(tranquil music) - I am Norm Silverstein.

I'm glad you're with us because we're in good company today with Dan Meyers.

Dan is one of Rochester's best known non-profit leaders.

As President of the Al Sigl Community of Agencies, Dan has expanded the bold vision of the people who founded the Al Sigl Center in 1962.

He's been at the helm of Al Sigl as it experienced huge growth, today, encompassing six member agencies and half a dozen campuses.

After 29 years, Dan is retiring from Al Sigl.

He joins me today to reflect on his career, and knowing his energy level, to talk about what's next.

Dan, thank you for being here.

- Great to be here, Norm, great.

- Dan, it's really going to be hard to imagine the Al Sigl community of Agencies without you at the helm.

So I have to ask you, what's going through your mind as you prepare to turn over the helm of this agency to someone new?

- Mostly just remarkable gratitude for what's been the gift of this time for me personally.

They say that if you like what you do, you don't really ever work.

And this seems to me like six jam packed months, not 29 years.

I go home tired, exhausted sometimes, and I can't wait to get back at it early the next morning, because we're constantly doing new and different things.

The the work that our agencies do, the needs of the people with all abilities that our agencies are serving and that our mission is to help, require us to constantly be pushing and pulling and trying to find the new right next thing to take us forward.

- Well, it's clear you love what you do and you believe in the mission.

You've been doing this since 1987.

You weren't even 40 years old when you took over at Al Sigl, but you did already have a little bit of not-for-profit experience, some of it literally getting in on the ground floor.

You were a night janitor at the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, ABVI, I guess you were just coming out of high school at that time?

- College.

- College, yeah, coming outta college.

And you were offered a full-time job, and it almost didn't happen.

Can you tell us- - Well, this was 1971, I was gonna go off to Europe, isn't that where every student went, particularly if you had a high draft number, and I was lucky enough to have a very high draft number.

And unfortunately my car fell apart and I needed a new car.

And in order to get a car, you needed some sort of form of income to get a loan.

And so I went back to the association the night that all happened and said, "Is that job offer still available?"

And that's really how it all started.

- And that led to other opportunities in the not-for-profit world?

- Yes.

There were two real populations that needed attention at the association when I was there.

The young children, the children's programs needed to be revised and then older people who were suffering and were living with visual impairments and needed community activities.

So as a result of trying to link older folks who had visual impairments with community outlets and activities, I wound up being in the middle of that first generation of aging services.

And together we put a grant proposal together for the retired senior volunteer program.

And I'm delighted to say that's still going at Lifespan all these years later.

- Well, you were at Lifespan, you also were at the George Eastman Museum.

- Yes.

- I understand you were involved in emergency planning.

How did you have such a varied career so early?

- Well, I think in the not-for-profit world, there's really only one of every job.

If you're lucky enough to work in a very large organization, there might be two and there might be a bit of a career ladder.

But for me, if you wanted to grow, you needed to move, and so I just kept moving.

This was very hard for my father who was a 40 year Kodak veteran, who just thought you went one place and stayed forever.

But it really positioned me very well for what was gonna be needed at Al Sigl, 'cause I had seven years of human service work and I had seven years of fundraising in the arts.

And that was really two skill sets that Al Sigl needed in its first executive director.

- Did you have any idea when you first entered Al Sigl that you would be there for so long and making such an impact not only there, but in the community?

Did you have a vision for the future?

- I arrived at Al Sigl with 15 years of volunteer experience, so I knew what the place was, I knew its feeling, I knew its culture, I knew the people and I certainly knew the good work that the agencies did and really identified with that.

I didn't at all foresee the kind of expansion and growth that we'd be able to do, the kind of deepening of the relationship, the kind of growth in services and the terrific generosity that the community was able to give to us to fuel all that.

- You must have seen the need for the kinds of services Als Sigl provides growing during your time there.

Did you have an idea that it would be as explosive as it has turned out to be, that so many campuses, the original budget was less than 2 million when you got there and now, what is it?

- 10, yeah.

The first year we opened in 1968, there were 3000 people, when I came, there were about 15,000 people being served.

Last year, very conservatively, we touched 55,000 children and adults with special needs and varying abilities.

It was a very good idea in 1962, it's the perfect idea and it's just what the community, it's what society needs today in terms of harnessing the good work of agencies that are independent, but having collaboration and sit in the middle of them and make efficiency and make more things accessible to more people.

- Well, you're no longer just a center, you're now a community of agencies.

For people who don't know that much about Al Sigl, what are the type of services that these agencies provide?

Who are the people who are being helped?

- Well, just looking at the names of our agencies, CP Rochester, people with physical disabilities and neurological impairments, children and adults, the whole age span.

Rochester Rehabilitation Center, people with physical disabilities, people with mental illness, people with behavioral challenges.

Rochester hearing and Speech Center, clinic for audiology and speech and other therapies.

The Medical Motor Service, the transportation support agency that really makes all of this happen.

The MS Society, which has done such a good job here that it's now regional and serving all of upstate New York.

And the Epilepsy Foundation, which has merged with Prelude to become EPI, serving people in all of Central New York.

Our agencies do a terrific job and any one of them would be worth a story and every one of them is worthy of support.

I think you put us all together and we really make a very compelling case for how Rochester is taking care of people who have specialized needs and need the place and the services for that to happen.

- That's really an incredible list.

Has there ever been a time in your career where you almost felt overwhelmed by this and by the need?

- I think it would be easy to do if you thought you were doing it alone, but our agencies are really families of families, so there's a terrific gene code, if you will, that comes from that "familyness."

And the people that we serve are energetic and very clear about what it is they need, but they're also very patient in their determination.

So this doesn't come to us in house on fire kinds of things, normally, it comes to us in, we ought to be looking ahead for what's coming next, to be ready to have this in place when people go to the next part of life, or transition to the next part of life, or there are more people coming to us with this kind of need as opposed to the kind of need that we used to see.

And if you stay close to the ground, if you stay close to your people and their families, you're not surprised by that.

- You've talked a lot over the years about the generosity of the Rochester community, but you know it doesn't happen by itself.

You've been named a fundraising professional of the year by the International Association of Fundraising Professionals.

You've received a president's medal from St. John Fisher.

You've given commencement speeches.

Your accomplishments in fundraising do tell me two things, it takes money to provide good service, and you are really good at raising money.

So where did you get that gift from?

- Coming from you Norm, that means a lot, 'cause we look at public broadcasting as the gold standard in this community, and what you and your team do is really terrific to support this important community voice.

The fundraising really just comes organically.

If you really know what needs to be done and you believe in it with all your heart, then asking people to help you is sort of second nature.

Does it take a little bit of practice?

Yeah, it does take practice.

And the only way of learning that is by doing it.

In the very first campaign we did when I came to Al Sigl, we knocked on doors we'd never knocked on before.

And almost uniformly, people said, "We were hoping you'd come.

We've always been curious about what's happened there.

We knew the good things happened, but we didn't know anybody and we didn't know a way in."

Shame on us for not having knocked on those doors 15 years before.

And then I think the other lesson that we learned from that experience, is once you make a friend, it's a whole lot easier to keep a friend than it is to try to make a new friend, or rekindle that fire if it's gone out.

So we've worked hard over the last 29 years to keep track of the relationships that make the difference in how people perceive you and what they're willing to support.

- Well you mentioned WXXI, and I recall that when I came to Rochester years ago, you were the first not-for-profit leader to call me to welcome me to the community and we even did a joint fundraiser together, which is unusual for two organizations.

What makes you so collaborative?

- Well, we were born that way.

The Al Sigl model is about collaboration.

It was way ahead of its time.

There was no...

There wasn't a place we could go and visit to say, "Well, we wanna be like this place in Cleveland or this place in somewhere else."

We had to invent it and make it up as we went along.

And the model that people proposed, community leaders proposed, was all of the agencies that serve children with disabilities would merge together and there would be one.

And the parents said, "We've worked too hard to get what we need for our child, who has different needs than your child.

There are things we could share, but we need our own program."

And so they, in the parking lot really, came up with the idea of independent organizations coming together and then sharing resources that everyone would benefit from.

Well, it makes great sense, it's a very, very good solution and it's a great example of Rochester quiet ingenuity.

- So is there a continuum, really, of services, people might come in young with certain needs and then as they grow older, the community of agencies is there, is that how it works?

- Well, and you might need this today and you may need that tomorrow.

Many families find that at the beginning especially, we became sort of an example of a one-stop shopping center, because people needed this kind of diagnostic visit and this kind of therapy visit and this kind of... And it could all happen very easily.

Now, as services have multiplied, as things have become more complex, it's wonderful for us, we're being asked by the collaboration of the health systems to be part of the community continuum of care, from acute care to ambulatory care and to what it is we do very well.

We haven't been invited to those tables before.

So you can talk a lot about how chaotic healthcare reform is, for people with disabilities, this may be a terrific opportunity.

- You approached us some years ago with an idea called Dialogue on Disability, and that's grown into something even more significant, Move to Include.

Do you feel that that people with disabilities still are not getting the services, the treatment, the respect that people deserve of people of all abilities, even with all the work that you and others have done on this community?

- I think we all come to this idea of ability and what it means from our own context and our own pictures.

And many of us don't have enough pictures to create an album that is really how people are and what they're capable of and what they need and how much better we all are when we're all together.

So to me, dialogue On Disabilities and Move to Include, have given people new words, better language, amazing pictures that can now begin to replace maybe some of the stereotypes, some of the negative images that they might have had.

Disability is a very funny world because it's starts with a dis, and for an awful lot of people, you don't get past the dis and you never get to the ability part.

And we've had a lot of fun as we've gone through the progression of this over a decade or more of trying to make that dis disappear, we've crossed it out, we've shaded it and so on.

It's not too many more years I don't think, Norm, before we'll be able to just get rid of it totally.

And the abilities will be the conversation in the story.

And the bully pulpit, that public broadcasting gives to our work and to the work for inclusion for the people we serve is maybe the best example of what the power of the media is in America.

- Well, we think you're one of the best examples of people that we love to work with to make this a better community.

But we need to talk about you a little bit.

- Oh my goodness.

- You are so closely associated with Rochester, it's really not a surprise, you are a native.

- Yes.

- And you lived in the 10th ward and on the lake.

What was Rochester like back then?

- It was a simpler kind of time, generally.

I mean, we're talking, I went to school in the 50s and 60s and we were also a very homegrown town.

I think I was in the sixth grade before someone's family relocated and someone joined our class.

Everybody else was right from the neighborhood and we knew each other all growing up.

So it was a very homogeneous community.

Our businesses, our industries were all homegrown, our stores were all homegrown, our banks were all homegrown.

I mean, everything was Rochester and it had a just sort of a Rochester stamp on it.

- Well, I understand you were educated in parochial schools, did that have a big influence on you?

- The Sisters of St. Joseph had one way and that was the right way.

And it was all long hand.

And it was great training for life, because not only did we get our lessons done, but we got a great big injection of values and principles.

I think that really, really prepared me well.

I was lucky enough to go to a Franciscan high school and to graduate from St. John Fisher College with the bazillion fathers.

All of those traditions were very, very strong in the value of high quality education and intellectual life, but more importantly, balanced with values and service.

And so, some ways it was sort of natural for me to gravitate in the way that I did.

- Well, anyone tuning in I'm sure would understand why people say you have a style that's infectious.

Your voicemail messages are full of sunshine.

Your president's message in the Al Sigl Newsletter is called, "Howdy Neighbors."

Your dogs, Honey and Buddy have raised money for the Al Sigl walkabouts.

- Shameless, shameless, they're shameless promoters, yeah.

- After 29 years, you're ready, perhaps not so ready, but you have announced you'll be retiring from Al Sigl.

As you look back over all these years, tell us about your greatest accomplishments.

- When I came, it wasn't clear that an expanded coordinating role for Al Sigl would really be accepted by the agencies, or by the community.

And I think we were all ready for it.

And because there was such terrific continuity of leadership in the agencies, both the professional leaders and the volunteers, we stuck at it and made it work.

It's hard, hard work to collaborate, it's much easier to go on your own path alone at your own timetable and so on.

On the other hand, I think we all saw that if we could do this productively together, the resources would be greater than any one of us would have on our own and the impact would be much greater.

And I think the fact that we have stayed together and worked at it is a terrific credit to everybody who are in the circles of support around us as we've gone forward.

40 years ago, the biggest idea was, let's have space where agencies could come together and work together.

We're at another crossroads, there's new big ideas waiting to be born.

And we've sown the seeds for some of those, and the next people are gonna have to bring those forward and figure out which of them is the most powerful and which is gonna add the most value to this work.

And I can't wait to see what they do, 'cause I think what we've done has been very interesting.

The next 10 years are gonna be very exciting.

- So you've said the Al Sigl Community of Agencies is really less of a place now and more of, what do you call it, an expression?

- Well, it's a capability, it's an idea, it's a concept.

For many years we were the building at the corner of Elmwood and South Avenue, and that's how we defined ourselves.

And in the expansion in the 90s, when we replicated that to the Hail building at Winton campus, it was very clear that this was more about the concept of working together than it was the single expression.

So that sort of opens us up to say, "Well, what is the next big expression of this and how can we do more?

And the people we serve deserve more.

- Well, you've served a lot of people over the years.

Is there any one person, or case that you remember that really touched your heart that you think about a lot?

- I'd have to say there's probably one in every agency and there's one every year and there's one every decade.

I could tell you a story if it's not too long.

Tom Golisano was the honorary chair of our campaign of about a decade ago.

We did a video, he was the voice of the video.

And at the annual meeting where we were premiering it, he was going to announce his big gift to our campaign, it was his first big gift.

We arranged for the people in the video to be there, one of them was a terrific young athlete who had had a bicycle accident and was learning to bike again using an adapted bike.

And she was in the video and she was going to present him with some flowers and thank him.

Unbeknownst to all of us, she had been learning to walk again and she had succeeded.

And so she arrived at the ballroom to do this and she said, "And I'm going to walk to him and give him this."

And the ballroom was rather large and he was at one end and she was at the other, and she sort of miscalculated how many steps this would take and how long this was gonna be and what it was like to do it in front of an audience.

And as she moved closer to him, she looked right in his eye and said, "Could you meet me halfway, this is a long distance?"

And I don't think Tom will ever forget that and nobody in the room ever will either.

- It's quite a story.

You've gotten to know a lot of prominent people in this community, Is Tom one that really resonates, having his own son who's developmentally disabled and really caring about making it a better life for people with disabilities?

- Tom's family in their early days were volunteer families, like everybody else was, trying to make this work and trying to make the agencies better and trying to force us to be courageous to take that next step, so they're just sort of hardwired in with us.

And that he's wound up with this terrific good fortune in that he has decided that he wants to share it so broadly.

He's been magnificent to us.

And that doesn't mean he's been easy with us.

He demands the same accountability from us as he does from his own business investments.

But the generosity of his heart and the understanding of our work means so much.

And there's just pockets of that all over Rochester, and we're very, very lucky that so many people have supported us.

- Another name we should talk about for a moment, is Al Sigl, how did all of this come about?

- Well he was the town crier.

He would love that we're doing this on broadcast media, 'cause he was a broadcaster, Frank, and that lifted him up from the Times Union newsroom to give the news on the radio station, which was the dominant media of the time, and for 30 years he was our town crier.

But he had this wonderful way of not just giving the news, he also connected people, he talked about shut-ins, he talked about children with disabilities, he talked about everybody and always had a little call to action.

"If you know something about this or you wanna get involved or whatever, call so and so."

And of course life was so gentle then, I mean, you gave out addresses and phone numbers and things that we wouldn't dare do today.

So when we got to be built at the corner, we were gonna be called the Monroe County Center for Rehabilitation Agencies.

And a very smart board member said, "This building needs a personality," and who better than everybody's good neighbor, Al Sigl?

- And you were actually a child when Al Sigl was doing all this, and you did know him - Well, I did.

We lived in the 10th ward, went to the same church.

I remember being threatened that if I wiggled in church, my mother would point to Al Sigl and "I'm gonna tell Al Sigl."

And of course, he was in our house every day, he was in everybody's house.

My first experience with stereo was walking down the street, everybody had their windows and doors open and he was on at noon and you heard it from every door.

So he patted me on the head one day and I think maybe he was getting me ready for what I've come to do.

- That's great.

Dan, I usually ask my guests the same three questions at the end to hear some of their thoughts about Rochester.

One of them is, if you could change one thing about this community, what would it be?

But I'm gonna change that a little bit for you, which is, if you could change one thing about this community that would make it a more inclusive and welcoming place for people with disabilities, what would it be?

- I think we have a natural polite reserve as Rochesterians.

And I think sometimes that makes us feel, or look a little cool.

And if we could all just take a little step out of that reserve, I think we would all find that somebody in our immediate circle has a different kind of ability and a different kind of need.

And we'll change our attitude and we'll change Rochester by just expressing that friendship, because that's what we do naturally.

When we see something that needs to be done differently, when we see something that needs to be done that hasn't been done before, we just do it.

And if we could make those connections, we're gonna be a more inclusive place.

- You've said so many things that might answer my second question, but I'm gonna ask it, what do you love most about Rochester?

- I love the fact that we all pitch in.

I don't know of another community where everybody pitches in.

And what I hear is, in other cities, people have one charity, or one cause that they're involved in, and there are enough people that, that keeps everything going.

In Rochester, if we did that, we wouldn't have the array of arts and education and healthcare and human services and all the community based wonderful things that we have.

So the fact that we all jump in and participate is just wonderful.

- Do we have a best kept secret here?

- I think we do.

If the world needed to say what's best of civilization, you'd hope that every community would put their best thing forward.

I think the photographic collections and the film collections at the George Eastman Museum are the finest in the world, bar none, nobody else can duplicate them, the sum of everything won't equal what's there.

And I also think the same about the Sibley Music Library.

We've got the best manuscript collection of the best music the world has produced.

And Rochester has two very, very proud things to add to the world's list of accomplishments.

- So what's next for Dan Meyers?

- Well, I'm looking for a volunteer job outta town, because I'd like to step off the treadmill for a minute and sort of just readjust my head.

I intend to study Greek, because I had a good deal of Latin in high school and college, which I hope would might come back.

And if I could master Greek, then I could read the classics in Latin and Greek, and that ought to keep this from going too soft, too fast.

- Well, I'm sure you'll do well at all of them.

Thanks so much for being with us.

- [Dan] Thanks, Norm.

Thanks for everything - And thank you also for being with us today.

You can also watch this episode and past shows online wxxxi.org.

We'll see you next time on Norm and Company.

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