This Sacramento business is committed to hiring workers with disabilities. Here’s why | Opinion

Every employer aches for great employees. Here’s an overlooked talent pool for the workforce. I’d like to encourage Sacramento area employers struggling to fill front-line roles to join me in resolving to tap into a proven — if underutilized — labor source: People with disabilities.

I know from personal experience that individuals with disabilities right here in Sacramento make exceptional employees. How? I’m one of them.

I began losing my eyesight in the third grade. But I didn’t lose my ability to have a vision.

As my sight deteriorated, I learned to memorize my routes around campus so I could stay in school. I did the same at my first job working in the kitchen at a cafe in Elk Grove.

I realized that my only issue was that I couldn’t see. There was so much more that I could do and so much that I wanted to do. I just needed someone to give me a chance.

When the cafe closed, I didn’t know if I could get another job because of my disability. My older brother worked at a company called RL Liquidators. They buy overstocked merchandise from big box retailers and resell it online through auctions. They had an opening in the warehouse, and I got the job.

I worked on a team that opened boxes, took photos of the products, repackaged the products and put them on a shelf.

Ryan Babineau, a co-founder of the company, began to spend more time with me and teach me about the business, about leadership and about his vision for the company.

“If I keep you in this position, I would be doing you a disservice,” Babineau told me.

I started to use technology to work around my eyesight issues. With magnification now built into Apple products, I can learn and use most business software platforms.

When RL Liquidators was ready to open a second warehouse in Modesto, Ryan asked me if I wanted to run it.

I opened that warehouse. I hired and trained the team. And then I opened the next one, and the next one and the next one.

“You’re creating your own career path,” Babineau told me.

He helped me see (and I use that word intentionally) that everything was possible for me. And we ultimately started our own brick and mortar retail business, Falling Prices.

Having poor eyesight has helped me in business. Like I did in grade school and my first job at the café, I trained myself to identify and remove obstacles to success — whether it’s a process in a warehouse or a retail display.

Now, I’m excited to expand our founders’ vision. We’re partnering with PRIDE Industries to bring workers with disabilities into our warehouses. We started with two teams in Sacramento, and the program has been growing since then. Our productivity has increased in each location where we’ve launched it.

Just because someone has a disability doesn’t mean they can’t be great employees. Often, the opposite is true: our disabilities force us to access additional skills that make us successful. It just takes vision.

This story was originally published March 21, 2025 at 5:00 AM.