Posted: September 8, 2014
The “legendary” Rick Hohn retires. Hohn, 67 with severe Cerebral Palsy, retired as senior consumer representative after 18 years with DynaVox, a large augmentative and alternative communication manufacturer. It was a chance meeting in the mid-1990′s that brought Rick Hohn and Tilden Bennett, the co-founder and past president of DynaVox together. Hohn, then in his 40s, was an accomplished artist with little use of his arms who used a head stylus to paint, manual alphabet board to communicate, and a wheelchair for mobility. They say Bennett and his colleagues, upon meeting Hohn at the annual assistive technology conference at California State University at Northridge, knew instinctively that Hohn would be an excellent addition to their team. Rick was interviewed, hired and began working for them on that very day.
“Rick is a fantastic man,” Bennett said. “He taught me so much about people.” In the 18 years Hohn worked for the company, he provided crucial R&D input and was charged with mentoring individuals, their families and their care teams towards alternative and augmentative communication solutions. He also had oversight over other consumer representatives.
“My life wouldn’t have been the same without him and our whole industry would have been much poorer without the foundational guidance he provided in the early days of the field up through the current day,” said Bob Cunningham, chief strategy officer and senior vice president of product development at DynaVox, who refers to Rick as an “advocate’s advocate.”
Josh Witt, the director of education sales at DynaVox who calls Rick “legendary,” agrees, “The impact of Rick’s advocacy has been felt across the nation.” To learn more about Rick, visit Inspirational Artist Rick Hohn.
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