Pre-episode Intro Mike: It was difficult to grow up as a blind person in the 70's. To hear, "You need to be normal," uh, "You need to fit in, you need to not rock the boat," you know, "You're gonna work three times as hard as everybody else, and chances are, you're gonna not possibly make it, so prepare yourself for a life of, you know, mediocrity," and, and that just didn't resonate with me. I was just like "Why? Who is society to dictate that to me?" Chris: This is the Penny Forward podcast, a show about blind people building bright futures one penny at a time. I'm Chris Peterson, ... Liz: I'm Liz Bottner, ... MOe: I'm MOe Carpenter, ... Chris: And today, we are going to learn more about entrepreneurship, and leadership, from Mike Calvo, president and founder of Pneuma Solutions, and other companies in the past. He's been a fixture in the blind community for a long, long time, and we're excited to have him on to find out what he thinks is key to being highly successful in the blind community. Mike, thanks for being here. Mike: Thanks. My kindergarten teacher was pretty impressed that I started a company way back then. 'cause I'm not as old as you make me sound, Man. (Chris and Mike laugh together.) Mike: It's a pleasure to be here. Chris: Start off by telling us, if you would, about your background, and, uh, specifically your, your blindness, if you would. Mike: Sure. I am, fifty-six years old. I was uh, raised in Miami Florida. I am the son of Cuban immigrants. My parents came here in the sixties. And I have detached retinas from birth, which means I had enough sight to get in trouble when I was a little kid, but I always knew that it was gonna go away, so I was kind of raised as a blind kid, and uh, had, you know, had the little bit of sight I had until I was 18 or so, and then lost it all. I have five kids. My oldest is thirty-four, and my youngest is, uh, eighteen. And yeah. I've been doing AT since uh, 1989. I started working at a bank, and just realized that there was some challenges in working for someone else. It was a very difficult time to get a job. It was pre-ADA, and just kind of stepped out, realized that training people was what I enjoyed, trained quite a few blind people, and started my first AT company in 1999, uh, named Serotek. And uh, here I am. Pneuma Solutions is our latest iteration, I am a cofounder. My co-founder is uh, Matt Campbell, who used to be the CTO, the Chief Technology Officer, at Serotek, which was; Serotek was a lot more of a consumer type of organization, we were geared more towards the blind consumer. Pneuma is geared more towards blind professionals. But uh, that's, kind of, what I am, or who I am, in a nutshell. Chris: And not everything from Serotek has gone away, right? That, some of that stuff still is available to people, correct? Mike: Yes. We inherited a lot of the Serotek stuff. Unfortunately, my, uh, my business partner at Serotek, Michael Fox, who I owe so much to, such an amazing human being, just mentor, friend, he got very ill in 2017 and had to step away from the business. And it was just easier for us to, just, Matt and I to pick up the ball, and run with it under a new company name, as opposed to keep Serotek going as it was. So, but we still have some of the old Serotek products, System Access, um, Sero, the uh, the, the online community, uh, Docuscan Plus, and we are updating those as they go. Uh, for Sero, we have a lot of customers that depend on that technology every day. And uh, until we're no longer needed in that capacity, we're gonna keep Sero going, because it is a lot of people's lifeline. Liz: Was there a specific person, or specific people, or a specific event in particular, that contributed to your success and interest in getting involved in being in the assistive technology field? Mike: Wow. That's a whole lot of question there. Like I said, I grew up as, as a child of immigrant parents. My challenges as a blind person started when I was very young, because unfortunately, I did not have the parental advocacy that a lot of blind kids have. Uh, my parents, being immigrants, both just socially, as far as, you know, from their own culture, didn't understand what a blind person was capable of, and then of course they didn't have the language to advocate for me as a blind person. It was difficult to grow up as a blind person in the 70's. To hear, "You need to be normal," uh, "You need to fit in, you need to not rock the boat," you know, "You're gonna work three times as hard as everybody else, and chances are, you're gonna not possibly make it, so prepare yourself for a life of, you know, mediocrity," and, and that just didn't resonate with me. I was just like "Why? Who is society to dictate that to me?" And for many years, I rebelled. I grew up, uh, like I said, in Miami, uh, grew up in the music industry. Was exposed to drugs, and gangs, and, you know, all kinds of craziness very early on, and uh, unfortunately, uh, ran in those circles for, for a number of years. And then around 1995, I got much more involved in the church, and, and things of that nature, and, and it just made a positive influence on my life, and I realized, "You know, I have a calling on my life. And, and, and I have the ability to, really help people understand. Empathy is something that we are taught since being children, but blind people don't need empathy. What we need is partnership. What we need are people asking us, "What, if anything, do I need to do to help you accomplish this or that?" And I think that my particular gift has been the fact that I've, I've taken what I've seen as a, a negative in society and just, you know, I want this world to be better for me. It's like Tom Sawyer, right? You know, Tom Sawyer convinced all these people to paint his fence. I don't know if you're familiar with the story, but uh, he was supposed to paint a fence. And, uh, he, through his uh, ability to convince people of his vision, he was able to convince all the kids on the block to paint that fence for him. And he took a leadership position, and, and, and accomplished the job, uh, lickity split. And that's kind of what's led me. Is, is, I, I've been a pied piper all my life, I've been kind of that person that people turn to, and ask, "What should I do in this situation," or "what should I do in that situation?" You know, I heard someone speak many years ago, they said "If, if you say, 'somebody should do something about that,' and you have an idea, you have a, a possible answer for it, and you don't, you probably missed a calling." And uh, I have no formal education. I, I never graduated high school. I never went to college. I've been mentored, I, I only got mentorship later on in my life. People like Greg Luther, from the Division of Blind Services was huge in, in helping me accomplish what I did. So, I mean, like I said, it was a big question, and there's so much, I could sit here and talk for the next hour and not shut up, about how I've been blessed to work with so many people, but it happened late. It happened late in my life. And, and unfortunately, I, I got a lot of egg on my face, in the beginning of my life because of that. And I don't ever want blind kids to go through that again. There, there, there shouldn't be that opportunity. We should be able to be told that we're winners. We don't need to be told at twelve that we need to be realistic about our challenges. That, that's just not appropriate. MOe: Wow, that's um, a very relatable story for me. Not both of my parents are immigrants, but one of them is. So, I very much relate to that. Do you think you have an idea of when you, or how you kind of learned to advocate for yourself? Mike: I was just mad. I just was mad, and I wouldn't shut up. You know? It's very difficult for me as a blind person to accept anyone's pat on the back. Because, you know, it's amazing that I wake up in the morning and tie my shoes. I just happen to be blind, Man. You know? I happen to be a blind person, but, more than that, I'm a dad. I'm a husband. I'm a leader. And those things are so much more important to me than the blindness. But unfortunately, the blindness precedes me. You know, so, my goal in life has really been to just kind of try and make that blindness get on the back burner. Chris: Let's go into some detail now, and, and talk about your company, and the other things that you do, professionally. So, uh, tell us a little bit about Pneuma, and, maybe, if, you went into some detail about Serotek, if you want to go into more of, about that, that would be great, and, and some of your, uh, professional public speaking that you do. Mike: Sure. So, I grew up, just, kind of hustling. Being Latino, being Cuban, we're like, you know, "How many jobs you got, Man?" (Laugh.) You know, and the, the, the gig, the gig economy is great for Latinos. And uh, back before the gig economy, you know, we would hustle. We would, I, I, I owned a recording studio. I DJed on the side. I did radio stuff. I did commercials. I did voice overs for commercials. All that kind of stuff. When the internet came around, I said, "Oh my goodness! Here's a new place to, you know, pound the pavement." And, you know, my, my friend Andy and I both dropped out of high school at the same time. The reason I dropped out of high school, not 'cause I was lazy, was but because, in my twelfth grade year, they didn't order my books, and it was gonna take them another year to get them in braille, and, uh, they thought it would be cute to put me back to tenth grade, because they could, and uh, keep me there for an additional three years. And I said, "Hell no," and I just left. Um, and there's, there's more to that story, but, um, as there always is, but uh, Andy was a uh, an entrepreneur as well. And Andy was, uh, my best friend in high school, Andy invented Track Phone. I don't know if you're familiar with Track Phone, but they're the prepaid cellular stuff. And Andy and I developed a product called Radio Web Caster. And it was a product that, you would plug this little transmitter into your computer, and, and the computer had a piece of software on it, that you would play, um, radio stations through it. And we would broadcast those streamed radio stations through this transmitter to an FM radio, and there was a, a little remote control that you would use to control your computer from any room in the house, 'cause it was an RF remote. And it would talk to you, and all that stuff, and it, it was a really cool device for its time. It came out in 1999, it actually won an award for CNN, uh, for Product of the New Millennium, um, in December of 1999. But a bunch of blind people started buying this product. And I swore, after, "I worked with the bank, I put a bunch of blind people to work, and the Clinton administration cut a truck load of financing away from VR. I, I swore I'd never go back to working with blind people. And so, I went and hid in the studio and, and did, you know, whatever I had to do for the last, next few years. And then in 1999, a bunch of blind people started buying this product. I'm like "Wait a minute. They got money? Blind people got money? Really?" So, I started talking to these people. I never, I had never, I mean I had trained blind people, but I was like, those people. You know, it was, it was very sad when I look back, because it was them and me. And I started realizing the challenges that we face as a community. Because the internet has really been the great equalizer. It has given us the opportunity to deal with, to meet, other blind people. To really network, and talk, and get to understand each other. And to fall in love. And to, to, to become good friends. And to really establish those relationships. And I just fell in love with our community, Man. I, I, I, I said "Man, this is my people." Have no doubt that blindness is a culture. You know, I don't care where you are. You know, what language you speak. What your cultural differences are. A blind person in China, a blind person in America, a blind person in Canada, none of us can tell what color that is. All of us, you've got to put the same stuff in the same place all at the same time 'cause if not if you move it around, we're gonna not find it. There are so many commonalities, and so many blind things that we all enjoy doing that, if it's not a culture, it's pretty darn close. And I just wanted to be a part of that. And Jonathan Mosen, another podcaster, he had just started out, and really mentored me, just by watching him. Watching how, I was angry. And so was he. But the difference between him and I, was I got angry, and I got stupid. And Jonathan got angry and got legislative. And got involved in government. And got involved in governance. And in laws. And things like that. And I admired that. Like crazy. And I just watched him. And, and these blind people are buying this product. And they are telling me, "We have Jaws, but it costs eleven hundred and ninety-five dollars." And, you know, and I'm saying "Man, we, you know, we need something for blind people to be entertained, not just to worry about if they go to work or educated or not." And uh, as time passed, I started getting an idea of a product called Freedom Box. And worked with a group out of Russia to develop the prototype, ultimately, met Matt Campbell, um, who is still with me today, like I said, we just co-founded a company together. He was my CTO, and Matt and I, through Serotek, we built about seven different products together. A lot of firsts. The first screen reader that could be downloaded from the internet. That could be run on any computer. So, you didn't have to carry around a big backpack of stuff anymore. The first screen reader that could be run off of a, of a USB key. So, you could just plug into any computer you encountered anywhere. Document scanning software. Everything that the consumer could buy themselves. They didn't require a government agency to pay for it for them. And that just progressed from there. Sorry to be so long winded, but there's a lot to tell. Liz: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing. In terms of Pneuma Solutions, which is your current company, who are your customers? Mike: You know, first of all, we needed somewhere to be able to continue the stuff from Serotek, as I said before. Matt had taken a job, after Serotek closed down, Matt took a job over at Microsoft. And Matt, at that time, was becoming a little frustrated with Microsoft, not because of anything with Microsoft, Matt's just always been, you know, he's been his own captain. You know, he's always been, he's an open-source guy, you know, Microsoft was a big corporate. You know. So, he said, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna come and work full time with Pneuma and, and, and, and do some of my, what I want to do, in open source." And Matt is doing that today. He's got a product, uh, an open source project called Access Kit, which is uh, funded by Google and a couple of other things, he's done some work on the Genome Project, for Linux and stuff, and Matt and I still continue to innovate. Because we were like "Man. What if we could upload a document to the internet, and convert it to any accessible format?" So, Pneuma Solutions started with, uh, Scribe for Documents, and when the pandemic came around, we started looking at different ways of, you know, using this technology, and we came up with another product called Scribe for Meetings, which allows a blind person to actively participate in a Zoom meeting. And then, that was growing, but it wasn't making enough money. So, we're like "Dude, what are we gonna do about trying to make some money?" And we said "Why don't we resuscitate a product called Remote Incident Manager. Rim." And we re-released it, and that has really been kind of our flagship product since. It is a, a remote training and support product, uh, for both Windows and Mac. It allows Windows people to control a mac, and, or to control another Windows computer, and the beauty of RIM, is that it allows a blind person to totally control a sighted person's computer, without them ever knowing they're dealing with a blind person, and without them ever having to install a screen reader on their computer. So, the blind person is able to maintain their dignity. And what I mean by that, not that being blind is undignified, but it isn't front and center. It's not like "Hi. I'm your blind technician." No no no, I'm the guy that's here to work on your computer. Let me do that, and, whatever. And if my blindness comes up in the conversation, great. But I'm not making your computer talk and all that stuff. We have been able to work with some of the leaders in the world of AT. We are currently working with Aira, so we are now their solution for remote, uh, support. Vision Australia, the National Federation of the Blind, I mean our customer base for RIM is a who's who of, of folks in the blind community. Chris: Unfortunately, we didn't have time to finish this conversation in one episode, but it was so great, that we decided to turn this into a To Be Continued! So, join us in two weeks, for the conclusion of our interview with Mike Calvo, from Pneuma Solutions. Until then, we hope you'll visit our web site, pennyforward.com to find out about all of the benefits of becoming a Penny Forward member. And, we hope you will join our Financial Independence is for Everyone contest, where we are giving away over fifty thousand dollars in prizes. If you join as a Penny Forward member, and, refer your friends, you can increase your chances to win. And some of those prizes were donated by Pneuma Solutions in fact. Visit pennyforward.com/contest to find out all about that. Before we go, we'd like to thank our sponsors and valued partners, Wells Fargo, Thrivent, the APH Connect Center, World Services for the Blind, Computers for the Blind, and if you'd like to become a sponsor or a valued partner, please reach out to us at pennyforward@pennyforward.com or visit pennyforward.com/sponsorships to find out what packages are available that meet your needs, and your budget. The Penny Forward podcast is produced by Chris Peterson and Liz Bottner with help from MOe Carpenter, audio editing and postproduction is provided by Brynn Lee, text transcription is provided by Anne Verduin, and the music is composed and performed by Andre Louis. As an aside, all of those people are blind. Penny Forward is a nonprofit organization founded and led by blind people. Through education, mentoring, and mutual support, we help each other navigate the complicated landscape of personal finance, so that we can help each other in the blind community cross over that bridge. Now, for all of us in the Penny Forward community, I'm Chris Peterson, ... Liz: I'm Liz Bottner, ... MOe: I'm MOe Carpenter, ... Chris: Thanks for listening, and tune in again in just two weeks for the conclusion of this interview.