Jennie Brooks, host of the Unstoppable Together podcast, talks with Christopher Khanoyan, a member of Booz Allen’s Global Disabilities BRG. He just returned from competing in cycling at the Summer Deaflympics in Brazil. Learn about his experience seeking equity in competitive sports and how that translates to the workplace.
Jennie: Welcome to Booz Allen Hamilton's Unstoppable Together podcast, a series of stories that unite us and empower each of us to change the world. I'm Jennie Brooks with Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Please join me in conversation with a diverse group of thought leaders to explore what makes them, and all of us, unstoppable.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Unstoppable Together podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Brooks, and today I'm excited to speak with Chris Khanoyan, who has just returned from the International Olympic Committee's 2022 Deaflympics in Brazil, where he competed in cycling. Chris, welcome to the podcast.
Chris: Thank you. I look forward to having this conversation with you, and I'm also using a female sign language interpreter on the phone.
Jennie: Yes, Connie, welcome to the podcast as well. We appreciate your being here. Let's start Chris by, can you share a little bit with us about your path of getting involved with cycling and ultimately how do you get to compete in cycling at the Deaflympics?
Chris: Sure. Let me go back. When I was younger, I did a lot of sports, including basketball, track, football, so I was very athletic, and I was living in Texas. I ran a lot and I also played some basketball for Gallaudet University. I did that for about two or three years at the university level, and then I had a knee injury and I was not able to run for a while, a pretty long time, and I couldn't walk to class, so I was late to class because of my knee injury. So I decided to borrow a roommate's bike to arrive to my classes on time, so that just became my new thing and I just started doing more cycling.
After the Gallaudet graduation, I started doing a lot of rides. I tried a group ride in Virginia and I was really enjoying that, so I started cycling with a group and then I started being involved in races. It started off at the beginner's level, and then it just became history.
I've been involved with races since 2012, maybe 2011, not exactly sure, so I was involved with a lot of races to about 2013 or 2014, and then I had an accident that happened that broke my collarbone and I had a serious concussion as well, so I decided to take a break from racing and not do that so much anymore.
I did a little bit, just very leisure rides and things like that, but nothing competitive. And then I decided, you know what, I'm going to go back to racing again. But unfortunately that's when the pandemic hit, so there was a lot of canceled races. I was able to do some in 2020, and then now, in 2021 and this year, there's more, so I was able to join a lot more.
Team USA asked me to join their team for the Deaflympics in Brazil, and that's in the Caxias do Sul, the Southern region of Brazil, is where the Olympics were held. And we had seven riders, including myself, on the team, Colorado, California, North Carolina, Texas. I can't remember all the other states. But the experience was very awarding. It was the best thing that happened.
Jennie: Tell me a little bit about what it was like actually being there and how was the experience?
Chris: Well, first of all, it was a very interesting experience. Two things that I would to talk about. One, related to all the athletes coming from all over the world. Every country has their own sign language. People think sign language is worldwide, nationwide, no, it's not. Every country has their own sign language, so sometimes you have to do some gestures to get your point across and talk, it's like a universal sign language. It was really fun to make friends with people from Columbia, Brazil, Venezuela, Greece that were also cyclists.
The other thing that I enjoyed was the wine. I drank wine. Every day when I was not racing, I was drinking wine and just enjoying the views. In America, a glass of wine, it's just the regular size, but in Brazil, if you ask for a glass of wine, it is triple, if not quadruple, the amount for a glass of wine, so that was a nice experience.
But the racing and the results, we had four different events that we participated in. There was the road race, which is like what you see on TV with the Tour de France, when you go to point A to point B. And then there was a time trail, the sprint event, and then a point's race.
The road race, it was our primary focus. That was the number one focus for the team. And there's seven team members, but only five can participate in each event, so we work together. Cyclist is a team sport itself. Not many people realize that it's not an individualized event. So with the road race it was a pretty high number of climbing, it was not a flat surface at all. We had to work together as a team to bring one of our team members up to the front, and they came in fourth place. They missed the metal by a bike length in the final sprint. So that was... I'm trying to think of the right word. It was tough, but it was a really good experience. We almost won that. And just meeting other people was great.
Jennie: Wow. So the wine pours in Brazil are larger and the interpreters are having to translate different languages on bigger pours of wine. Got it. Can you share with us a little bit, Chris, about your own journey throughout your life? What has your experience been with access, accommodations, and equity specifically in sports?
Chris: Well, you're asking a loaded question. I grew up in a Corpus Christi, Texas, where they really didn't have a lot of disability accommodations. And I went to some okay schools, after school programs. I did play basketball in the elementary and middle school level, but, as you know, basketball is another team sport and there's communication amongst your teammates, and everybody was hearing except for me, so we had to try to find a volunteer interpreter that was a good interpreter that was willing to come after school every day for practice for games. So that was one thing that would've been nice to have, but it's not the same.
I mean, it was nice to have that volunteer interpreter, but I didn't have the same privileges or the same opportunities as other people on the team. And when you're running on the basketball court, it's really hard to communicate with others because you have to look at what the coach is saying and see the interpreter, and it wasn't very good. And you can't resolve that, that's just something that you just couldn't resolve.
When I moved to Austin, Texas, I didn't know that they had a deaf school and my mom and I were just driving past a sign on the road and it says, Texas School for the Deaf. And I was like, what is that for? So we decided to pull over and check it out, and we learned that was a school for deaf people, or deaf children, like me. So I transferred from the public school, the hearing school, to the deaf school and I played basketball there, and it was a normal basketball team because all the teammates were deaf. You played against other schools that were in Austin, and you didn't have to deal with the interpreter in the mix. It was really nice.
Just knowing that kind of feeling it, I wish the same thing applies to the cycling sport. When I first started, I was on a hearing cycling team and they had to text, using the text to communicate with each other, and it was a bit difficult. It reminded me a lot of back in the elementary and middle school days, trying to figure out that communication with your teammates, hoteling together, it was not the same, as you know.
But then when I came back to the racing again just recently, we have this deaf cycling team and it's nice to be able to communicate with your teammates, and it's just a relief. It's a really great feeling to just start competing and saying, we can kick ass against a hearing team. It's really great. And it's just nice to have.
But sometimes there's still some issues related to our disability, because we're not able to hear. So when you're cycling at very high speeds in a large path, I want to say you're going 25, 30 miles hour, or even faster, and when you're closer to that finish line and you're sprinting to go faster people, will be screaming, left, right, left, right. So you know that they're coming on your left or you're right, because you don't want a crash with somebody else. So that is a disadvantage that we have. We can't hear when people are saying left, right. And sometimes I can't go to my left. I can't go to my right. So I will stay straight.
Just for safety reasons for my own sake, I don't want to veer off because I have crashed and broken a collarbone in the past, and there are other crashes that were very unfortunate. They do happen. It's part of cycling. But when I try to tap other cyclists, I'll tap them on the shoulder if I can reach them or their hip, going at 25 or 30 miles per hour, just to let them know that I'm going to be passing them on their left or their right. It's hard.
But the community here, know who I am now, so the community is doing the same things to me. If they're passing me, they'll tap me on my hip or my shoulder on my left or right so I know that they're passing me. So things are changing for the better because I'm out there. And I feel I'm talking way too much.
Jennie: Not at all. It's very insightful and we appreciate your giving us the examples so we can imagine. I can imagine that transition to the deaf school in Austin was very freeing. How old were you when you made that transition?
Chris: I grew up in the public. I was mainstreamed until the ninth grade, so freshman, so 14, 15 years old.
Jennie: Yes. You mentioned the word mainstreamed. What do you mean by that term?
Chris: Sure. Mainstream, that means a hearing school that has a deaf program for deaf students. Some schools do not have a deaf program. I happened to go to a public school, and I was the only deaf student, but mainstream just means a deaf student going to a public hearing school.
Jennie: How has your experience with access and equity compared in the workplace?
Chris: That's a good question. Sports and the workplace there's, of course, some differences, but there still have some challenges in both. First of all, I want to say Booz Allen has a wonderful disability accommodations group. I could not ask for more. They have great interpreters, one that you're hearing from right now. She has been with me for the last five years and she's probably sick of seeing my face, but she gets me and she helps me with all my work. And it's very rare to find that from other employers. But you can't solve everything, so it is still a challenge for people like myself. For example, I need to make sure that I have qualified interpreters who are familiar with our jobs. You can't just find an interpreter the same day and then give a presentation to a client. That's not how it works. Because the interpreter has to know the terminology, the background of the work itself, and that's a difficult thing.
You find the time to find that qualified interpreter, and that kind of work, it's not just me, but we do have other deaf contractors here at Booz Allen. I think we have maybe five, six other deaf employees, so we do have our own little internal chat and we talk about the positives and the negatives. The first three years of Booz Allen, I went to an office in person and when you need to call an onsite person, somebody coming into the building, you don't get the same interpreter because there's other deaf clients that they get sent out to in DC, because there's a lot of deaf clients in DC area. So you have to try to find several different interpreters, and you don't always get the same one.
I had to write notes and develop material and share that, meeting minutes, to each interpret so that way they had an idea of what was going on. And that was just very time consuming. But now, with the pandemic happening, I work a hundred percent from home and that helps a lot, because now I only use one or two interpreters. I have the same ones over and over again, because it's virtual and there's more flexibility with that. And sometimes the people that call, they forget that I am deaf. I know it's not a big deal, but they do forget that I'm deaf because everything is going so smoothly.
Jennie: Got it. What advice do you have for employers or project teams when they're working to create equity for people who have limited or are hard of hearing?
Chris: Yes, it's a challenging topic. When you jump over to a new project, when you jump from project to project, or client to client, sometimes you're going to have some people that are not familiar with what you need for accommodations. And I always often have to ask for scheduled meetings or prescheduled meetings in advance because when they schedule meetings last minute, let's just say 30 minutes before they want to have the meeting, either two things will happen, maybe three, I should say.
One, I might get lucky and the interpreters are available. Two, I might not be able to get an interpreter and I won't be able to attend the meeting. Three or I get another interpreter that is not familiar with my content, so it looks like I don't know what I'm doing to the client or the project lead. So that I always emphasize to my clients when I'm new to the team to preschedule meetings.
Same thing with Booz Allen team, always preschedule even other contractors from other firms that I may work with. That does take time, that kind of education to explain what I need to make sure that the whole project, the work itself, the product, is successful for the client.
It's just those little things, but it's a continuous thing that you have to educate, especially when you're jumping from project to project or a client to client or just new people that Booz Allen have hired and their joining my team.
Jennie: Chris, at the end of every podcast, we leave our guests some open space to share their final thoughts with our audience. What would you like to leave with our audience today?
Chris: Just to make sure that you have equal access, equality in the workplace and in the team projects and everywhere, you name it, just having that access. Not always, but it's very difficult to accomplish that. I do understand that it takes time. Things don't happen overnight. It does not. So it does take time to understand what the problem is, what the accommodations are that are needed. Just to change your way of thinking.
Just remember when you have a new client or new project or team member or anything like that, just remember we will get to where we want to be later, but in the beginning it may not be as a smooth start until everything is figured out. It's true for anybody that has a disability, even the employers or the project leads, it might be a little bit of a rocky start, but it will be smooth sailing after things are figured out. And that's really all I have.
Jennie: Thank you, Chris. It was lovely speaking with you. Thank you, Connie.
Chris: Thank you.
Jennie: Thanks for listening. Visit careers.boozallen.com to learn how you can be unstoppable with Booz Allen. Be the future. Work with us. The world can't wait.