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Skiing, Rock Climbing, Cycling: This Resident Does It Blind

San Ramon mom and executive doesn't let her blindness stop her from doing what she loves.

In her 20s, San Ramon's Gena Harper turned heads as a competitive downhill skier--who was almost totally blind.

Now in her 40s, she's one of rare few blind female senior executives working at a top brokerage/financial-services firm in the United States.

Where does her chutzpah come from?

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As a young girl, Harper wasn't so spirited and optimistic about succeeding, especially as her blindness worsened with age.

"I'd focused on all the things I couldn't do, which I'd imagined were pretty much everything. I'd say, 'I can't, I can't.'"

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But her life changed when she entered a vocational school after college where, for the first time, she met high-achieving blind people.

"I met attorneys, psychiatrists, medical doctors," says Harper. "They changed my perspective of what was possible. I started becoming a person who could say, 'yes, I can.'"

The school offered classes in rafting, wind surfing and skiing—and she signed up for them all.

She discovered she was especially good at skiing. Harper made her way downhill with the help of a seeing instructor, who would call out turns to her.

She doesn't remember feeling scared at the top of that first mountain at Kirkwood Resort in Tahoe.

After having spent her school years in "special" P.E. classes, says Gena, "I was just excited to be out and doing it—I love being outdoors."

In 1985, she won a bronze medal competing against other blind skiers from five countries in the National Handicapped Ski Championships.

"I was hooked. I loved to compete. I also wanted disabled people who weren't exercising to see me and try it themselves."

Coping With Darkness

Born with congenital glaucoma, Harper is completely blind in her left eye, enduring her first surgery at just four days old.

Vision in her right eye steadily worsened over the years.

Harper's world now is mostly dark, she says. "It's like sitting inside a box and seeing just a pinhole of vision with my right eye."

With no depth perception, she can make out just some colors and shapes, but it's enough to help her do activities a completely blind person might not be able to—like watch a movie or ride a bike.

She relies a lot on intuition. "If I'm walking on the sidewalk and see something gray in front of me," says Harper, "I figure it's probably a person and not a pole. But I often can't make out who it is unless I recognize their voice."

With her limited vision, she must scan her eyes back and forth quickly to make out an object.

She has Braille labels scattered about her house—on the microwave, stove, washer and dryer to help her know what buttons to push.

She also color codes items. "My camera case is green. I have a blue box for mail."

An optimist at heart, she still has days when she feels low. To pick herself up, she reads inspirational poems and books (or listens to them on her iPod)—and takes classes at Dougherty Valley Community College in San Ramon. She recently aced a history class there.

Becoming a Finance Industry Superstar

For her job as senior VP at Smith Barney, she works primarily out of her home in Windemere, where she raises her two children, Sarena, 10, and Shiya, 7, as a single mom.

"My colleague and I work as a team," says Harper, "working primarily with couples in their 50s and 60s who are business owners or independent consultants."

They routinely accompany clients to meetings with attorneys and accountants, advising them on ways to invest and grow their money. Though getting to those meetings requires the aid of a guide dog and driver, Harper says not much else distinguishes her from her seeing counterparts. 

"Though it's sometimes awkward when they reach out to shake my hand," admits Harper, "and I leave them dangling because I can't see it. So I try to shake their hand first."

About 65 percent of the time, Harper works from home. When she's not crunching numbers on a computer that increases the type size tenfold so she can read it, she's on the phone with conference calls.

Giving Back to Her Community

She chose to live in San Ramon's Windemere community, she says, because of the good schools in walking distance from her home.

But it was a new development when she first moved here, and the crosswalk lights didn't beep when they changed. So Windemere can thank Harper for calling the city to request an audible street signal.

They responded quickly. "[That] proved to me that San Ramon is committed to the safety of its citizens," she says.

In her off hours, Harper serves as a Girl Scout leader for her daughter's troop at Hidden Hills Elementary.

She volunteers at school and sends care packages to the troops with Blue Star Moms.

Harper loves defying people's expectations. "If someone says to me, you can't do that, I'll prove them wrong or die trying."

She enjoys wind surfing, whitewater rafting, and once even dove 100 feet off of a cliff in the Grand Canyon to a protected diving pool below. "That was scary even for me."

Harper says she doesn't feel victimized by her disability. "At some point it comes down to a choice. You can sit and wallow and feel sorry for yourself or live life unafraid."

Call it the power of positive thinking or the sheer cussedness of determination, but if you say "yes I can" enough times:  "Pretty soon you'll be amazed at all the things you can do," says Harper.

 

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