Alphapointe shows off new Rich Hill facility
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
Alphapointe, New York’s
largest employer of individuals
who are blind and visually
impaired, has made a new
permanent home for itself in the
Richmond Hill community.
The company relocated from
its Borough Park Brooklyn
headquarters to 87-46 123rd St.
in Richmond Hill in June 2017.
Alphapointe recently hosted
a holiday party Dec. 12 in the
newly upgraded facility with
state-of-the-art technology that
will help benefit its employees.
“By coming to Richmond
Hill, we start to provide services
that aren’t readily available in
Queens,” said Anthony Luisi,
director of development at
Alphapointe. “Queens does not
offer a lot of the services that are
necessary to help the visually
impaired and blind, especially
when it comes to employment.
We’ve invested $25 million
into this community, but the
purchase of the building and
renovations we’ve done and
more to do, this has certainly
become a marathon on sprint.”
Alphapointe — with more
than blind and visually
impaired employees– focuses on
hiring of the disabled providing
training services, employment
opportunities, and placing
clients in the community for
jobs. It does light and industrial
manufacturing.
The company occupies a
100-year-old building that was
formerly an archive site for
stored records and papers. So far,
they’ve installed new roofing,
plumbing, electricity, flooring,
and painting. Additionally,
Alphapointe is working
toward incorporating modern
technology for its employees,
according to Luisi.
JAWS (Job Access With
Speech), a computer screen
reader program for Microsoft
Windows, allows blind and
visually impaired users to read
the screen either with a text-tospeech
output or by a refreshable
Braille display.
“All of our computers have
zoom tech and JAWS technology
so the visually impaired can
see the screens and voice
detects that tells them what
their email says,” said Luisi.
“The BlindSquare is really
An artist rendering of the planned design for the entrance at
Alphapointe’s facility in Richmond Hill. Courtesy of Alphapointe
beneficial. It gives our employees
independence because now they
feel much more comfortable
moving around.”
Greg Pitkoff,
managing director of Grip
Communications, added,
“Literally when people were
moving around in there the
Brooklyn office they had a
network of ropes overhead that
had knots in them indicating
distance or intersections. They
would either have to run their
hands or canes the other way
along the ropes to know how
to get from point A to point B,”
said Pitkoff. “With the beacon
technology, the use of their
phone tells them where to go in
the facility.”
Guy Latronico, who is
visually impaired, has been
employed at Alphapointe for
nine and a half years.
“When I first came here I
was working in retail and left
because of vision problems,” said
Latronico, who supervises the
brush and broom department
at Alphapointe. “I learned how
to sew here, manufacturing…
I learned how to deal and cope
with visually impaired and
blind people… how to use heavy
machinery and brushes.”
Latronico added, “Over here
you can be more confident when
you have any kind of disability,
as to outside where people don’t
understand it.”
According to Luisi, their
employees have some acquired
skill set or have never had a
position prior to working at
Alphapointe.
Mark D’Altorio, a job
placement specialist at
Alphapointe, has helped over
150 individuals acquire jobs
outside of the company ranging
from entry-level positions to the
federal government.
“We focus on the quality
of the placement as opposed
to the quantity and mass,”
said D’Altorio. “I get a better
feeling from seeing other
people who maybe are not
aware of their capabilities of
blind individuals… seeing the
light of an employer kind of go
on, and realizing what it is or
seeing a person who realizes the
potential within themselves is a
gratifying aspect for me.”
Sign up for low or no-cost
health insurance today!
Get free in-person enrollment assistance in your language.
Open Enrollment in New York continues through January 31.
®
Call 311
Text CoveredNYC to 877877
Visit nyc.gov/GetCoveredNYC
TIMESLEDGER,TIMESLEDGER.COM JAN. 4-10, 2019 17
/GetCoveredNYC
/TIMESLEDGER,TIMESLEDGER.COM
