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Bruce McMahan and Yvette Marrin

Bruce McMahan is Chairman of the National Cristina Foundation and the CEO of McMahan Securities and the Argent Funds Group

Yvette Marrin is the President of the National Cristina Foundation

YM: It’s hard to believe that it is now more than twenty years since we started to work together to build the National Cristina Foundation.

BM: Thinking back on it, and reflecting on the motivations of the real need for such an organization, it was pretty obvious. The needs of children with disabilities, which is where we started with this thing, their needs have been visible to everybody for centuries. There was no revelation in that. The initial revelation I think was in your perception that computers could make a difference to these children especially during the point in time in the early 80’s, when they had just come out with the Apple IIe. That was the first real personal computer and people were openly doubtful as to why anybody would conceivably ever need a personal computer in their house. And there are some very famous people that will be remembered for those kinds of remarks. I think Thomas Watson actually, who was the president of IBM was one of them, which is why IBM was very slow to get into the PC business.
The connection that children with disabilities and even those with measurable mental deficits, could somehow benefit from the use of a computer when able bodied people were openly doubtful about the usefulness of computers, was truly, I think, a historic insight into the beginnings of what became the NCF process. So I think it really starts there.
The beginnings of National Cristina Foundation, at least between you and me, started with the class picnic where you were trying to do some fundraising among the parents to come up with the money to actually buy a computer to test all this out.

YM: Yes, your daughter Cristina who has cerebral palsy was in my special education class in the Yonkers Public Schools in Westchester County, NY. Most of us take for granted that children enjoy drawing and messing around with words in their various scribbling and writings. These young people had to ask for help for so many things that other children just take for granted they could do. Adults had to be their scribes, and generally, because of their multiple disabilities, (cerebral palsy, spina bifida, loss of limbs, learning disabilities, to name a few) the children constantly had to ask for help. And you are right, I was determined to get a computer to see how it could make a difference in their lives.

BM: I think you needed $2500. The picnic raised about $100. So I contributed the balance and then additional money which you put into a special fund to be able to acquire software and what you needed to try to flush out whether or not this kind of an idea had any value at all.

YM: Your gift made it possible for me to experiment with special switches and various input devices and to acquire a range of software to assess the possibilities, and to contact researchers at certain universities, hospitals and rehabilitation centers in other parts of the United States who were looking at how computers might support the needs of people with disabilities. We all shared the idea that we must explore this emerging tool more closely. This technology tool (even the Apple 2e with its 64K of RAM) could serve as a prosthesis in ways that could only be imagined-- but for all of us clearly needed to be tested and applied with the people who could benefit from what we learned.

BM: It did make such a tremendous difference to everybody that was involved, not only for Cristina, but all the other kids. And I can remember clearly the meetings with the parents who were openly amazed at the change in their children because of the presence of the computer.

YM: The arrival of that computer represented a true independence day. One of the young people in the class later asked a question that always resonated and still resonates with me (at age 11 she had clearly thought deeply about this) when she asked a very basic question. “What is to become of me that I am handicapped?” That computer showed her and the other children that they could move closer to being on an equal playing field with the rest of the young people in the school to accomplish their school work.
The computer had such an impact that children from other special education classes in the building began to stream through the class regularly to get a chance to try it. We clearly needed more computers. Because there were few computers in regular education classrooms in the school district at the time, the school district was not ready to accept an additional gift of ten computers that you generously wanted to provide for special education classrooms.

BM: I realized right away that you simply could not go around buying computers and giving them to people and expect them to get used in the proper way.

YM: But fortunately you had an interesting idea that we discussed at length and ultimately became our engine of opportunity and an important innovative solution.

BM: I had put a million dollars into a facility in Chicago in 1981 into what was then state of the art equipment, a Hewlett Packard mainframe. And the prices were ridiculous; I remember paying $12,000 for a one megabyte upgrade for memory and this wasn’t Ram memory that we’re talking about. This was just general memory, CPU memory. It was incredibly expensive. Then PC’s began to come along and by 1983 nobody wanted to use this facility anymore. Well I closed that facility down and for that million dollars or so we’d put into it we sold the whole lot, everything for $40,000. That was 4 cents on the dollar. And it was out of the freshness of that experience in my mind that I began to realize that the source of equipment we needed was what we then referred to as obsolescent computers. All computers, mainframes or PCs, when they became obsolete in their first place of use would then have a brand new theory of use, which we would call giving them a second life.

We had evidence in hand by that point that PCs had the ability to change the lives of children in a way that few had anticipated.

We were faced with a basic conundrum and that was clearly the chicken and the egg because you cannot go out and prove to people that computers are going to change learning and behavior of anyone, children with disabilities or anybody else, unless you have the computers to demonstrate that this was possible.

YM: Some of the responses we got when we talked to people about previously used technology were quite offensive, “It’s always the same, second hand equipment for second hand people.”

BM: This was not only offensive but it lacked vision to an incredible extent, but these were the kinds of biases at the time.

YM: So in early 1985 after I finished my Ph.D. in Organizational and Administrative studies at New York University, I accepted your offer to leave the Yonkers Public Schools and become the President and co-founder of a new organization. I rejoiced at the opportunity to work with you to create a foundation that would pave a new direction for technology coming out of its first place of service on a national scale that could provide some important options for people with special needs. We knew this was going to be a truly pioneering effort. There was no turning back. We had to see what was possible and get it to work.
How do you create a national donation channel for previously used computer and related technology that people were throwing away? We certainly would now begin to find out.

My first task was to select locations where my research colleagues at the universities, hospitals and rehabilitation centers that I had interacted with when I experimented with solutions on that initial classroom computer would now expand their cooperation. They were asked to test out the feasibility of previously used technology in their research and training agendas. As pathfinders they would share with us and each other what they were learning about the capacities of the equipment and its usefulness to their projects and work The sites included such organizations as Johns Hopkins University School of Continuing Education, St. Agnes Children’s Rehabilitation Center, George Mason University’s and Peabody/Vanderbilt University’s Departments of Special Education.

Very first donated computer

To start with we knew we would have to buy some used computers as well. And, we got some donations from people who heard about what we were trying to do, the very first one, a TRS80, with 16k of Ram, which we did give a second life. One like it sits in our office hallway display cabinet (with the original donated TRS80 manuals which we had saved).

BM: As you know, we began buying Apple IIe’s and two pluses and after about six months we had a total of several hundred computers deployed. Keeping track administratively of the various solutions developed by the now sixteen organizations we were working with was our next challenge.

YM: People do not realize how important the Internet is for making information easily available. That was not available to us until the mid 1990s. So there were two things we had to do back in 1986. The first was to introduce the conceptual ideas that became the NCF process as we referred to it then and now and secondly to find a test base for applying the concepts. And, we had to construct the internal management infrastructure we needed to devise to enable the effective and efficient distribution of donated computer technology across a broader geographic area.

BM: Out of all of that came the concept of something called virtual inventory, which was a pretty innovative thing in 1984 and 1985 because there was no virtuality anywhere. You didn’t have an Internet to go virtual on. There was no virtuality anywhere and yet you’ll find in the earliest versions of our written material the concept that we put the name virtual inventory to. Virtual inventory became the backbone of the mechanical version of how computers that are going into their second phase of usefulness and from their first place of use were actually physically handled. The way that they were handled was that we simply adopted the view that the place of inventory was wherever they were in the first place of use.

YM: And once it was donated to us it became part of the technology we distributed. The numbers today of what is in our inventory keep growing as the roll over cycle for changing over to the next new models becomes shorter as people and companies retire their used equipment, much of it locally placed from the regions in which it is donated.

BM: This was not the normal conceptualization where you would have to lift that computer, transport it to a central distribution center someplace, i.e. a warehouse, or some other facility and then handle it yet again and transship it to the ultimate user. The use of virtual technology and the positioning of computers close to their places of ultimate use was something that really did not come into use until I would say 1987 or 1988 and it was long after we had gone out and decided that the infrastructure we needed was to work within existing organizations the bigger the better.

YM: So I got up at a board meeting and said, let’s work closely with a state and I have researched the one I have in mind. The state of Maryland had 24 counties and 24 school districts. It was structurally organized in a way that would help us with our research requirements, and they needed computers. One of the first places we had selected to experiment with initially was the Maryland Rehabilitation Center. One of ten comprehensive rehabilitation centers in the United States, it was the only one that used technology as part of its treatment program. It was an impressive place.

BM: So we got together one rainy night in January, 1986 and drove down to a meeting that had been arranged in Baltimore with the heads of key facilities, the Dean of Johns Hopkins School of Continuing Education, the Assistant Superintendent of Special Education for Maryland State Department of Education, the Head of the Department of Rehabilitation, the State Superintendent for the Maryland State Department of Education, David Hornbeck, and a representative from the Governor’s office. We proposed that we would begin supplying them with computers and my initial offer was 2500 computers that I would buy for the State of Maryland.

YM: But they had to develop a state plan and it was determined that I would work directly with key individuals through the Department of Special Education to create the plan.

BM: We got an agreement from all of them, hands raised in the air that there would be no turf battles and that they would all cooperate with this program and we were a little surprised at the unanimity of their response. But the State of Maryland itself was also faced with a conundrum of wanting to go after federal grant money for computers but they did not have enough computers to prove that the computers actually aided education and they would be doing the very kinds of evaluations and research then that not only would satisfy National Cristina Foundation but would satisfy the federal government. So that was the beginning of a major, major change in how NCF and the NCF process began to be applied.

YM: That’s right. Instead of contacting organizations one at a time, we would deal with an entity with broader jurisdictions, in this case the Maryland State Department of Education through all 24 of their school districts. Ultimately all 24 school districts participated in the pilot plan.

I recall people in Maryland asking me whether I lived there because I came down regularly to work on the state plan, which took us eight months to write. It involved a number of key projects, statewide user groups, and an evaluation plan. I still love Maryland and continue to find new ways to work with them. It has, and continues to be, an ongoing partnership.

It was our work with the state of Maryland that helped me test out the structural elements of the NCF Re-use Model which is an actual systems model which we validated later with a number of non profit organizations and public agencies around the country through a grant from the Department of Commerce in 1995. As far as I know this is the only validated systems model for computer technology reuse.

BM: And of course, by this time now we’re three or four or five years into the process and the idea is beginning to seem not so far fetched that people with all kinds of challenges can benefit from the use of computers.

YM: We sure were not afraid to experiment. In the early days we were definitely jungle fighters. We really felt as if we were there machetes in hand carving a path as we were chopping our way through the brush in the jungle learning how to get to the places that we needed to find and to locate the resources that we needed to obtain- in essence to live off the land. Our evolution as an organization into the 21 Century still is organized around the framework of possibility.

BM: And, early on we began to grow exponentially. We had already made a trip to China in 1986. We’d gone to John Scully, who was president of Apple at the time and convinced him to donate a hundred Apple 2es for China. We later bought computers ourselves and also sent them into China. I made three trips over there, you traveled many more times to bring educators and trainers to demonstrate how the technology could best serve people with disabilities there. They were absolutely the first computers ever brought into China for the benefit of anyone with a disability. At that point they had very few mainstream computers to speak of either.

YM: We actually introduced educational software to students with disabilities to China. I will never forget watching an eleven-year-old blind girl using her IBM computer that we had been instrumental in getting IBM to provide to the Beijing School for the Blind as she used one of the earliest voice synthesizers in the Chinese language. This was developed by a professor from Quingua University, because of the equipment we had been instrumental in putting into place for special populations.

BM: In addition to the US agenda, now helping people in all 50 states, after China, it became Ireland, it became Poland, Lebanon, Costa Rica, Brazil and other places where we saw the need as being the greatest because the people that we were trying to benefit primarily were the people that had no voice to speak for themselves.

YM: And four or five years into the process it was not only children we were helping but people of all ages and not just with disabilities but persons who were economically disadvantaged as well.

BM: Ironically another one of the problems that we had in the early years was that I was buying these computers from Apple directly and the Apple eventually refused to sell any more to us and the reason was that the Apple dealers thought they were losing market share. If these guys are buying the computers and giving them away, there’s going to be nobody left to buy computers from us so why are you doing this to us? What they didn’t understand was the trickle down process that you have to teach somebody how to use a computer and then they will become repeat customers,

YM: Especially if the skills they learn allow them to get jobs so they could afford to buy a computer.

BM: We’ve gone now for more than 20 years without ever charging anybody for anything and survived to remain the blue chip organization for this particular process. Now people have a tendency to listen to us and realize that maybe we did have a vision that many had missed.

YM: Do you remember Bruce, the Business Week cover story in 1987 on human capital? That left a strong impression on us, not only about what they were saying, but what they failed to mention. They pointed out that there was quite a dichotomy between the emerging skills that would be required of the workforce and the fact that people just did not have the skills to attain these employment positions. Though they talked about various groups in our society who are underprivileged who might fill the gap--significantly missing from the groups mentioned in their workforce discussion were people with disabilities. This despite the fact that Harris polls at the time were finding that two thirds of individuals with disabilities were unemployed and wanting to work.

BM: 1987 was the year we launched a groundbreaking Chief Executive Officer’s Council in Maryland with the Maryland State Department of Education, the Governor’s Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, and Governor Schaefer.

YM: With you as the Chairman of the Council, those 18 monthly meetings we hosted with key corporate leaders, and heads of key departments within the state education system, including the state superintendent of schools, helped us shape some of the critical agendas we have since integrated into Foundation priorities. As a result of what we learned, it is our policy to regularly target a percentage of donated computer technology to direct to non-profit organizations, schools and public agencies for workforce development training.

Bruce McMahan and Cristina

BM: As a result of all of this thinking I got my Ph.D. in Labor Economics. We demonstrated through my research that people with disabilities would remain unemployed if they did not acquire the right skills to become employed. It also correctly predicted that it was not just sufficient to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 without supporting the training and skill development essential to open the doors of equal access to them in the workplace. Unfortunately, the ADA resulted in numerous lawsuits—but insufficient improvement in employment levels.

YM: For people with disabilities, and for those who are underprivileged it equally holds true, that their way up the economic ladder will be blocked if the technology skills they learn are not aligned with those of the jobs the business community needs to be filled.

Since our very first days, we at the National Cristina Foundation, as you know, have always believed, and continue to believe very strongly, that we cannot afford as a nation to waste precious human resources. As the twenty first century moves forward it is especially clear that technology will play an especially significant role in all aspects of our lives. Those with insufficient access to these important tools will be left behind in having access to mainstream options, which need to be available to each and every one of us.

BM: We made the elemental decision in the very earliest days of NCF not to ask for credit for anything that we did because we realized that most of the organizations that we were dealing with were funded other than by themselves and they needed some successes to help them with their fundability. We were ready to share our resources with them as long as the job got done and we didn’t ask for any credit. So for many, many years nobody even knew who NCF was. Later, people for one reason or another began talking about NCF and we became very widely known without NCF ever going out and trying to make a huge issue out of who we were and what we doing.

But the concept of bringing technology to the places of greatest need, the true NCF process, is very much an evolving kind process with all the changes in technology that have come along. We’ve got a computer website that gets three millions hits a month, for a charitable organization is a lot. Many more people know about us, and they understand the donation process that we represent.

YM: And we are thrilled that major manufacturers and the computing industry at large believe in our process and the solutions we have enabled them to implement because of our management tools.

BM: Our partnership with Dell is one example of stretching into a new era where though our methodologies were criticized by many in the beginning, the NCF methodologies have now evolved into an integral solution process that enables our methods to support this major manufacturer’s customer needs. Our very sophisticated database is not just a donation instrument but also a total system for managing our work.

YM: We are definitely very proud that it is now over ten years that we have been working with CompTIA (the Computing Technology Industry Association) as their civic outreach program. John Venator, their CEO and President sits on the National Cristina Board of Directors, and I report regularly to their Board of Directors who are our Circle of Advisors.

BM: So with the computer industry looking at the potential for some kind of liability building up from products that they manufactured six, eight, ten years ago, NCF with its proven track record of dealing with the downstream process is now looking very valuable to them. And for many, many years, we talked about this kind of a birth to grave management thinking and that there is obviously a chain of concern that must be dealt with.

YM: The impact of the growing scale of technology disposal that is our society’s challenge is a worldwide challenge. Everyone’s operational agendas are now affected as we are looking at a growing regulatory climate and the whole area of proper disposal.
As I look back historically over the 20 years since the National Cristina Foundation was born I recall frequently being called “the crazy lady” because, “she wants to give technology that has been previously used to all these places.” And then people thought about why we were doing this and understood the reasons why.

Yvette Marrin teaching Souhad Marji to use the    Apple IIe computer donated by Bruce McMahan    to their classroom in 1983.

We have many, many, thousands of locations that are reached through our partnerships with non-profit organizations, schools and public agencies This process to get technology tools that have come out of their first place of service is now accepted as logical practice. Collectively, however, we certainly have an important task before us to make sure that the concept of reuse is well understood within the life cycle of computing and related technology devices and why reuse is a productive solution for those who are disposing of their used technologies.

BM: I would just like to point out that the broadening base of what the National Cristina Foundation has come to represent has been organizationally managed by you Yvette and to a lesser extent by NCF’s growing staff but primarily through your efforts. We found many good friends in many places who learned to believe in the NCF process. I think I can safely say that just about every major manufacturer and technology distribution company these days knows of the National Cristina Foundation and understands what we do and why we do it.

YM: The philosopher Tagori once wrote that “the winds of grace are always blowing but it is you who must raise your sails.” We feel privileged with reference to technology reuse, that with the wind behind us all as colleagues and as partners we increasingly work with more and more people both among organizations and the corporate and larger community: The common goal to assure that both technology resources and human resources are not wasted but ARE linking life to its promise.