Timeline
On this page, we provide a brief history of iCanConnect in California from the program’s inception until the launch of our Campaign. We hope you will gain a better understanding of how dire the situation is at LightHouse right now and why we are demanding action NOW.
DISCLAIMER: Some images on this page may have been sourced from social media and other publicly available platforms. These images are used for public benefit. LightHouse, based in San Francisco, is a 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation.
The Beginning
When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched a pilot phase of iCanConnect, LightHouse was certified in late 2012. Sook Hee Choi, then the Manager of the DeafBlind Program at LightHouse, was instrumental in applying for certification and implementing the program at the state level, ensuring all the tedious FCC rules were followed. Choi received some support from Kathy Abrahamson, then Choi’s supervisor and a longtime regular in the Northern California DeafBlind community who learned some Sign Language.
Cathy Kirscher, along with her assistant Ilona Mulvey, provided crucial help in making sure iCanConnect was a success in California. Kirscher and Mulvey formerly worked for the Helen Keller National Center’s Western Region, with Kirscher as the Regional Representative. Kirscher was a beloved champion of our community for decades.
Choi, known for her unshakeable passion for helping others in need, quickly began distributing iCanConnect equipment throughout California. She did not have an administrative assistant, despite the FCC providing funding for one, although she received non-administrative support from Kirscher, Mulvey, Abrahamson, and another LightHouse staffer who all had full-time jobs. For years, Choi’s request to hire an administrative assistant was ignored by LightHouse.
Choi’s work has had a massive impact on DeafBlind people’s lives, many whom were able to use e-mail or the telephone for the first time in their lives. But with only one iCanConnect trainer who knew Braille from 2012 until 2014, Choi had to endure long hours driving across the state to deliver and set up equipment, all the while racing back into the office to meet paperwork deadlines.
From 2015 to 2020
Unable to find qualified trainers and without an administrative assistant from LightHouse, Choi recruited Shen Kuan from the Access Technology Department at LightHouse to work for iCanConnect part-time. Choi wasn’t happy with this decision because it meant extra work for Kuan and limited availability to blind students, but she did not have other viable options. Kuan is a talented technology instructor who now works at Apple. He provided Choi with much-needed help, enabling LightHouse to deliver more equipment and provide training all over California. They worked together many hours per day, including on weekends, despite being paid salaries that were too inadequate for Bay Area living.
In 2018, Mussie Gebre agreed to provide support with equipment installation and training on a limited basis. Gebre, who is DeafBlind, has a long history of providing assistive technology services going as far back as 2002, primarily to Department of Rehabilitation consumers. But Gebre, who also was leading a national nonprofit advocacy group at the time that was behind many of the national advocacy campaigns, quickly found the way LightHouse was administering iCanConnect unacceptable because Choi was being overburdened and due to pathetically inadequate staffing to cover the whole state. But Gebre did not immediately challenge leadership, apart from forcefully telling Bryan Bashin, then the CEO, to improve DeafBlind services.
In 2019, LightHouse hired Alyah Thomas as the first iCanConnect administrative assistant to support Choi. However, Thomas also had to be pulled away from iCanConnect to support other LightHouse programs like Enchanted Hills Camp. So, in a sense, Choi did not have much of an assistant dedicated to iCanConnect. Thomas, who left two years later, nevertheless did her best to support iCanConnect while juggling other responsibilities at LightHouse.
Before 2020, several other individuals worked in the iCanConnect program on a very limited basis, providing driving, interpreting, and equipment installation support for low-vision DeafBlind consumers. They were all based in Southern California. Despite having enough funding and hiring lots of people for other LightHouse programs, the iCanConnect program never had a staff interpreter or driver. Choi did most of the driving and interpreting, in addition to being the program administrator.
From 2020 to Present
The coronavirus pandemic struck around March 2020, forcing iCanConnect services to go virtual. This was one of the most challenging periods in the history of iCanConnect in California. It was difficult to set up equipment remotely and make sure consumers could use it to stay connected with the outside world.
In mid-2020, LightHouse hired a new iCanConnect employee, who has been involved with the iCanConnect programs in two East Coast states since 2012. With Kuan's departure in July 2020, this new employee became the only full-time iCanConnect trainer.
When LightHouse allowed in-person iCanConnect services in mid-2021, Gebre returned to the road with Choi. There was a pent-up demand for in-person iCanConnect services, forcing Gebre to increase his availability to serve consumers.
Shannon Wright
Contractor
Brandon Cox
Chief Operating Officer
Jeffrey Colon
iCC Administrator
Sharon Giovinazzo
Chief Executive Officer
Sometime in early 2021, LightHouse hired Shannon Wright. It's unclear what her specific role is, but the information we have suggests she helped review and correct iCanConnect reports from LightHouse employees. We also do know that there was some kind of personal relationship between Wright and the current LightHouse Chief Operating Officer, Brandon Cox. We learned that Cox, who joined LightHouse in 2016, and Wright originally worked together closely on the East Coast, so Wright’s hiring may have been due to nepotism.
Thomas left in August 2021, LightHouse hired another administrative assistant in March 2022. Her name was Sequence Gilder. Gilder courageously called out Wright for tampering with iCanConnect documents. She also notified LightHouse that the new iCanConnect administrator, Jeffrey Colon, was sexually harassing her. In response, LightHouse promptly fired her on March 15, 2023, but continued to work with Wright and Colon.
In a recent blog commemorating DeafBlind Awareness Week, Gebre described an increasingly toxic workplace that made providing iCanConnect services extremely difficult. Gebre explained that the hiring of a new CEO named Sharon Giovinazzo worsened an already toxic culture at LightHouse. That was soon followed by the hiring of an HR Manager was behind all the unjustified adverse employment actions against iCanConnect providers, always using bogus claims of violating LightHouse policies and without conducting investigations.
In October 2022, Abrahamson and Choi were forced out of the iCanConnect program. It was moved to the Access Technology Department, after having been in the Rehabilitation Services Department since 2012. Colon was the Director of the Access Technology Department and therefore in charge of the iCanConnect program, despite lacking any real experience working with DeafBlind people.
Things inside the iCanConnect program took a turn for the worse in early 2023. What we believe to be, based on information we have, motivated by a disdain for Deaf people by both Wright and LightHouse, Gebre was ordered to stop serving iCanConnect consumers in Southern California until LightHouse could get one of the best DeafBlind interpreters in California who had attended our events, to sign something they called “independent contractor agreement,” essentially a very long contract template originally used for consulting services.
Our information shows that on April 20, 2023, LightHouse asked Gebre to modify the contract document to one to be used for the DeafBlind Interpreter’s services. Gebre happily obliged, finishing the initial draft in less than 5 hours. But LightHouse dragged its feet until rising pressure from Gebre and others forced its hand on July 18, 2023, when it sent the finalized draft to the DeafBlind Interpreter.
Shockingly, instead of accepting DeafBlind Interpreter’s own Service Agreement, just as it had long done with Deaf Counseling, Advocacy and Referral Agency (DCARA), LightHouse rejected DeafBlind Interpreter’s services outright, unconcerned by the mounting difficulties iCanConnect consumers were facing with their equipment and related services. Days later, LightHouse let go of Gebre.
After Gebre was abruptly forced out, the employee hired in 2020 was left to shoulder all the iCanConnect equipment installation and training responsibilities until another employee was hired in February 2024. A month earlier a previously hired employee returned as a full-time iCanConnect trainer, mainly with low-vision consumers--but he then had his work schedule drastically reduced to only Fridays.
As if what the new leadership did wasn’t bad enough, in July 2024, LightHouse gave Choi three unbelievably short months to leave. They said they needed to change how they do business. In reality, they replaced the DeafBlind Program which has been around for many decades with a hastily created “Service Navigator, DeafBlind” just weeks before announcing the planned elimination of the DeafBlind Program.
A Tribute to Sook Hee Choi
Sook Hee Choi accepting an award for years of service to the DeafBlind community.
Credit: NCADB/Sook Hee Choi
We at the Northern California Association of the DeafBlind are appalled and shocked beyond measure by the elimination of the DeafBlind Program. LightHouse sought zero input from our community about changes to a program that served our community over the decades. This move is consistent with how LightHouse has been administering iCanConnect: absolutely no input from the community the program is meant to serve.
We are equally upset by how the longest-serving DeafBlind Program Manager was treated by a leadership that seems concerned only with its own self-preservation. Choi served our community with such dedication that many of us have come to see her as integral to the well-being of DeafBlind people in California. She fought tirelessly for our needs both inside and outside of LightHouse, even when she was struggling under the collective weight of her own personal difficulties as a mother and a wife.
Sook Hee Choi, please know that your decades of unfailing devotion to service in our community and beyond, and the shared memories of the past several decades, as the Manager of the now-eliminated but beloved DeafBlind Program will always be treasured. From the bottom of our collective heart, THANK YOU.