BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Bakersfield Arc helps people with intellectual and developmental disabilities like Rudy Briseno secure employment through job training and coaching.
- Video shows Rudy Briseno working at a local coffee shop.
- Briseno adds not only does the organization help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities but he says it creates a more accepting culture in our community.
Bakersfield Arc levels the playing field for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities by helping them secure jobs through training and coaching, and they’ve done it again for one local man with autism
That’s the sound of another client with Bakersfield Arc getting a job.
“I look at my phone, and I’m thinking okay what is going on?” Rudy Briseno, a client diagnosed with autism, said.
That bell rang for Briseno who recently secured a permanent position with Samco, a company he has worked with before.
“It’s like a home away from home basically when I’m at work,” he said.
Briseno says he was diagnosed with autism when he was a kid.
“I don’t think of it as a disability but as a different ability,” he tells me.
Briseno began working with Bakersfield Arc during the pandemic to gain essential job skills, and he’s most recently put in the hours at a local coffee shop to further develop his training.
“A lot of times the individuals we serve just need a chance,” Shawn Kennemer, the president and CEO of Bakersfield Arc, said.
He adds not only does the organization help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities but he says it creates a more accepting culture in our community.
“In fact, people like Rudy bring so much more value to the company because they think differently than everybody else,” Kennemer said.
Briseno works with a job coach on site, and he asks people to be patient when working with people on the autism spectrum.
“They don’t know what it’s like being in our shoes and what we go through or what difficulties we have everyday.”
Because of that, he simply wants people to get to know him better.
“I always like to tell my story, and this is my story of being on the autism spectrum,”he said.
Briseno hasn’t begin his full time job at Samco yet, but he’s expecting to start in the near future.
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