had been filled.” Doors closed on him because of the color of his skin. “But I wasn’t discouraged, I figured I needed to find a Black company with a computer which they didn’t know what to do with.” And that’s what he did. He found a company and worked as a trainee, earning minimum wage.

But after nine months he requested more. They sweetened the deal by offering him stock options, but to their surprise, at the end of 18 months, Bob had accumulated enough stock options so that he owned more shares of the company than the owners did.

By now, at the age of 22, Bob had a wife and two small children at home, with eventually two more to come. So he told his employers that he needed to move on to increase his income, and sold his stock options. With the proceeds, he started his own company, the first of many. Additionally, to provide a better education for his growing family, he moved into an upscale area north of Detroit. As nice as this area was, Bob did some research about the best public school education available and discovered that, in order to partake in it, he needed to move yet again. While his children were surrounded by mostly white peers, they did not suffer discrimination, due to their star athlete status at school. “They didn’t encounter it until they went off to college. Then, I had to explain how things were in the world.”

Meanwhile, Bob was enjoying a lucrative career, with numerous businesses, such as a healthcare agency, a clinical laboratory, a clothing company, and several others. At the height of his career, he had been involved with founding as many as six companies, primarily in the home health care industry. He says “There was discrimination throughout but you just have to ignore it.” Bob was not deterred from his goals. But life would not be smooth sailing.

Diabetes struck Bob in the 1990s. It was an inherited disease, with many aunts and uncles struggling with it, but none as difficult as what Bob would end up against. He managed his diabetes reasonably well until he began to have glaucoma and cataracts. He continued working but was encountering problems. Still managing a company generating over seven million dollars of revenue a year and over 200 employees, Bob carried on. His children were grown and on their way to successful careers, he had surpassed his dreams of being successful and getting out of the neighborhood.

Then the 2000s hit. He was losing vision and had multiple surgeries designed to salvage his detaching retinas, “too many surgeries to count,” he reflects. And then the coup de gras: Covid hit. Bob wound up in ICU for 10 days and despite projections to the contrary, he pulled through. But, as he says it, “everything went dark” not long afterward. He feels the Covid hastened his onset of blindness, but we will never know. And because his business was considered a high-risk one, he was shut down. “We went from doing seven million a year to doing  $700,000 a year. That doesn’t work. Bob found himself in dire financial straits and had to eventually let his company go. He had loans up the wazoo, and between debts and Covid, he was out of business.

Nevertheless, this industrious gentleman was not done. He began to consider what he could do now to generate income. He explored the American Council of the Blind, the National Federation for the Blind, support groups like Innervisions, etc. He found himself despairing that there was not enough input from fellow blind individuals on “showing me how to be blind” as Bob puts it. He has been longing for more practical ways to get blind people talking with other blind people.

Nine percent of people in the U.S. are blind or visually impaired. So, how come these meetings only have a handful of members? “Where are all the blind people?” Both Bob and I had found that doctors are not always knowledgeable about resources, so their patients are often left floundering.  Blind people are usually the best resource for blind people!

To that end, Bob has started a company called vision after sight, a .com podcast and eventually networking site for people who are blind or visually impaired. There are several podcasts available on the site, with more to come. Check them out! Bob’s vision is to help people who are blind or visually impaired to commune in a virtual neighborhood, linked to one another for support, socialization, and mutual aid.

Bob is currently receiving services from the State of Michigan Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, which are enhancing his adaptive computer skills so that he can continue with his goal.

Bob’s philosophy is simple. “I believe one of the goals of living is to always learn. No matter what, keep learning. There is life after blindness.”

Bob wants to hear from folks who are blind or visually impaired to build his virtual neighborhood. If you are interested, or for more information, contact Bob at ceo@visionaftersight.com.

About the Author:

Jeanne McClellan was born and raised in Royal Oak, Michigan, earned a master's degree in psychology, and worked for approximately 30 years as a counselor and social worker until she retired in 2009.