Jan... The Fulfillment of a Dream

Jan Guillermo is an academically gifted student.  He was referred to ACCES-VR for transition services as a junior in high school from the NY School for the Deaf in White Plains. Jan is fluent in American Sign Language and was assigned to Michele P. Green as his Rehabilitation Counselor for the Deaf in 2011. Jan fell in love with programming after being sponsored at the Gates Foundation for a summer program while he was in high school.

After being accepted at the Rochester Institute for Technology in 2013, Jan was annually sponsored for tuition, room, board and books for his coursework by ACCES-VR. Jan maintained a consistently strong GPA and worked as a Student Software Engineer and Student Web Developer while on campus. Jan also enjoyed an opportunity as a Software Development Engineer Intern at Amazon in Seattle Washington. He was approved to participate in the BS/MS in Software Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Fall 2018. Jan graduated with his MS in Software Engineering in August 2019. Jan’s case was transferred to the Rochester ACCES-VR office in September 2019 as he relocated permanently to that area. Employment services got underway and as a part of his own job search, Jan secured a full-time position as a Software Engineer at Microsoft in Redmond Washington. He began work in early January 2020. Jan is very appreciative of the services received at ACCES-VR.

This story was submitted by Michele Green
Local Workforce Development and Business Relations Representative
White Plains District Office
Michele.Green@nysed.gov