“I want to use my own struggles and successes to help inspire
children with impairments of all kinds to think big and not let their impairments get in the way of their dreams, and to provide their parents, teachers and school administrators with guidance and information about how they can best support them.”

— Walter Ashby

Walter Ashby has been legally blind since he was a young child due to a genetic condition called familial dominant optic nerve atrophy. Despite his impairment, he earned a Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Texas A&M University as well as a MBA, and he is currently employed as a licensed financial advisor for Edward Jones in the Dallas area. He also worked as a Senior City Planner for the City of Midland and for the FDIC. While there, Walter was the 1990 recipient of the Presidential Award for Most Outstanding Federal Employee with a Disability.

A compelling public speaker, Walter has written a memoir Impaired, But Empowered, which details the challenges he has faced throughout his life because of his impairment and the lessons he has learned about overcoming adversity and achieving your dreams even when the decks are stacked against you.

As a speaker, Walter shares his insights and advice with a variety of different audiences:

  • STUDENTS WITH IMPAIRMENTS. Walter encourages and inspires these young people to believe in themselves, persevere, and to pursue their dreams despite their impairments. His goal is to help them understand that they can live rich, rewarding lives.
  • THE PARENTS OF DISABLED CHILDREN AS WELL THE TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS WHO WORK WITH THEM. Walter provides practical advice about how these adults can best encourage and support the disabled young people in their lives.
  • EMPLOYERS. Walter uses his own experiences as an employee to provide employers with invaluable insights into what it is like to be disabled in the work world. He also offers employers guidance regarding what they should and should not do when interviewing and managing someone with a disability. In addition, Walter challenges employers to recognize the often untapped potentials of their disabled employees -- their ability to problem solve and "think outside the box," for example.
  • BUSINESSES, ASSOCIATIONS, CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE, AND COMMUNITY GROUPS. Drawing on his own life and the challenges he faced in pursuit of his dreams, Walter delivers powerful, motivating messages about how to overcome obstacles and handle setbacks in pursuit of excellence. 

SCHEDULE WALTER TO SPEAK

Walter often speaks to groups together with his daughter Beth Jones.

Walter’s daughter Beth was also born with familial dominant optic nerve atrophy. She brings to the presentations she and her father deliver together practical knowledge as an educator with a specialty in special education as well as her own unique perspectives as a woman with a serious visual impairment.

Beth is an Associate Professor of Special Education and Graduate Program Coordinator at Texas A&M University-Commerce.  Previously, she taught resource reading/language arts and mathematics as a public school teacher for seven years. For five of those years, Beth worked as the lead special education teacher for her respective campuses.

Beth earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, with a concentration in special education, from Louisiana State University and a Master of Education degree in Educational Psychology, with specializations in special education and school counseling, from Texas A&M University. She also received a Bachelor of Science degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Texas A&M, graduating Cum Laude.

Click here to download a paper by Beth about teaching visually-impaired children.

 

SCHEDULE WALTER AND BETH TO SPEAK

 

Schedule Walter

Schedule Walter, or Walter and his daughter Beth to speak at your next event!

Watch Video

Clips from Walter Ashby's talk to the North Texas Chapter of the Society of Human Resource Managers.

Share your comments:

"Walter Ashby is a riveting speaker with a compelling story. He connects heart-to-heart with his audience as if he and they are in a one-on-one conversation. Organizations that book Walter will experience a speaker whose life inspires people to persist in spite of obstacles and dream big rather than settle for mediocrity."

– Carolyn Corbin, President, Center for the 21st Century, Best-selling author, award-winning international speaker and socioeconomic futurist

"Walter and his daughter, Beth Ashby Jones were an incredible team and provided an inspiring keynote address for the Annual TAER Conference. Walter spoke of his life growing up as a young boy with low vision in a small town. His struggles and triumphs were not only touching, but also inspiring to all of those in the field of vision loss.  Beth spoke passionately about being a parent of a child with low vision and how being an advocate for our students and and their parents is so important. 

Thank you Walter and Beth for providing a dynamic and motivating keynote!!"

– Shay Utley, Organizer of the 2018 annual conference of the Texas Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired