Cold Call Can a Coffee Shop in Utah Help Solve Underemployment for People with Disabilities?
16 snips
Oct 29, 2024 
Rick Ruback, a Harvard Business School professor specializing in corporate finance, and Joe Higgins, an executive fellow and former president of Visual Comfort & Company, explore the powerful impact of Lucky Ones Coffee in Park City, Utah. They discuss how this coffee shop uniquely employs individuals with disabilities, emphasizing the for-profit model's effectiveness in addressing unemployment. The duo highlights the community's role in supporting inclusivity, innovative hiring strategies, and the transformative benefits of meaningful employment on both employees and workplace culture.
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Willowbrook's Legacy
- The Willowbrook State School, once the largest US institution for people with disabilities, closed in 1987.
- Its legacy of overcrowding and abuse prompted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990.
Case Theme
- The case explores if for-profit businesses can address the underemployment of people with disabilities.
- It questions if this lack of employment is a societal problem and examines the founders' objectives.
Discovering Lucky Ones
- Joe Higgins, whose sister has Down syndrome, connected Ruback with Lucky Ones Coffee.
- This connection stemmed from a conversation about creating a game-changing case study.