Partner Spotlight: Tim Stump, Arizona@Work

As Director of Partnership Development, at Disability Solutions, I get the opportunity to meet great individuals across the country who are leading efforts to prove jobseekers with disabilities have the same abilities and strengths to be of great value to employers than those without disabilities. One of my favorite and successful partnerships has been with Tim Stump, the Vocational Rehabilitation Employer Liaison at the Arizona Department of Economic Security in Phoenix, Arizona. Tim and I met in July of 2015 when we kicked off the Pepsi Achieving Changing Together (ACT) initiative in Phoenix and I was immediately drawn to his passion for his work and sense of humor. Since then, Tim has partnered with Disability Solutions, helping us hire over 20 talented jobseekers with disabilities at Pepsi, and another 28 at Synchrony. I will personally say Tim, his team and the countless community partners he works with have been great to work with. In his role, Tim develops and oversees multiple programs that offer opportunities to connect jobseekers with disabilities to employers. “We have a lot of events here in Arizona, an Autism job fair, two DREAM disability job fairs, a DHH job fairs along with reverse job fairs,” says Tim. “We also have a monthly networking call with employers, our staff and community partners, and ongoing workshops with staff and community partners on disability and employment issues,” Tim adds. As most know, jobseekers with disabilities struggle to find competitive employment across the county compared to those without disabilities. Tim and his team offer up some great programs for jobseekers and his advice to jobseekers is to have patience and perseverance. “It is currently a great environment for jobseekers, however, you still might have thirty plus or more applicants for each position, so it continues to be competitive. We have had a lot of success working with community partners such as our Re-Entry job fairs to establish opportunities to help the clients we have that have a disability and a legal history. I think in general, the more we work with community partners the more success we have, including working with the workforce.” Tim does a great job building that bridge between community partners and jobseekers with employers with much success. “In Arizona, Peckham is an Ability One employer and has hired hundreds of people who have a disability to provide custom service for the United States Department of State. Synchrony is doing a great job hiring people in Phoenix. Many employers are reaching out to the disability community right now to increase the hiring of people who have a disability,” says Tim.