Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities Commissioner Matthew Sapolin, today received a Corporate Achiever Award at the inaugural Corporate Achiever Awards for Individuals with Disabilities & Corporate Summit Empowerment Conference.  Held at The Roosevelt Hotel, the Corporate Achiever Awards for Individuals with Disabilities provides education and awareness of disability in the workplace.  Participants in the event include Pfizer, McGraw-Hill, Colgate-Palmolive, MetLife, the City University of New York, the State of New York, the U. S. Department of Labor, Pernod Ricard and the U. S. Military in New York City.  It is anticipated that the event will lead to a more productive workforce and one that readily engages in teamwork and collaboration.  Commissioner Sapolin was nominated separately by Deputy Mayor Carol Robles-Román and Jeff Klare, CEO of Hire Disability Solutions, LLC, an employment consulting company assisting corporations and organizations in the management of inclusion and diversity in the workplace.   In order to qualify for the award, the nominee must meet four (4) criteria:  1) exhibit a leadership role in his/her organization; 2) involvement in forwarding goals of his/her corporation’s business within the community being served; 3) serve as a role model who embodies the values of achievement; and 4) displays a commitment to diversity and inclusion.

“I am deeply honored to receive this award,” said Commissioner Sapolin.  “It is representative of the hard work that my office does on a daily basis to improve the lives of people with disabilities, including, and specific to this award, our Disability Mentoring Day initiatives.”

Since 2005, MOPD has served as the local coordinator for National Disability Mentoring Day, an annual one-day job shadowing event that pairs disabled students and job-seekers with corporate and employer mentors.  Disability Mentoring Day is a national program highlighting October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month and hosted by the American Association for People with Disabilities, the country's largest cross-disability membership organization that brings together the disabled community to be a powerful voice for political, economic and social change. For more information visit www.nyc.gov/mopd.