May, 2014 marks 7 years I’ve had the honor of leading Beyond Vision. Many fond memories come to mind. But, the day this article features is one of the richest memories yet.

We’ve been building a relationship with the Harley-Davidson call center staff for a few years now. They have been looking for a resource like Beyond Vision to conduct various outbound call campaigns for them. This past year we conducted multiple voice-of-the-customer type call programs on behalf of Harley. Soon we should be calling each of the proud owners of new Harley-Davidson motorcycles. What do these new Harley owners want to talk about? Of course, they want to talk about their shiny new ride and their plans for customizing it.

This is all well and good. However, for a person who is blind, who has perhaps never seen a motorcycle, let alone rode on one, we might imagine it’s hard to relate. After we conducted a trial of this call

program we had a follow up meeting with the staff at Harley-Davidson. As a result, they decided to take action to help our staff become more familiar with the bikes and the various accessories.

Our call center staff, including 8 people who are blind, were invited to Harley-Davidson headquarters for a very special experience. We arrived to be greeted by a group of Harley employees equaling our numbers. Each blind employee was matched up with a sighted guide. Every detail was covered; they even gave us name tags written in Braille. Wow!

After introductions and a wonderful lunch, we proceeded to the lobby. To our amazement, there in the lobby was a fully functional motorcycle on a stationary dynamometer. That means the bike could be driven, without it moving. Each of our blind call center employees were given a once-in-a-lifetime experience of being able to drive a HOG.

One by one they nervously climbed aboard. One by one they were taught how to operate the throttle and shifter. One by one they heard and felt the rumble of a Harley Davidson first hand. One by one they grinned with smiles of pure joy. Tears of happiness sprang from both our employees and their sighted Harley counterparts. Finally our call center staff knew what these Harley owners were so passionate about. There really is nothing quite like riding a Harley.

If that weren’t enough, they then escorted us to Harley-Davidson’s inbound call center to experience all of the various models of bikes on display there. With great interest all our blind employees explored every inch of the bikes. With amazement they would say things like, “Oh! So that’s what a windshield looks like. Or, “Now I know what custom exhaust pipes are.”

It is said that if you love your job you never work a day in your life. The memory of this day defines the essence of why I love this job. I was honored to be a part of it. To say that our employees will never forget this experience is an understatement. Most of them changed their Facebook profile picture to the one taken of them that day…sitting on and driving a Harley. How can we ever thank the staff at Harley-Davidson enough for giving us such an amazing and thoughtful experience? We will give them amazing service, that’s how. We will never ever forget it. We still feel the rumble.