Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
BONUS EPISODE: Mike Ghesser: A Father's Mission to Transform the World for Neurodiverse Individuals
Fri, 14 Feb 2025
Send us a textImagine meeting a neurologist who changes not only your perspective but the entire trajectory of your family's journey. That's precisely what happened to Mike Ghesser, co-founder of CleanLogic, when his daughter Rosie was diagnosed with a neurodiverse condition at just three months old. In this heartfelt episode, we explore how that pivotal moment led Mike and his wife to become devoted, therapy-focused parents, ultimately inspiring the creation of CleanLogic—a company that champions inclusivity by offering meaningful employment opportunities to individuals with disabilities.Our conversation continues with a deep dive into the world of inclusive education. Mike shares his family's experiences moving from Los Angeles to Philadelphia to find the best resources for Rosie, highlighting the power of an educational environment where students with disabilities learn alongside their neurotypical peers. Through these stories, we emphasize the importance of focusing on abilities rather than differences and the broader societal changes needed to foster true inclusivity and accessibility in everyday life. Finally, we explore how Mike's personal journey has translated into groundbreaking employment initiatives at CleanLogic. Driven by a partnership with Isaac Shapiro and inspired by Rosie's progress, Mike discusses how the company has adapted roles to leverage the unique skills of individuals with disabilities. From sewing to manufacturing, we showcase the potential unlocked when people are given the right opportunities and support. This episode is a powerful testament to the transformative impact of shared experiences and the stories that inspire us to believe in our capacity to change the world, one inclusive action at a time.https://tonymantor.comhttps://Facebook.com/tonymantorhttps://instagram.com/tonymantorhttps://twitter.com/tonymantorhttps://youtube.com/tonymantormusicintro/outro music bed written by T. WildWhy Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Chapter 1: Who is Mike Ghesser and how did his journey begin?
Sure. Interesting story. So I have three daughters. My oldest, Rosemary, she's 11 years old. When she was born at about three months old, we discovered that she was disabled. She is physically disabled and intellectually disabled and neurodiverse. And me being a first-time parent at the time, I had no idea what that meant. My wife was very quick to recognize missed milestones or things like that.
She had an indication and I was just like, I didn't know anything. But she started to point it out and I said, okay, well, whatever, she'll be fine. The older she got, the more we kind of started to see things, the more I realized that, okay, well, there are some differences. There was an incident that happened when she was three months old. I was at work one day and my wife called me frantically
Chapter 2: What challenges did Mike face with his daughter's initial diagnosis?
I answered the phone and she's like, Rosie's having, her name is Rosie. She's Rosie's having a seizure. And I'm like, well, call 911. So I called 911. I said, I'll be home soon. When I got home, she was getting into an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Fortunately, we lived close to the hospital. We lived in Los Angeles at the time in West Hollywood.
There's a hospital called Cedars-Sinai, not too far away. When I got home, she was being put into the ambulance and fire department was there. And they're like, follow us to the hospital. When we got there and they ran a bunch of tests, it wasn't a seizure. Fortunately, it was a rare neurological disorder.
What was interesting about that experience for us, we were there for a few days, is there was a doctor, a very well-known child neurologist, that we finally got to see. Her name is Dr. Naparko. She came into our room and examined our daughter. And she said something that I'll never forget that really kind of shaped who I am, what I do, why I do the things that I do today.
And she said, she looked at my wife and she said, listen, she goes, you're not going to be a soccer mom. You're going to be a therapy mom. And she did it in, she was matter of fact. And it was rough to hear at the time, but she was right. She was 100% right.
That's tough to hear for sure. So once you heard that from the doctor, what was your next steps?
Immediately after we got out of the hospital, we started looking at therapies for my daughter and we got her physical therapy and occupational therapy and we put her in an early intervention program a little while later at UCLA Hospital. It was there that I started to see Rosie make a lot of progress and it was there that I started to see her around her peers.
There were a lot of other children there with all disabilities. There were children on the spectrum. There were Down syndrome children, children with other physical disabilities, mobility issues, you name it. That's where I started to see they were still able to do the same things that typical children were doing. They were just doing them a little bit differently. They would
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Chapter 3: How did Mike Ghesser's experiences influence CleanLogic's mission?
you know they would have equipment accessibility you know my daughter part of her condition is she was she's low muscle tone and so she had difficulty sitting and then standing and they had like a stander that she would use to help her strengthen her muscles all sorts of things like that with all that happening how was it affecting you what was your thought process moving forward
I started to think about her future. I knew that she was going to be disabled, and even though she was still young, I didn't know what that looked like. But I started thinking about seeing the early intervention, but what does kindergarten look like? And what does elementary school look like, and middle school, and high school? And ultimately, what's after that?
When they graduate high school, where do they go?
i run a company and i'm very like entrepreneurial and a planner so i started to look into the future for my daughter but specifically like where do people with disabilities go afterwards and there's a lot of programs there's a lot of things that they have but i wasn't able to find something that i felt from a parent's perspective that was right for my daughter and granted she's
at the time two three years old today she's 11 and she's not even close to being out in the workforce or anything but i immediately went into like planning several years later we moved from los angeles to philadelphia that's where we started to put together essentially what i thought was the a company my company clean logic that was an accessible and inclusive environment
for people with all different kinds of disabilities, intellectual, physical, people on the spectrum, things like that. And that's kind of how my daughter created the inspiration in me, my purpose to do what I do today.
That's a great story. Now, you mentioned school. Was she in private school, public school? How did you set that up so that she was able to integrate with other kids so not to be in isolation because of her situation?
Good question. So our daughter's always been in public schools. The early intervention program at UCLA in Los Angeles, I don't remember exactly how we got there, but we got a reference and it was, I want to say, a program through insurance or through the school, through UCLA, the college.
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Chapter 4: Why did Mike's family move to Philadelphia for Rosie's education?
then after that we sent her to a public school in our neighborhood we lived in studio city at the time amazing school dixie canyon elementary and they had a i think it was called the it's called the pals program preschool for all learners it was public and it was very well run after she was going to go into kindergarten that's when we moved out to philadelphia
That's interesting. Was there a specific reason why you moved to Philadelphia?
The reasons we moved out here, we actually live in the suburbs. We wanted to move to a suburb called Tredyffrin-Easttown, that school district, because they had an amazing program for Rosie and for her needs. We put her in the public school in Tredyffrin-Easttown. That program is even more amazing than the one that we were in in Los Angeles.
My expectation is she'll continue to go to public schools in Tredyffrin in our school district. They just have a very incredible focus on integration. She's in a life skills program, teaching her life skills, but also putting her into the classrooms with typical children. She has a very good mix. She gets the therapies that she needs.
She learns her life skills, and then she participates in classes with all the other children.
That's a great thing for sure. How is it working for your daughter? When schools integrate autistic people, people with mental health, disabilities, anything like that, it really is confusing for some of the kids and even for some of the teachers because they don't understand it. But the kids definitely don't understand sometimes. And that can create some issues within the classroom sometimes.
So how is that working out for her with how you've handled it so far?
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Chapter 5: How does the school system support Rosie's integration?
Yeah, so it actually worked out incredibly well, and I think this has a lot to do with the program that they have at the school. It's not just about putting a child with special needs in a class with neurotypical or able-bodied children. They educate them. They tell them, you know, who the student is and what their disability is, and they teach them about disabilities early on.
So it's not like, you know, they normalize it as much as possible. My daughter has a one-on-one that's with her all the time to help with that transition. I mean, she's obviously different than everybody else is, but she's not treated differently.
I think that's one of the things that I think successful programs do well is it's something that's always part of the educational process, not just for the student with disabilities, but for every single student. And accessibility is huge within those schools. And I think it's about... not making it a special thing and treating every child just as they're the same. You know what I mean?
Absolutely. I think that's just a great way to look at things. Unfortunately, we don't live in a society that accepts that the way it should.
Yeah.
But it's something that definitely needs to be taught for sure. I agree. The school system actually is the perfect place. If they work together, show these kids that anyone with disabilities are exactly the same, they just handle things a little bit differently, they could create that bridge for future change.
It does. It does. I completely agree. And I think a lot of schools that are successful with this program do well as they show that everybody has something to offer. Everybody has a voice, regardless of whether you're disabled or not. Everybody has something to teach another person. I think that's the foundation for it.
Absolutely. It sounds like to this point, everything has worked out pretty well for her.
So far.
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Chapter 6: What are the real-world challenges faced by individuals with disabilities?
When we have programs out there, we lay it out. We try and make it as comfortable, easy as possible with a good transition. But real life says there's going to be bumps in the road. What have you come across with bumps in the road that you didn't expect?
And then when they came up, what was your resolution to them so that the people listening can hopefully gain from some of the things that you went through?
Sure. Yeah. The biggest thing that kind of was an eye-opener for me is the world itself was not built for people with disabilities. Everywhere I go, I realize the obstacles that someone with a disability faces. While there's so many amazing pieces of accessibility, that are brought up all over the place, it's still difficult, it's still different. For example, going to the beach, right?
Typical people can just go to the beach and walk to where you want to go, sit down on the sand, but my daughter has mobility issues. And for a long time, it was very difficult to be able to get her to where she needed to go on the beach. And I never realized what that was like until I'm having to get to the beach, things like that.
But there's a wheelchair, for example, that's meant to be put on sand that helps bring her to where she needs to go. But it's something extra. Going out to dinner, there's ramps that allow you to move up, you know, walk up to where you need to go. But sometimes when you're walking through a restaurant, the space between the tables just does not accommodate.
So there's so many things that you do on a regular basis that without a disability, don't even realize and take for granted, like you can just go where we want. But once you're in that scenario, it's just very difficult. I can't unsee things. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, completely. You just said it. We take things for granted. Here in the US and in places around the world, we go about our lives not thinking about anything. Unfortunately, we don't think about it until it affects us. Then when it affects us, we are more compassionate and more understanding. But unfortunately, it takes that to happen to us before we start taking action.
Yeah.
Then when it does affect us, the world becomes very scary. We don't know what to do, what to do next, how things go, the process. It can be very scary. What would you tell a parent that's just finding out that their life is going to change? They have a child that's just been diagnosed and it doesn't matter what the diagnosis is. It could be autism. It could be mental health. It could be
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