CDS offers jobs to injured soldiers

As a major general in the Army, Robert Mixon saw a lot of young men and women go off to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He saw many return, too, bowed by injury, especially brain trauma.

"Concussive type injuries, from bomb blasts and the like," Mixon said. "That's how the enemy is targeting us. There are 8,000 soldiers and veterans in America with TBI, traumatic brain injuries."

And there are many others, he said, who suffer in silence, too embarrassed or scared to admit to their malfunctions.

Mixon, an Atlanta native, is retired from the Army now. Late last year, he became general manager of Unistel, the employment arm of Continuing Developmental Services in Webster. CDS was created more than 30 years ago to help those in the Rochester community with the life challenges of mental retardation, cerebral palsy or autism in its many manifestations.

Mixon's job is to find companies that will contract with CDS/Unistel to package, label or ship products. Unistel currently has 80 or so clients working every day on the busy factory floor at CDS' Life Transitions Center on Hard Road in Webster. An additional 45 do similar work at a center on Blossom Road in Rochester.

On any given day, the employees will be doing some packaging for Dinosaur Bar B Que, assembling radio parts for Harris RF Communications, or gluing together artificial lawns for New York City building owners desiring rooftop greenery.

Mixon and CDS Chief Executive Sankar Sewnauth, knowing what their work-and-lifestyle programs have done for the self-esteem of CDS clients, thought it was a fit for America's injured soldiers. This year, they will begin a pilot program for 10 soldiers returning to Fort Drum who have crippling brain injuries. They will offer rehabilitation services, leading to work on the floor assembling, packaging and shipping with the goal of getting their lives together again.

"The military calls their program Wounded Warriors but we call ours the Warrior Salute program," Sewnauth said. "We want to honor them."

Mixon said the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs offer the kinds of service CDS provides. But there are not enough of these services to meet the known need, much less the need of those who haven't stepped forward.

Sewnauth said one difference with the local program from the military options is that, for the pilot effort at least, CDS will find a place for the soldiers' families to live while he or she is in therapy. Often, when active-duty soldiers go into Army-paid rehab, the families must stay behind.

Sewnauth and Mixon think this might be the start of something much larger — an increase in soldiers coming to Rochester to participate in a more extensive transition program. And it may mean more local companies partnering with CDS/Unistel to have work done, with rehabbing soldiers laboring alongside local CDS clients.

Cost is a factor. Medicaid, the federal health insurance program paid in part by the state and counties, picks up much of the expense for CDS clients moving from school special-ed programs into, ideally, a meaningful life.

Adding soldiers and their families also will double the need for apartments and houses that serve the developmentally disabled. Mixon and Sewnauth are working with the Army and Veterans Affairs on use of defense or V.A. money for an expanded program.

Mixon's stature as a former Army major general helps. "He (Mixon) made a call to Washington and the next thing we knew an assistant surgeon general with the Army was here, checking out our program," Sewnauth said.

If all goes as hoped, Rochester may become a place where the wounded find solace and hope in work that serves the needs of local businesses.

"These are our soldiers," Mixon said. "This is the least we can do for them."

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