{"id":84,"date":"2022-05-16T01:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/2023-2-18-fish-ladder-story-brandon-werner\/"},"modified":"2025-03-16T23:58:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T23:58:17","slug":"2023-2-18-fish-ladder-story-brandon-werner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/2023-2-18-fish-ladder-story-brandon-werner\/","title":{"rendered":"Fish Ladder Story: Brandon Werner"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Patrick J. Droste MS, MD<\/em><\/p>\n

When Brandon Werner was born on January 26, 1992, everyone commented on \u201chis beautiful blue eyes\u201d.\u00a0 However, around 6 weeks of age, Brandon\u2019s mother noticed jiggling of his eyes \u201cin different directions\u201d.\u00a0 After seeing several eye doctors, a retinal specialist in their area identified retinal hemorrhages in each eye. He immediately referred Brandon to Dr. Michael Trese at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. Dr. Trese felt that the bleeding was caused by a condition called Familial Exudative Vitreoretinopathy (FEVR).<\/p>\n

\u00a0FEVR is an inherited,\u00a0progressive bleeding disorder of the retinal vessels characterized by abnormal growth of the blood vessels and ultimate retinal detachment.\u00a0 Many cases of FEVR respond to medical and surgical\u00a0treatment resulting in variable degrees of visual function.\u00a0However, in Brandon\u2019s case, despite multiple surgeries and pharmacologic treatments, he became totally blind\/no light perception in each eye by eight years of age.<\/p>\n

Brandon\u2019s mother, Alissa, made sure that he remained active in all areas. Brandon mastered Braille at a very young age, excelled in school, and became actively involved with\u00a0sports for the visually impaired such as Beep Baseball,\u00a0Goal\u00a0Ball, and rock climbing.\u00a0 His\u00a0mother\u00a0organized a Goal Ball\u00a0team\u00a0which\u00a0attracted\u00a0visually impaired\u00a0players from all over Michigan. Brandon and his\u00a0family\u00a0participated in every Visually Impaired Sports and Activity\u00a0Day\u00a0(VISD)\u00a0held\u00a0in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during the first week of June from 2001-2019.\u00a0 When in high\u00a0school, Brandon traveled with the marching band to different venues including the state competition.<\/p>\n

After high school, Brandon attended and graduated from Albion College. During this time, he worked many part time jobs including training blind teens how to use a global positioning system (GPS) while working\u00a0for Leader\u00a0Dogs\u00a0for the Blind\u00a0in Rochester, Michigan.\u00a0 He also worked as a clerical assistant\u00a0for a Michigan Congressman and at the Defense Logistics Agency.\u00a0 Brandon always had an interest in mathematics and computers.\u00a0 He\u00a0developed\u00a0and\u00a0instructed digital\u00a0math programs\u00a0to blind high school and college students.<\/p>\n

One of the most difficult challenges that Brandon,\u00a0and other visually impaired college students,\u00a0faced during their education was gaining access to materials and information sources.<\/p>\n

Brandon would ask other students that attended his classes, as well as his professors, to read things out loud and draw graphs so he could feel them.\u00a0\u00a0Networking with professors in this way was\u00a0important,\u00a0\u201cas it provided opportunity for jobs\u201d.\u00a0 This experience also helped\u00a0Brandon understand\u00a0the\u00a0challenges\u00a0of other visually\u00a0impaired\u00a0students\u00a0following\u00a0him.\u00a0 He worked diligently to develop different digital systems to help students gain access to material.<\/p>\n

Despite his many skills and job experiences, Brandon was unable to secure employment after college, something that seems especially difficult for visually impaired college graduates trying to enter the work force.\u00a0 He went back to\u00a0school\u00a0to earn a\u00a0Master\u2019s degree in Vision Rehabilitation Therapy at Western Michigan University.\u00a0 While enrolled in the\u00a0Master\u2019s program, he continued his job search sending many applications and resumes.<\/p>\n

Brandon\u2019s work did not go unnoticed. He was offered a position at the University of Michigan and is currently working as an Accessibility Analyst focused on making websites and software easier to use and accessible for everyone at the University.<\/p>\n

Brandon feels that the \u201cmastery of technology is the key to a successful future\u201d. The technology applies to teaching people how to perform a work assignment,\u00a0travel from one place to\u00a0another, or using the computer to develop free screen readers that have become available to lower barriers and provide access to work applications. Other tools like Voice Over on the I Phone make it possible to\u00a0\u201cperform tasks on the road,\u00a0keeping\u00a0a calendar, communicating electronically and accessing documents on the go\u201d.<\/p>\n

Brandon has never let his visual impairment keep him from \u201cmoving up the fish ladder of life\u201d.\u00a0 He never stays at one level very long.\u00a0 He is proud of his accomplishments but most importantly, he is always looking for\u00a0young\u00a0fish behind him to get to the next level, whether it is by\u00a0direct personal\u00a0assistance or advising on the development of a phone applications, to help them be successful in a sighted world.<\/p>\n

_<\/p>\n

About the author:<\/p>\n

Patrick J. Droste MS, MD is a PRRF Board Member<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brandon has never let his visual impairment keep him from \u201cmoving up the fish ladder of life\u201d.  He never stays at one level very long.  He is proud of his accomplishments but most importantly, he is always looking for young fish behind him to get to the next level, whether it is by direct personal assistance or advising on the development of a phone applications, to help them be successful in a sighted world.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,45],"tags":[32],"class_list":{"0":"post-84","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog","8":"category-personal-stories","9":"tag-fevr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7998,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions\/7998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}