Hello! I’m Dave Atias. I’m the new Assistant Director of Advocacy at CDR. I was hired in late July. Before I tell you a little about myself I would like to describe my start at CDR. My first week on the job entailed a trip to Washington DC for the annual National Council on Independent Living Conference. My first day of work at the CDR office was the day the Maggie Brooks story hit the newspaper. So my second week at CDR was spent sleeping on Main Street.

I didn’t quit! In fact, with my background, I have actually enjoyed (as much as one can enjoy being attacked by the County Executive) what I’ve been doing so far.

I am a Rochester native, who spent the majority of my childhood in the 14621 area. I graduated from Franklin High and played a little bit of baseball at American University in Washington DC. My college degrees are both from SUNY Brockport (BS in History and MA in Secondary Education). My intent was to be a teacher, but I soon found that my teaching style didn’t match “normal” school settings. I’ve found myself teaching at Rochester School for the Deaf (RSD), St. Joseph’s Villa, School Without Walls and a couple of suburban schools. I even went to Hawaii and taught for a while at the Kihei Charter School.

So how did I end up as the Assistant Director of Advocacy? While teaching at Rochester School for the Deaf in the late 90’s, I was doing a project on a presidential election with my students. One of my students asked for help researching the Green Party. As I helped him, I realized that I shared a lot of values with that party. I contacted a local person and I’ve been involved ever since. From that time, I’ve run political campaigns, run for office myself, organized rallies, held fundraisers, did mailings, protests and more. It’s been really cool that even though my political life and CDR life are totally separate, I’m using the same skills for both.

I’m very excited to be at CDR and am look forward to helping our community do the great work that we are known for. On September 18th, I leave for my first national ADAPT action, where we’ll be continuing the fight to get the Community Choice Act passed and to make sure the federal government is upholding the Olmstead Decision. I can’t wait! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding the ADAPT trip in September or Advocacy Team at CDR.