Marc Maurer: Our Colleague, Our Leader, and My Life-Long Friend

by James Gashel

From the Editor: James Gashel is a legend in the National Federation of the Blind. He distinguished himself as the first president of the Federation’s student division, served with distinction as the chief of our Washington office, and later served as the director of strategic initiatives, a position that expanded his responsibility beyond regulations and legislation and led to his work in seeing to the details of many programs we take for granted today. In this reflection he writes about two of his dearest friends in the movement. Here is what he says:

Marc Maurer has retired, and by all appearances he means it. Having served as President and the principal leader of our movement for twenty-eight years, we knew he would not just throw his keys on the desk and leave when Mark Riccobono was elected.

In 2014 Marc Maurer retired from the job he did so well—serving as our longest elected President. His next job, which he also did superbly, was to be a teacher and mentor for his successor during a long and smooth transition. Clearly it worked, which is a tribute to both Marc and Mark.

As Marc Maurer's friend for more than fifty years, and now retired myself, I can say with confidence that his decision to retire for good is certainly good for him, but it is also good for the rest of us in the NFB too.

In case there has ever been any doubt, the transition from the third generation of NFB leaders, led by Marc Maurer, to the fourth generation, led by Mark Riccobono, is now complete. Mark Riccobono is all we could hope he would be and more as our next long-term leader. He would be the first to say that our fourth generation leaders are standing on the shoulders of the third generation. Of course that's true, but Mark Riccobono and others in the present generation are leaders in their own right. No doubt about that.

I was age twenty-three but about to be twenty-four when I first met Marc Maurer. He had just turned nineteen. It was in June of 1970. After teaching high school speech and debate in Southern Minnesota, I was starting a new job as a teacher in the adult orientation center of the Iowa Commission for the Blind in Des Moines. Marc Maurer was one of our students and was right out of high school. I had been a student at the same center six years before.

Working at the Iowa Commission for the Blind, we were driven to infuse our students with a positive and realistic philosophy of blindness. Kenneth Jernigan was our leader in teaching this philosophy. Dr. tenBroek was his mentor, but Dr. Jernigan had grown to be a leader in his own right. I know he was larger than life for blind people throughout the world, but he was still very real and very close to his students and teachers at the Center in Des Moines.

With Dr. Jernigan as our leader, we knew that teaching philosophy and not just skills was job one. Life does not begin at 8 a.m. and end at 5 p.m. Our job was twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. We told our students: "No matter what you're doing, whether you're awake or whether you're asleep, when thinking about blindness and the life you want to live, it all starts with having a thoughtful and well-grounded philosophy of blindness based on the real world experience of blind people.”

I was assigned to live in the building and work with any student on any problem no matter the hour of the day or night, both weekdays and weekends too. When I started at age twenty-three, this was an awesome responsibility but ever so important in helping to change lives from dependence to independence.

Enter Marc Maurer. When Marc was a student, I ran a men's gym class beginning at 5:30 until about 6:30 each morning Monday through Friday. All men, Marc Maurer included, were expected to attend. Aside from being the teacher, I was the alarm clock they didn't want to hear. Of course I knew that, but I still made the rounds to knock on everyone's door at 5:15 and then met them at the elevator to go down to the gym about 5:25.

More than fifty years later, I can't say I remember much about Marc's performance in the gym at these morning sessions, but I know he distinguished himself as one of the most difficult students to roust out so he could be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the gym. After all, I thought, he is only nineteen, so what else can you expect.

During the rest of the day and often working late into the evening, I remember I could always find Marc Maurer in our ground floor workshop where he seemed to like to fix things or at least tinker with them. Staff member’s cars were his favorite. Better yet if the car was a Volkswagen. Making things work was his passion. Blindness was not an issue for him, which is what we learned from Marc Maurer during the time he was our student. Since that time I have always thought that he gave more to us at the Center than we were able to give to him.

I'm not sure when Marc left the Center as a student. I suppose that's because in one sense he never left. What I do know is it wasn't very long at all until I started to think of Marc Maurer more as a colleague in the National Federation of the Blind than as a student at the Iowa Commission for the Blind.

I had been elected in July of 1967 for a two-year term as the first president of the National Federation of the Blind National Student Division. I was reelected for a second two-year term in July 1969. At that time, I was in fact still a student although not for very long. But by July 1971, when my second term was ending, I was a teacher at the Iowa Center with my student days fading in the rear-view mirror. I needed to find a replacement, and I knew I needed a good one.
Enter Marc Maurer again. Unlike me in July 1971, Marc was definitely a genuine student. And what do you know, he was planning to go to law school too. Electing Marc as my replacement would be a brilliant move because of his leadership potential but a likely bonus on top of that since we could have his time as a student leader for several years ahead. These were my thoughts when I approached Marc with the idea that he should serve as the second president of the NFB National Student Division.

When Marc and I discussed this, I had been the only president of the division, and I had served for four years in that position. I was not a student. I had to make a change. So in meeting with Marc my thought was he's perfect for the job. Promise him anything, which, according to Marc, I did. As I have heard him tell the story years later, I promised to be available at his side for any ongoing support he might need, but in his words, not mine: "I have never seen him since."

On December 28, 1973, I moved to Washington, DC, to start a new job on January 1, 1974, as chief of the NFB's Washington office. I'm not sure when it happened, but by some time around 1977, or more likely 1978, Marc and Patricia Maurer also moved to the Washington area where Marc took a job as an attorney with the Civil Aeronautics Board, known as the CAB.

CAB was a federal agency set up to regulate airline rates and routes. The CAB office was right on Connecticut Avenue, about two blocks north of Dupont Circle, and the NFB office was immediately south of the Circle at Suite 212 in the Dupont Circle Building. This was great. Marc and I could have lunch, and we did. I’m not sure what we ate for lunch, but I do remember making lots of plans which later became efforts we would make together working in the NFB.
Marc's job at the CAB ended some time after 1980 in the early days of the Reagan administration or maybe just before. That's when the CAB was closed down to deregulate the airline industry. This was good since Marc was now on his own to practice law and to do even more work on behalf of the NFB if that was possible.

With Dr. Jernigan's move from Des Moines to Baltimore in the fall of 1978, we began to realign our NFB programs and offices, culminating in opening our newly remodeled space on the fourth floor at 1800 Johnson Street in South Baltimore. This also came to be the location of our Washington office, which was also spruced up with a new name called Governmental Affairs. I was the director not the chief.

Dr. Jernigan was first elected president of the NFB in 1968. He was reelected every two years after that until 1977 and resumed serving again with the improvement of his health in 1978. He believed in planning ahead. He talked for several years about needing to find a successor. Aside from managing the day-to-day progress of our movement, he had to secure the NFB's leadership for decades to come. He needed a successor with the right combination of youth, dedication, and intellect.

Enter Marc Maurer again. He was practicing law in downtown Baltimore. He was experienced, was only in his mid-thirties, had served as president of our Indiana and Maryland state affiliates, and he was whip smart in law and business. Just as I had done in passing the gavel of the Student Division on to Marc in 1971, Dr. Jernigan had found his successor in Marc Maurer.

Marc was elected president of the NFB in 1986. Unlike my transition to Marc, Dr. Jernigan remained quite active and really was around for anything our new president might need.
Dr. Jernigan died in 1998 after a yearlong battle with cancer. Working in our national office as our director of governmental affairs, I watched with great respect as Marc Maurer gave Dr. Jernigan his full-time caring and support while continuing to manage our movement. As our President, Marc Maurer didn't miss a beat. He was clearly the leader of the third generation of our movement.

Dr. Jernigan attended our 1998 convention in Dallas. It was his last. He knew his time was ending, so, ever the planner, he started to lay a plan for our future. If you knew Dr. Jernigan, you knew he was not just a planner; he was also a builder. In the 1960s he converted the six-story abandoned YMCA building in Des Moines into a world class training and rehabilitation facility, not to mention the largest Braille and talking book library in the world. Beginning in 1978 he took the factory and warehouse building at 1800 Johnson Street in Baltimore and converted it into a first-class office, event, and program space for the NFB. By 1998 it was time to build again.

Dr. Jernigan envisioned a research and training facility—planned, built, and directed by the blind—to support the growing preeminence of the NFB's consumer power in the blindness field. Space for a new building was available on the city block we owned already. Working with architects, Dr. Jernigan thought the cost would come in at about $8 million but not more than $10 million, which we did not have at the time. This was a dream. He knew we would need something to do for the future rather than thinking about the past.

We say in the NFB that we turn dreams into reality. We shared Dr. Jernigan's dream in 1998, but we honestly had no idea how to make the dream come true. Estimates of the cost kept going up. Before the end of 1998 we learned that $12 million to complete the project would be more likely than $10. Dr. Jernigan was gone, but the dream was still alive. Dr. Maurer saw to that. Backing out was not an option.

It's hard to realize that sixteen years have gone by since we gathered to celebrate the grand opening of the building with new space for the Jernigan Institute. We didn't know if we could fulfill the dream, but with Marc Maurer urging us on, we came to believe in him. Nothing could stop us. By the time the building had opened, we had raised $12 million and at least $8 million more, which we needed. With Marc Maurer at the helm, the project was completed, and the NFB was and still is debt free.

If Marc Maurer had not been available when needed to meet the challenge of the third generation, we would have had to invent him. He was the perfect leader for the time. He led with his wisdom and words, but also with his example of patience, dedication, and determination. He had it all.

Speaking of example, let's not forget Patricia Maurer, an unsung hero of our movement. On the phone and in many other ways, she was the voice of NFB. You may not know it, but she was also a full-time volunteer, not just for a little while but for most of every day for twenty-eight years. Imagine that.

As if they didn't have enough to do, David Maurer was born in 1984 followed by Dianna born in 1986. They are grownups now, but as the Maurer children they became well-known members of our Federation family. I found it exciting to watch them grow and to admire the Maurer's parenting skills both at home and in our movement. We really felt that members of the Federation were part of the Maurer family too. Susan and I were especially proud when Marc agreed to serve as best man in our wedding in Denver on September 2, 2012.

For the time Dr. Maurer was president of the NFB, I always looked forward to hearing his annual presidential report to the convention. The content was packed with new information each year, presenting a snapshot in time of our movement. Even though the details would change from one year to the next, I could always count on being moved at the end by his call to action and his positive future focus followed by the Federation standing as one. The report he gave on July 4, 2014, was his last, but he looked to the future with joy. Please join me in recalling these final words again. This is the essence of Marc Maurer the man, my friend, and the third generation leader of NFB. Here is what he said:

As I contemplate what we have done during the past year, during the past decades, I cannot help some reflection on the time I have served in the presidency. You have offered to me the greatest honor we have—the presidency of the National Federation of the Blind. I have tried to live up to the trust that you have given. Leadership demands both judgment and generosity as well as a proper balance between the two. I have tried to lead with my mind informed by my heart, and you have given me your unwavering support.

We have accomplished much together, but there is much more yet to be done. However, I know the minds that you our members bring to this movement. I have been inspired by your toughness and the depth of joy in your hearts. I know the determination that we share, and I am certain to the innermost portion of my being that this Federation will continue to build, to flourish, and to prevail. We will keep the faith with ourselves and each other. We will carry the battle into any realm where it is needed, and nothing will stop us. We possess the energy and the drive to make our future what we want it to be. This is what I have observed in our Federation. This is what I know. This is my report for 2014.