deaf-blind adventurer, advocate, author & storyteller (public speaker)
Bill is a deaf-blind adventurer, advocate, author & public speaker (storyteller) that speaks and delivers adventure projects to inspire people around the world - disabled or not - on building a pioneering, adventuring spirit and overcoming the challenges in their lives.
Bill's work is about helping others get to a better place in this world and paying it forward in a life that has been rich and fulfilling beyond his wildest imagination.
Bill's groundbreaking climb as the first deaf-blind person to summit Mount Kilimanjaro was covered on Good Morning America.
The story was to share a personal journey about building a life within the context of your abilities and disabilities.
In Bill’s case, the journey is an inexorable march further and further into darkness and silence.
He is a pioneer with assistive technologies for the hearing impaired / deaf, the vision impaired / blind and those with dual sensory challenges -the deaf-blind.
Bill is one of 15,000 in the United States and 100,000 in the world with Usher's Syndrome which progressively robs its victims of both hearing and vision over the course of their lifetime. There are currently no treatments and cures.
See why in many ways he believes that it may be the best thing that ever happened to him.
As many of you know, Erik Weihenmayer and I worked to expand the No Barriers "Leading the Way" program to hearing impaired and deaf teenagers. My vision was to have deaf teenagers embrace their hearing challenges and lead others in the world to a better place through expedition trips and service projects afterwards.
Here is what last year's participants had to say in a video of my expedition trip with them to Machu Picchu last summer!