Episode 3
Accessibility by Design: Baking Inclusion Into the System
Stephen Framil, Corporate Global Head of Accessibility at Merck, shares how he embedded accessibility into enterprise digital governance across more than 125 countries. From authoring a global accessibility policy to integrating controls into procurement, SDLC, and clinical trial protocols, Stephen explains how accessibility must be “baked in” rather than bolted on. Drawing from his background as a conductor, musician, and cancer survivor, he describes accessibility leadership as orchestration—guiding experts toward inclusive outcomes while normalizing accessibility across systems and culture.
Transcript
Well, hello.
Speaker:I'm Joe Walensky, and here to bring you another episode of Talking with
Speaker:Accessibility Practitioners.
Speaker:Today I am pleased to be visiting with
Speaker:Steve Fremill. Hello, Steve, how are you today?
Speaker:Hi, Joe.
Speaker:Uh, so far so good. You know, it's, uh, it's about 11 o'clock here Eastern time,
Speaker:where I'm at, uh, in a suburb outside of Philadelphia in my home office.
Speaker:And, uh,
Speaker:so far we're doing well today. Thank you. How about yourself?
Speaker:Well, I am speaking, uh,
Speaker:from my home office, which is in Bellingham, Washington, about, uh,
Speaker:80 miles north of Seattle.
Speaker:And there's a slight break from the, the, uh, river of, uh,
Speaker:water we've had over the past week,
Speaker:but I'm tucked away inside, so it-it's good to be, uh,
Speaker:here chatting with you.
Speaker:Uh, thanks again for, uh, offering to participate.
Speaker:Uh, looking forward to learning more about you.
Speaker:And so maybe a good place to start is if you could just tell us a little bit about your work.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and thank you for the invitation to, to share today.
Speaker:And just for a, uh,
Speaker:a quick visual description for folks, um,
Speaker:I'm today I'm wearing a, uh, sort of an aqua-colored blazer with a black T-shirt.
Speaker:Um, I have mostly black hair,
Speaker:and I'm of, um,
Speaker:Pacific Islander and, uh, Caucasian descent.
Speaker:So, um, yes, Steve Fremill, uh, the Corporate Global Head of Accessibility at Merck.
Speaker:And also, for the past two years, I have, uh,
Speaker:been a co-lead of
Speaker:the Internally Facing, uh,
Speaker:Global Disability Inclusion Strategy Council, um,
Speaker:at Merck.
Speaker:And the role of that council, really,
Speaker:for the workforce
Speaker:was to advance a disability-confident workforce.
Speaker:So that has been my work, um, uh,
Speaker:the Global Disability Inclusion Strategy Council
Speaker:for the past couple of years,
Speaker:along with my role as the Corporate Global Head of Accessibility at Merck, um,
Speaker:uh, really for the past three years.
Speaker:But that work really sort of, um, matured into the what it is today,
Speaker:really starting back as far as seven years ago.
Speaker:And, um,
Speaker:that really started with the
Speaker:concept and the framework, uh,
Speaker:within Merck of enterprise digital governance.
Speaker:What we were finding in our nearly 30,000 websites, what the there was a lot of, um,
Speaker:uh, lack of, uh,
Speaker:governance or control or accountability with our websites.
Speaker:Very often the business would stand up a,
Speaker:a website for a product and then just sort of walk away.
Speaker:And, uh, when things had evolved through the product lifecycle, then, you know,
Speaker:we would have a, uh,
Speaker:a website out there that just was outdated
Speaker:or causing a cybersecurity risk
Speaker:or causing some sort of pharmacovigilance, drug safety risk as well.
Speaker:And so what the organization needed globally
Speaker:was a framework for managing,
Speaker:uh, digital governance, uh, particularly with the externally facing digital assets.
Speaker:And so, uh,
Speaker:that includes things that are around compliance, such as, I had mentioned, cybersecurity,
Speaker:such as pharmacovigilance, drug safety, as well as accessibility, um,
Speaker:as accessibility is, uh, in,
Speaker:in my view, increasingly becoming a regulatory matter, especially with, uh,
Speaker:the laws that are in some countries or regions, uh,
Speaker:whether it be Canada,
Speaker:whether it be Israel or Japan or Brazil,
Speaker:and of course the European Accessibility Act most recently for all 27 member states of
Speaker:the EU.
Speaker:Um, but, uh, also that enterprise digital governance concept was around optimization.
Speaker:So are we using the corporate branding as we should?
Speaker:Uh, should the design of sites, uh,
Speaker:be following some sort of, uh,
Speaker:design system, as it were?
Speaker:And so, uh, this enterprise digital governance, really, accessibility was a piece of that.
Speaker:And because, as I mentioned,
Speaker:accessibility is
Speaker:increasingly a regulatory matter,
Speaker:it was something that needed to be carved out and really stood up on its own.
Speaker:And back in 2020, uh,
Speaker:there was consensus company-wide that we needed a company-wide policy for accessibility.
Speaker:Uh, you know, we have our, our top-line corporate policies,
Speaker:and we positioned our digital accessibility policyright underneath our,
Speaker:uh, policy for human resources,
Speaker:really wanting to ensure that everyone, not just our workforce,
Speaker:but patients and consumers as well, had equal access to our digital content.
Speaker:And this policy, which I authored, uh,
Speaker:was, uh, company-wide.
Speaker:Uh, it applied to all divisions, all countries, all business units, um,
Speaker:and so on, both externally facing digital assets as well as internally
Speaker:facing assets.
Speaker:And so that really, uh,
Speaker:creating that policy, getting it approved by our Policy Governance Committee, which is, um,
Speaker:you know, is a whole uh,
Speaker:takes quite a bit of time, um,
Speaker:to convince a very large global multinational organization that they need another policy. Um,
Speaker:but they, uh, accepted it.
Speaker:And, uh, and we published that policy on April 1,
Speaker:no fooling, of 2021,
Speaker:and since then have been rolling it out strategically,
Speaker:uh, based off of di different digital channels,
Speaker:but more importantly,
Speaker:really inserting it into the
Speaker:processes and the, um, uh, the,
Speaker:the systems that we're used within the company
Speaker:so that you what you really have is something
Speaker:accessibility by design, so that, uh, when people are building digital assets, uh,
Speaker:the digital SDLC, Systems Development Lifecycle,
Speaker:they get flagged for specific accessibility activities
Speaker:while they're planning or creating, designing, coding, building,
Speaker:and so forth throughout the lifecycle. And I think that's really important.
Speaker:Um, so there's a few areas. I mentioned the digital SDLC.
Speaker:We got that accessibility controls into there.
Speaker:Uh, we also got it into our procurement language, uh,
Speaker:where, uh, our, um, vendors and our suppliers, uh,
Speaker:for any digital products or services would,
Speaker:uh, need to deliver on accessibility standards according to the latest version of, uh, WCAG,
Speaker:Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. So, uh, that's another measure in which we did this.
Speaker:Also, getting it into our governance, risk, and compliance.
Speaker:So anytime there was a need for an exception made,
Speaker:at least our leadership would know and be able to
Speaker:accept the risk if we were not
Speaker:going to make a particular asset,
Speaker:um, accessible, at least at that point in time. So really building it in.
Speaker:And some of the things that we recently have, um,
Speaker:started is getting accessibility controls into the,
Speaker:uh,
Speaker:protocols of our clinical trial studies.
Speaker:And so what are those digital touchpoints that happen within a clinical trial
Speaker:and ensuring that any supplier supporting the clinical trial
Speaker:ensures accessibility, whether it be through, uh, recruitment, uh, of, uh, patients? Because,
Speaker:of course, patients, as you know,
Speaker:they have frailties, they have comorbidities, and they have disabilities. And so absolutely.
Speaker:Um, and, uh, you know, often, uh,
Speaker:therapies for different,
Speaker:uh, uh,
Speaker:disease states cause disabilities.
Speaker:Chemotherapy causes disabilities with neuropathy and things of that nature.
Speaker:So, um, certain disease stages such as diabetes have,
Speaker:uh,
Speaker:retinopathy or also neuropathy. And so this is where it really makes a lot of sense when you're,
Speaker:um, testing new drugs in phase three,
Speaker:where you're really designing those studies so that patients who are going to have disabilities, um,
Speaker:that your digital, uh,
Speaker:touchpoints are accessible. So really baking it in, uh, to the process, the systems,
Speaker:the templates, uh, you know,
Speaker:depending on what, uh, content management system, uh, you're using,
Speaker:making sure that those guardrails are there
Speaker:so that the business doesn't have to
Speaker:go back and fix it or
Speaker:have to suddenly become an accessibility expert.
Speaker:You know, not everyone can, you know, be an expert on all these things, um, accessibility, pharmacovigilance,
Speaker:cybersecurity, you know, branding, all that.
Speaker:You have to put these, um, uh, these controls in place so that they get done and,
Speaker:uh, uh, you know, that there's, there's accountability along the way.
Speaker:And so that's really the,
Speaker:uh, what we've been doing at Merck over the last, uh, you know, six,
Speaker:seven years is really baking it into our ways of working, uh,
Speaker:so that the business, who always wants to doright by the company, uh,
Speaker:and by the patient and the consumer, uh,
Speaker:doesn't, um, have to, uh, uh,
Speaker:go back and fix things
Speaker:or have to, uh,
Speaker:suddenly become an expert in this particular aspect of, uh, the work that they're doing. So,
Speaker:uh, so yes, that's, that's my current role.
Speaker:That's what it's been for the last, uh, few years
Speaker:and really, uh, continuing to, um, to, you know, to lead that forward. So.
Speaker:Well, yeah, thanks for providing such a,
Speaker:a detailed, uh, uh,
Speaker:uh, look at all of what, what it sounds like a very robust and progressive, uh, set of, uh,
Speaker:accessibility-related activities.
Speaker:Uh, you I, I think it was, you know, it was interesting to hear you talk so much about the,
Speaker:the governance and policy areas.
Speaker:You mentioned that a, you know,
Speaker:a very large organization like that doesn't necessarily need another policy,
Speaker:but yet you've,
Speaker:you've established something very significant.
Speaker:And, and I, I it in most of our mainstream conversations, uh,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:online and with colleagues about accessibility,
Speaker:I would say that at least in my world, most of it surrounds the, uh,
Speaker:the bits and bytes, uh,
Speaker:of actually executing accessibility. Uh, and, and governance is such a huge part of it.
Speaker:But I, uh, I don't think we, uh, you know, we talk about it, uh, as much.
Speaker:Maybe it, it, it, it's not quite, uh,
Speaker:as interesting to talk about. But, but just on that particular, um, area, uh, you know,
Speaker:what was the, you know, the beginnings of that? Or were you involved with that?
Speaker:Or has it been that way for a long time where there's actually this,
Speaker:uh, uh, significant, uh,
Speaker:uh, internal representation in, in policies within the organization? Right.
Speaker:Well, uh, at Merck, you know, one of the, uh, the slogans is,
Speaker:"Patients are our purpose." And so, uh, for all the reasons I had mentioned around, uh, patients,
Speaker:uh, uh,
Speaker:often having disabilities, this really resonated, you know, with the, uh, the values,
Speaker:the values of the company.
Speaker:And so but, you know, I,
Speaker:um, you know, having, uh,
Speaker:written the policy and, and really, uh, you know, moving it forward company-wide,
Speaker:I often, um, you know,
Speaker:had to reflect personally, like,
Speaker:how did this happen?
Speaker:Because it was not a matter of, uh, uh, uh,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:something that I was looking to do.
Speaker:Something I'm probably a little bit of imposter syndrome when it's like, how, how, how did,
Speaker:how did I arrive here?
Speaker:Because, you know, I am not a marketeer.
Speaker:I'm not a designer.
Speaker:I'm not a scientist.
Speaker:I'm not a physician. I'm not a lot of things.
Speaker:But, uh, you know, one of the things I'm,
Speaker:I am is I'm all I am also a patient.
Speaker:You know, I'm now a, uh, a two-year cancer survivor and having gone through
Speaker:the types of, uh, disabilities that come with therapies.
Speaker:And so, um, you know, so far, so good.
Speaker:But this is where, uh, it, uh, it, it really, uh, you know, started to resonate with me.
Speaker:But then I mentioned, like, all the things that I'm not, uh, professionally.
Speaker:In fact, uh, uh,
Speaker:my, uh,
Speaker:my formal training and is all in music.
Speaker:I have a doctorate in music, in cello performance.
Speaker:And I have, you know, taught in, in higher ed for 30 years, uh,
Speaker:both cello and chamber music and conducted orchestra.
Speaker:And so I have had a very, uh, you know,
Speaker:uh and I continue to do that, um, with, uh, uh,
Speaker:various, uh, performing arts organizations that I've created over the last 20 years. And,
Speaker:uh, when I think about that, like, well, how did I arrive here?
Speaker:And what I,
Speaker:you know, in retrospect observe is that there's always been this thread of accessibility, um,
Speaker:in what I've done throughout life.
Speaker:I can recall as a, um, as a teenager, uh,
Speaker:going on high school mission trips to, uh,
Speaker:build greenhouses
Speaker:in New Mexico, uh,
Speaker:for, um, uh,
Speaker:for, uh, Indigenous Native American, um, lands,
Speaker:really trying to ensure that there was good,
Speaker:uh, uh,
Speaker:good food
Speaker:accessible in these, uh, very dry environments.
Speaker:And I think I go back to building schools in the Dominican Republic, um, as, as part of,
Speaker:you know, really creating, um, access to education.
Speaker:But what really struck me was that in the early 2000s,
Speaker:uh, I was in a, uh, an opportunity in,
Speaker:uh, the inner city, West Philadelphia.
Speaker:Uh, and I created an inner city conservatory where we provided
Speaker:free music lessons to the at-risk youth in the neighborhood,
Speaker:making great music accessible to everyone.
Speaker:And even today, I'll get stopped by parents whose kids were, um, in the program.
Speaker:I'll get stopped in the train station. And I say, "Hey, you know, that was really great.
Speaker:It really helped my kid," and so forth.
Speaker:And that, of course, is, is really wonderful to hear.
Speaker:But the I also mentioned the performing arts organizations, uh,
Speaker:Camerata Philadelphia and the Port City Music Festival in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Speaker:And for the last 20 years, all of our concerts have been free admission, uh, to the public,
Speaker:really making music accessible to everyone,
Speaker:breaking down those barriers that can so often, uh,
Speaker:limit, uh, people's, uh, ability to experience things.
Speaker:And so that has and so when I arrived at Merck and,
Speaker:you know, we had, uh, the need for, uh,
Speaker:this policy around accessibility and really what that meant to breaking down barriers
Speaker:and providing equal access to our digital content,
Speaker:it really kind of was just, uh, uh,
Speaker:the next step in my journey,
Speaker:lifelong journey of making things accessible.
Speaker:So, uh, I know, uh,
Speaker:you know, everyone's, you know,
Speaker:journey through life takes a lot of twists and turns and things like that.
Speaker:But that's something that, um, is,
Speaker:is really it, uh,
Speaker:has followed me in various ways, in various ways, uh, for the last, uh, 20, 30, 40, 50 years.
Speaker:Well, as you, uh,
Speaker:moved from this, uh, uh,
Speaker:sort of, uh, natural, uh, work, uh, natural life experience of, uh,
Speaker:doing accessibility activities in communities, um,
Speaker:and you,
Speaker:you moved into doing things more formally,
Speaker:uh, in your, in your current position, um, what,
Speaker:what types of things did you need to do, uh, or did you feel you need to do to, you know,
Speaker:just build your own knowledge of accessibility as a,
Speaker:a professional practice?
Speaker:As, as a professional practice. So, uh, you know, I mentioned that I'm,
Speaker:I was I think I also mentioned I was not an engineer.
Speaker:Um, so when it comes to designing and coding, uh,
Speaker:that's not something that, uh, I,
Speaker:you know, would necessarily do unless I, you know,
Speaker:took on, you know, those, those types of professions and, and studied up on it.
Speaker:So I knew that there was always
Speaker:folks who were could do that. My wife is a UX designer.
Speaker:And so, um,
Speaker:and really, as you know, accessibility is just part of UX design.
Speaker:It's one of those, uh, principles that, um,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:it makes a good user experience.
Speaker:Um, and of course, you know, the, the, the coding with that as well.
Speaker:So I knew that there really wasn't anything, um,
Speaker:that was covered. That space was filled.
Speaker:You know, we had people who were designing, you know, using, uh,
Speaker:WCAG standards and, and, and developing.
Speaker:And that's why we inserted it into our procurement so that
Speaker:our suppliers were delivering on that.
Speaker:But what we found, what I found was really needed in a large
Speaker:global company was the,
Speaker:uh,
Speaker:orchestration of how we're going to be
Speaker:progressing this policy forward.
Speaker:Uh, when you have over 125 countries that you're
Speaker:working with and you have
Speaker:an accessibility steward network
Speaker:globally of over 70 people, and you're really getting them all on the same page,
Speaker:the same time, and here are the requirements year over year that we're going to try to
Speaker:advance accessibility for
Speaker:different digital channels,
Speaker:that takes a little bit of, um, orchestration,
Speaker:conducting.
Speaker:And of course, you I mentioned that I have also done a lot of orchestral conducting.
Speaker:And I make the comparisons, like,
Speaker:I don't play the oboe,
Speaker:but I can tell the oboe player
Speaker:when to start, when to stop, how loud to play, how soft to play,
Speaker:and really
Speaker:communicate the, the artistic expression.
Speaker:But I'm not I, you know so that's really providing that sort of, um,
Speaker:that sort of guidance
Speaker:with the experts that you're working with.
Speaker:You know, you have
Speaker:to have a great respect for
Speaker:the oboe player and the bassoon player
Speaker:and the clarinet player, maybe not the flute player. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker:Um, but everyone,
Speaker:all the professionals who know their craft but be able to provide them that sort of, uh,
Speaker:that strategy, how you're, uh,
Speaker:going to move things forward, giving them the,
Speaker:uh, the, the time to be able to, uh, take on, uh,
Speaker:new digital channels that they were going to start to make accessible.
Speaker:You know, I'm we were working on websites, uh,
Speaker:first with automated testing. And this says, "Okay, the next year,
Speaker:we're going to start doing manual testing. You have to do things incrementally.
Speaker:We're going to start adding mobile apps.
Speaker:We're going to start adding PDFs, um, make sure that all your videos have captioning."
Speaker:And so all these things, when you have a global company, um,
Speaker:and over 2,000 websites, uh,
Speaker:and, and so forth, you have to incrementally roll this out so that
Speaker:it can get done, um,
Speaker:and not be overwhelming to the business because then they'll just throw their hands up.
Speaker:So it's really, uh, leading the strategy of implementation globally.
Speaker:And that really I pull and I draw from
Speaker:my experience as an orchestral conductor
Speaker:and also providing that support
Speaker:as a cellist in
Speaker:chamber music, string quartets,
Speaker:you know, letting the,
Speaker:the violins be the star of the show, but really being that foundation, um,
Speaker:to be able to, uh, to, to support them.
Speaker:And so I really pull heavily from, um, my,
Speaker:my, uh, experience as a as a cellist and a conductor and chamber musician,
Speaker:as well as teaching. I mentioned I teach for over 30 years.
Speaker:And so there's a lot of when you're training, when you're working with stakeholders, uh,
Speaker:introducing the concept of accessibility. I've been doing this for a while at Merck.
Speaker:And honestly,
Speaker:there's always a new group who have never heard of this, never heard of it.
Speaker:And of course, they ask, "Why haven't we heard of this before?" Um,
Speaker:so it's, uh,
Speaker:there's plenty of opportunity to communicate,
Speaker:to train, and, and to point them in theright direction.
Speaker:So and of course, working with your, your designers, your engineers, your developers, testers,
Speaker:uh, on, um, making sure that they have, uh,
Speaker:what they need to be able to deliver on accessibility as well.
Speaker:Well, uh, your orchestral communication analogy is, is such a grand way of,
Speaker:of thinking about your, your work.
Speaker:And so I think I'm going to internalize that a little bit because, uh,
Speaker:it's kind of a great.
Speaker:It's kind of a joyful way of thinking about the work that we do.
Speaker:Well, the thing is also,
Speaker:what's a successful
Speaker:in these days, maybe not, you know,
Speaker:100 years ago, um, is that, uh, when you're, you know,
Speaker:conducting an orchestra,
Speaker:it's really having that
Speaker:utmost respect for the professionals that you're working with.
Speaker:And I think it's the same way when it comes to
Speaker:running accessibility in a global company, really,
Speaker:uh, working with your designers and your developers and,
Speaker:and respecting their expertise, their craft, and really together, um, uh,
Speaker:progressing that forward. And I think that that's what's key.
Speaker:The reason why I said, uh, the last 100 years when it comes to conducting,
Speaker:because very often the maestro would just be,
Speaker:you know, not the nicest person.
Speaker:And that was the culture, the orchestral culture, you know,
Speaker:in previous times.
Speaker:But these days, it's different.
Speaker:And I think that's something that
Speaker:the business world honestly can really
Speaker:learn a lot from.
Speaker:Well, you've provided
Speaker:an excellent overview of your work and how you've found your way into that.
Speaker:I always like to kind of finish things up with a little bit of an open-ended question.
Speaker:You could kind of pick what you wanted to, uh, reply to.
Speaker:But, you know, one area is just that, uh,
Speaker:you know, having been in the accessibility profession for a long time,
Speaker:I've seen a lot of cycles.
Speaker:I've seen things that where I've thought we were making a huge amount of progress.
Speaker:At other times,
Speaker:I'm mystified by how little progress it seems, uh, things have been, uh, how,
Speaker:how little progress we've made maybe as a profession.
Speaker:Uh, so I was wondering if you have any, uh, thoughts on that.
Speaker:How does it feel for you in your tenure in terms of, uh, kind of the highs and lows? Right.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:I think when you
Speaker:when we talk about accessibility,
Speaker:whether it's the digital environment or the built environment,
Speaker:it's very much
Speaker:hand in hand with
Speaker:disability inclusion.
Speaker:And for the disability community, it's really, you know,
Speaker:breaking down those barriers so that they can fully
Speaker:experience life.
Speaker:And so I think what I,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:there's plenty of folks to fix your website
Speaker:or design it in such a way.
Speaker:But of course,
Speaker:we know that accessibility is only a moment in time
Speaker:because as soon as you change the content, it can, you know,
Speaker:perhaps break accessibility.
Speaker:So it's, it's a could be like a little bit like playing whack-a-mole to try to, you know,
Speaker:fix everything because it's, it's someone's going to come along, put in some new content,
Speaker:and it's going to break it.
Speaker:So I think and this kind of leans into what I mentioned about,
Speaker:you know, building into your processes.
Speaker:And so this notion of accessibility by design,
Speaker:how can we normalize
Speaker:accessibility so that it is part of everything that we do?
Speaker:Remember back in the day when responsive design was new
Speaker:and it was something that the business had to really think hard.
Speaker:Is this what we're going to invest in?
Speaker:You have to make a decision for different viewport sizes.
Speaker:Well, today, we don't even think about that,right?
Speaker:And so I think this is something where we would,
Speaker:we want to be there. We want to normalize accessibility.
Speaker:And so as I continue this work
Speaker:and also, you know, you know, starting,
Speaker:starting something new
Speaker:with a,
Speaker:a consulting company, AI1Y,
Speaker:that's new.
Speaker:It's and really
Speaker:with the idea of normalizing accessibility and getting it into
Speaker:a company's processes,
Speaker:their policies,
Speaker:their systems so that it becomes normalized
Speaker:and so that it is something that
Speaker:is you don't necessarily have to fight for all the time.
Speaker:And so I think that's perhaps why
Speaker:there may be ebbs and flows and ups and downs
Speaker:for accessibility professionals.
Speaker:It's because perhaps we're just
Speaker:going after the digital assets and trying to fix them
Speaker:when we need to normalize the whole way of working so that it's part of what we do.
Speaker:And so that's what I think, you know, I'll be continuing to focus on,
Speaker:particularly with a new consulting firm, AI1Y, and,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:going forward in the future here.
Speaker:Well, that's a very great,
Speaker:excellent way to think about
Speaker:the kind of the evolution of
Speaker:where things have been going.
Speaker:In just in wrapping up,
Speaker:I always like to ask if there are just any final things you'd like to talk about
Speaker:that you're excited or passionate about, either personal life,
Speaker:professional life,
Speaker:things related to accessibility, things not related to accessibility.
Speaker:Are there what's
Speaker:getting you going as we move into the new year? Right.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:one of the things that I started doing,
Speaker:I think as I
Speaker:was approaching the half-century mark
Speaker:a few years back,
Speaker:was getting into
Speaker:endurance sports with marathons,
Speaker:half marathons,
Speaker:and also triathlons
Speaker:and Ironman races.
Speaker:I'm a three-time Ironman.
Speaker:And, you know, back in 2022, had cancer in 2023, came back in 2024,
Speaker:and then again in 2025. So that's something that I really enjoy doing.
Speaker:And I often going back to what I mentioned about a little bit of imposter syndrome,
Speaker:especially working with the disability community
Speaker:and everything.
Speaker:And I think it's important that if it's something that we can do
Speaker:in life,
Speaker:we should definitely do it because we can. And so I often ask myself, "Why do I run?
Speaker:Why do I swim?
Speaker:Why do I cycle?"
Speaker:Because I can.
Speaker:I may not be able to do this forever,
Speaker:most likely.
Speaker:And I think for everyone,
Speaker:this is important to really embrace life.
Speaker:And if it's something that you enjoy doing and you can do it, do it because things,
Speaker:as we know,
Speaker:can always change
Speaker:in an instant. So yes.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:thanks for sharing so much, you know,
Speaker:about your health challenges and the
Speaker:many details associated with
Speaker:your work.
Speaker:It's been great hearing about your journey and how accessibility fits into what
Speaker:you do.
Speaker:So, you know, thank you very much for participating in this. Absolutely.
Speaker:And thank you, Joe, for the invitation.
Speaker:So very much enjoyed our time.
Speaker:Have a great year, Steve. Thank you. You too.
