Randolph-Sheppard National Online Training Curriculum for Program Staff: Findings from a National Survey of Randolph-Sheppard Directors

Abstract

The Randolph-Sheppard Business Enterprise Program provides employment for more than 2,300 entrepreneurs who are legally blind across the United States. Moreover, these entrepreneurs employ an additional 14,000 people, of whom almost 2,000 are visually impaired or have other disabilities (Rehabilitation Services Administration [RSA], 2010). With annual program sales of more than $800 million, the average annual income of individual entrepreneurs is approximately $60,000. Signed into law in 1936, the Randolph-Sheppard Act (20 U.S.C. [section]107 et seq) grants individuals who are legally blind the authority to operate food service facilities on federal property. With oversight from RSA, the act locates the state licensing agency for the program in the individual state vocational rehabilitation agencies across the United States. Over the years, the Randolph-Sheppard program has changed dramatically from single vendor-managed concessions and newsstands to large military food service facilities, kiosks, convenience stores, laundry facilities, restaurants, snack bars, automated vending machine operations, and other similar businesses. For a number of reasons, the Randolph-Sheppard program has seen a decline in the last two decades in the number of facilities and blind entrepreneurs. Speculations for the decline include the closing of marginal or unprofitable Randolph-Sheppard facilities by state licensing agency administrators without establishing new, more profitable locations, and the inability to find qualified candidates to replace those who retire, leave the program, or are promoted to other facilities (Schaefer, 2003). Moore (2005) suggested that the disparity among states in either having too many facilities without qualified candidates to run them or too many qualified candidates without locations to place them, coupled with the inability of blind entrepreneurs to easily transition across state programs to align these disparities, is also a contributing factor to the overall decline. In an effort to expand and improve the effectiveness of the Randolph-Sheppard program, stakeholders (for example, the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind, consumer groups, and state licensing agency administrators) in collaboration with RSA joined together in the development of five performance goals (National Council of State Agencies for the Blind, 1997). Goal 3 addressed national training initiatives including the development of training for Randolph-Sheppard staff members. More recently, the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind passed Resolution #2010-1 (2010), noting that the goals outlined in 1997 had not been accomplished, and calling upon RSA to make resources available to initiate activities in reaching those goals. Our purpose is to report research activities in support of Goal 3 that will culminate in the development of a national online training curriculum for Randolph-Sheppard staff members. The state licensing agency staff members who are specifically responsible for the state's Randolph-Sheppard program generally include a program director, who is responsible for overall program management; business consultants (counselors or specialists), who have multiple responsibilities in direct support of individual entrepreneurs; and other administrative and support staff members, who are responsible for activities related to equipment, initial and upward mobility training, accounting, payroll, contracts, and the like. The only national training package developed for program staff members was funded by RSA during the 1980s. Published in 1985 by the West Virginia Research and Training Center, the Randolph-Sheppard Management System (Minton, Spann, & Weston, 1985) is an instructional training package that includes 15 modules for self-study. The modules address different aspects of the program such as management of facilities, development of new facilities, merchandising, food safety, purchasing, working with individuals who are blind, and the Randolph-Sheppard laws. …