Prentice Hall sits quietly at 6:30 a.m., with most students sleeping or getting ready for class. Tom Neal is one of the first people active in the building, but he’s neither a student nor a faculty member—he’s a business owner.
Tom Neal is responsible for stocking all the vending machines on Kent State’s main campus, where he’s worked since 2021. He also stocks machines at the Kent State College of Podiatric Medicine in Independence.
“Everybody thinks working for yourself must be great,” Neal said, “but it’s actually, in some ways, a little bit more responsibility. If you didn’t do a good job this month, you’re going to see that in your sales. Or you’re going to hear it from the unhappy student who didn’t have the Snickers bar when they went to that vending machine.”
Within an hour, he and his two employees set off, driving a truck and van around the campus to stock more than 100 vending machines. Their day usually lasts from 2 to 4 p.m., according to Neal.
He’s used to it; he has been managing vending services for 14 years across Ohio, from rest stops and convenience stores to the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
He is also legally blind.
Neal has a condition called retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that affects the retina and causes progressive vision loss.
“When I was in school, I was told that I’d be totally blind by the time I was 16,” he said. “So, I was given some training on how to read braille and how to navigate the world. And luckily, even as of today, I still have a little bit of vision.”
He worked a long career as a mechanic, but after two decades, with worsening vision affecting his employment opportunities, he began to look for something new.
That’s where a state program specifically for people with vision difficulties came in.
Neal started his business after going through the Business Enterprise Program, a state initiative that gives opportunities for residents with visual impairments to work in the food service industry. The program is run by Opportunities for Ohioans for Disabilities, a state agency.
“We serve people with all different kinds of disabilities, whether they’re mobility, deaf, hard of hearing, blind [or have] invisible disabilities like mental health and substance use,” said Kim Jump, communications director for OOD.
According to the agency, 70 licensed operators are currently running food service businesses and positions at state buildings, colleges and rest stops.
“When you’re traveling on the highway, the rest stops you see, all of those are filled by blind people,” said Neal, who once operated three stops along I-90. “That’s one of the things the federal priority gives us.”
The Business Enterprise Program is made possible through the Randolph-Sheppard Act, which was created in 1936 and revised in 1974. The act gave Americans with visual impairments priority in running food service businesses on federal property. The number of opportunities for visually impaired residents have expanded since the act was implemented, according to Christy Hauck, program manager at OOD.
“Particularly in the last 10 years where we’ve gone to micro-markets, unmanned self-serve micro markets, the ability to have credit cards on vending machines … Technology has really, you know, been a positive effect on the program,” Hauck said.
While the OOD negotiates service contracts for buildings and provides equipment to vending operators, Neal is responsible for the business aspect — running the operations, hiring staff, and upholding the contract. He also makes business decisions such as monitoring sales and deciding what products to offer students.
“I go through the catalog from my suppliers, and I try to determine what I think is popular,” Neal said.
For instance, Neal finds that after Super Bowl Commercials, sales of snacks such as Doritos usually go up. There are also cycles of low activity for him, such as breaks when many students leave campus.
Advances in technology have helped Neal manage aspects of his business. He uses credit card monitors to check the stock of each vending machine remotely. And he spends time at home researching new tools to help with his job.
“Most of my evening is spent just catching up on the news I missed while I was working,” Neal said. “There’s a lot of accessibility technology that’s available right now, and I can re-price my machines. I can identify products without having to ask someone to help me. Ten years ago, it wasn’t quite that easy.”
Licensed vendors under the program made an average of $58,000 per year in 2024, Hauck said.
“It changed my life,” Neal said. “After getting licensed, I got married. I was able to help put two kids through college. I was finally able to buy a home and obtain a lot of things that I wouldn’t have been able to because of my limited employment prospects prior to that.”
According to survey data from the American Federation for the Blind, around 22% of people with vision impairment lived below the poverty line in 2022.
Neal said many blind people live in low-income housing, struggle to afford necessities and aren’t adequately covered by existing government aid.
“The prospects for unemployed blind people are pretty grim,” he said.
Neal has gone through struggles himself.
“I remember what it’s like to not know if my lights were going to get turned off before I had the money to pay that bill. And there’s a lot of people out there who will continue living that way until a better alternative comes along,” he said.
Because of this, Neal tries to point fellow blind people he knows towards the Business Enterprise Program whenever he can. OOD works constantly to connect Ohioans with vision difficulties with employment opportunities and resources, Jump said.
Their efforts have had results. The number of residents with disabilities OOD provided with services in fiscal year ’24 increased 15% from the last fiscal year, according to Jump.
OOD is working to get more people into the Business Enterprise Program, as many vendors are beginning to retire, Hauck said.
“One of my goals is to expand outreach to general schools [and] high schools,” she said. “Unfortunately, a lot of our operators are aging and retiring. So, the way to sustain the program is to recruit more operators.”
Blind people can do the same things that those without visual impairments can and have unique skills that suit them, Neal said, given they receive adequate support. He doesn’t, however, want people to patronize him based solely on his disability.
“I don’t want a student to ever walk up to a vending machine and say, ‘I’m going to buy something from this machine because he’s blind,’” he said. “I don’t want that kind of sympathy. I don’t want that kind of purchase. I want a person to walk up to the vending machine and say, ‘Hey, this looks pretty good … and, by the way, it’s run by a blind person.’”
Jonathan Beard is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].