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AFB CareerConnect®—a free resource for people who want to learn about the range and diversity of jobs performed by adults who are blind or visually impaired throughout the United States and Canada. Whether you are a student exploring careers, a job seeker investigating work options, an employer planning to diversify your workforce, a professional working with visually impaired people; or, a friend or family member assisting someone who is blind or has low vision, this web site can help you!
CareerConnect offers information for job seekers as well as employers, for professionals, family and friends, for teens, inspiring success stories and mentors. Read this a artical about Bernie Vinther, a machinist and elctronics technical engineer who is totally blind.
Intro: Blind Machinist: skilled operator of machine tools. How does one do it? Find out by reading about the success of our latest featured mentor.
The Story: My name is Bernie Vinther and here I am doing work that one would think requires good vision. Good vision is what I once had, but now I am totally blind. I am a self-employed machinist and electronics technical engineer. There is really no support in my area of occupation where I live, otherwise, I would probably be working for someone else, rather than myself. I chose this occupation because it is hard, not easy. However, before I tell you about my job, I feel compelled to tell you that in an odd way blindness was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and I’m not alone with those feelings. Why on earth would anyone feel this way? Well, you see, I like challenges and I’ve learned to experiment with finding out how much I can do without vision. Most of the challenges of being blind can certainly be very frustrating, but I’ve found a lot of satisfaction in striving to keep blindness from becoming an obstacle that keeps me from doing all the things I like to do. I just won’t take “No” for an answer. Blindness has taught me not to sit in the corner and be passive.
So what do I do? I am a machinist. A typical machinist primarily uses lathes, milling machines, band saws, and grinders to make various geometric shapes out of pieces of metal. This type of work is a bit difficult to describe. One of the machines I use the most is a lathe. A lathe can be used to make a round shaft. It can also make threaded grooves on the outside or inside of a piece of metal. Often a piece of metal has to be cut to a very precise size. This means that if the piece I am working on is supposed to be 2 inches in diameter, if it is larger or smaller than that by one-tenth the thickness of a human hair, it won’t fit some other part. The other machine I use a lot is a milling machine. A milling machine is similar to a giant drill press. This machine can drill holes in precise locations, cut slots and grooves in flat or round pieces of metal and make a flat piece of metal nice and smooth with square or rounded corners.
Usually a machinist works on a project independent of other machinists. But sometimes I need the help of other machinists when working with pieces of metal that are large and heavy. Cooperation between myself and other machinists is usually very good. Machinists also look out for one another because this type of work can be very dangerous, so safety around the shop is always top priority.
When I could still see and drive, I was in the industrial communications business. This type of work wasn’t just sitting at a work bench servicing a piece of equipment. Some days I had to do a moderate amount of manual labor, which included climbing radio towers and installing or removing equipment. I really enjoyed this type of work because it was different every day. After my eyes began to go bad, I tried staying in some light duty electronics, but doing so meant that I had to stay tied to a work bench and I found that I didn’t like it very much because there wasn’t enough variety in it. Also, many of the parts I had to work with were becoming too small for me to solder and figure out.
“Well, what to do?” I pondered. I couldn’t stand not having something useful to do that I liked. So in 1988 I bought my first computer, an IBM 286 clone. After fighting my way through the learning curve, I began keeping track of some of the electronic and mechanical projects I was working on. Around this same time I rented a booth at an industrial products and business fair in hopes of getting some work designing and prototyping some electronic devices. One gentleman I spoke with was a machinist and he hired me to experiment with a gas bottle warning flasher he invented. This was an easy job and soon I came up with a circuit that did what he wanted.
Although his shop was about 40 miles out of town, I was still able to visit it a few times on the weekends. One day I was brave and asked him if I could use one of his lathes to make a simple project. To my absolute delight, he said, “Ok.” I had not used a lathe for a couple of decades and I was pretty worried that I might break something, but I didn’t, and my project went very well.
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