Lance was referred by Centrelink to Workskills in 2016 due to his deteriorating eyesight. Lance has undergone multiple surgeries since his diagnosis at the age of 17. He stated he lost count at 14 operations. Lance is blind in the left eye and has limited vision in his right, which continues to deteriorate.
With a Double Degree in Mechanical Engineering and Pure Mathematics Lance was pursuing a successful career as an Aerospace Engineer. Unfortunately after 4 years he was made redundant when he was deemed as being a safety risk in the workplace due to his failing vision.
Lance continued on, working for himself in the same field until his visual impairment caused him to lose his driver’s licence, making it impossible for him to continue on with his self employment.
After discussions with his Employment Consultant, Lance said he had a preference for a desk based role and had previously enjoyed volunteering with community groups and charitable organisations
Through strong employer connections in the local community, Workskills was able to source a vacancy for Lance with Wollongong Family Emergency Housing as an Administrative Assistant.
Lance has had ongoing employment with Wollongong Emergency Family Housing since January 2018. He has quickly become a highly valued member of the team, contributing in unexpected areas of the business such as updating the website to make it more user friendly and accessible and producing a range of graphs and charts to help capture key metrics for the organisation.
More recently, Lance has picked up some casual work at the University of Wollongong as a Mentor for new students and he continues his studies in both Japanese and Spanish so that he can work as an Interpreter when he loses vision all together.
Such an amazing young man who continues to smash through the barriers put before him.
