Deaf Scientist Shares Career Experiences
With MSSD Students
By Susan M. Flanigan

Elmer Hayes, a deaf scientist who has worked as a senior chemist for the Environmental Protection Agency for 27 years, met with MSSD students recently to discuss science as a career.
Tom Quinn, transition counselor in Gallaudet's Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center's Transition Program, invited Hayes to address both MSSD and KDES students as part of an ongoing program to introduce students to deaf and hard of hearing professionals in various careers.
Hayes mixed a career pep talk with on-site science experiments and shared his own educational and career history with the students. Throughout his talk, he stressed the importance of students developing a positive attitude toward their own studies. He encouraged them to develop a "you can do it" outlook and to take advantage of the communications technologies and legal rights available to people in the workplace who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Hayes was born in Germany at a time when the attitude toward deaf people was that they were handicapped and could be integrated into the hearing world if they learned to speak, lipread, and use hearing aids. Sign language was forbidden in schools, which he said is still the case today in Germany today with some exceptions.
Hayes' grandfather noticed how the boy loved to assemble and disassemble things. He felt that Hayes had the ability to analyze and should go to college. He encouraged him to consider a career in science and to think about attending Gallaudet.
When Hayes' family moved to the United States in 1963, he went to the American School for the Deaf, then attended Gallaudet, where he graduated with a degree in science in 1970.
Hayes found his job at the newly-formed EPA through a Careerathon at Gallaudet in 1970. He started as a program specialist and soon moved to the lab in the EPA Beltsville Laboratories where he performs labwork in pesticide research and biological and chemical analysis.
When a student asked Hayes if being deaf had an influence on his job he replied, "Yes and no. I did not have access to a TTY like you have now, or e-mail, or the Internet, or interpreters. You [students] have many more advantages than I had for communicating in the workplace. ... Being deaf did not stop me from being promoted, but I often did not find out about new openings until later than my hearing colleagues.
"Science is a good career," Hayes told the students. "It's broad and it's in demand. The world is full of science—we can't live without it."

General comments may be sent to: SMFLANIGAN@gallua.gallaudet.edu

Last modified January 26, 1998
Copyright © 1998, All Rights Reserved
Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center

Gallaudet University 800 Florida Ave. NE Washington, DC 20002-3695