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Beth Kolbe, Former Mitsubishi Foundation-AAPD Congressional Intern

posted July 30, 2008
DISABILITY ISSUES newsletter
Interview by Paul Kahn

KAHN: Can you tell me a little bit about your background?
KOLBE: I grew up in Ohio; I was there for twenty years in a middle of nowhere town surrounded by fields of corn. When I was fourteen I was in a car accident. I have a spinal cord injury, so I am quadriplegic. I use a manual wheelchair to get around. My accident happened the week before summer when I was in eighth grade. I was the first person in my high school with a disability, but they were really accommodating. They were great. And then I applied to Harvard. I am the youngest of three: I have an older brother and sister. Both of them stayed in Ohio for college, but I could not pass up the opportunity, when I was accepted. I had come to the east coast before when I was in junior nationals for wheelchair sports....

KAHN: Tell me a little bit about your internship. Who was it sponsored by, and what did you do?
KOLBE: It was sponsored by the American Association of People with Disabilities and Mitsubishi Electric of America Foundation. I was one of six congressional interns over the summer. You have to apply to different congressional offices. I was accepted into Senator John Kerry’s office first, so I jumped on that. I was so excited, because I respect him. I got to work in his office mostly doing health policy work, then constituent work. It was such an exciting experience. Probably the experience I was most excited about was this: I got to go on the senate floor with him. They don’t let interns on the senate floor, but we were able to get special permission. And I was able to help with his speech a little bit.

KAHN: How do you think your internship contributed to your personal and professional growth?
KOLBE: Professionally it made me much more interested in politics. It was an eye opener that there are so many details: there are so many different policy areas that have to be taken care of. I don’t think I want to run for public office, but I certainly would not mind being a policy staffer. After the internship, there was an opening in Senator Kerry’s Boston office to work specifically on disability issues with one of his
staffers. They invited me to do that. So, throughout my entire school year I worked in his Boston office. It’s completely different, because it is much more focused on his constituents; major policy issues get done in DC. But I really loved that, because you get to talk to people on an individual basis.

KAHN: Did you make important contacts during
your internship?
KOLBE: Oh, definitely. I still keep in touch withmy boss fromthe Boston office, and I am still close with the office manger in DC. They are good contacts for the future and great people. They love their work, and they do it well.

KAHN: Were there other ways that your internship helped you or contributed to your ability to be an advocate for disability rights?
KOLBE: We congressional interns and the IT interns lived with each other.We were all college students who have an interest in pursuing disability issues. Bouncing ideas off the others and learning from them was a really wonderful experience. I am great friends with all of them. And we were able to meet a lot of leaders in the disability community, a lot of people who were very influential with the ADA. My generation has grown up since the ADA. So, it’s easy to take it for granted, because we did not have to fight for ourselves. Learning from the people who did have to fight and listening to their stories was empowering. I would like to work in DC for a few months before starting graduate school.

For the complete story go to www.masschec.org/uploadedFiles/Disability%20Issues%20-%20Summer%202008.pdf

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