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Preparing Youth with Disabilities for the Workplace

Sarah Park
Mike Switzer/SC Public Radio

You may have heard a recent program of ours that highlighted the difficulties experienced by people with disabilities in finding satisfying jobs.  The youth in our state can find this challenge even more daunting because in most cases, they have never had any job experience of any kind.  Our next guest, however, is working with the local business community to alleviate that situation.

Mike Switzer interviews Sarah Park, a transition specialist Blythewood High School in Blythewood, SC, part of the Richland Two Transition Program.

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After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.