For Rebecca Hill, getting a job has not always been easy. The 32-year-old, who has muscular dystrophy, said she feels like she gets to the final part of the hiring process and loses out when employers see her in person.

Hill now works as an administrative assistant at R.D. Howard Construction and is in charge of making sure the workers at the company’s job site — Fort Worth’s new City Hall — have all the proper safety equipment.

She recalls being so impressed when Randle D. Howard, president and CEO of Howard Construction, sought her out.

“He asked me if I knew anyone who was like me that wanted to work and I said, ‘Yeah, me.’ That made a big difference,” Hill said.

Howard’s desire to seek out Hill and others like her springs from his own personal experiences.

He shared the story of how he came to hire employees with disabilities during the annual Rotary Club of Fort Worth’s Minority Business Awards event this spring.

Howard is a previous honoree and was a program co-sponsor this year.

He gave a heartfelt testimony about an experience that humbled him, but had stayed with him throughout his adult life.

“I want to share my own redemption,” he said. “About how my roommate taught me about the prejudice in me.”

The story began in the fall of 1977, when freshman Howard was checking into his dormitory at Texas State University in San Marcos. He fully expected his roommate to be white, as the school of about 18,000 had only about 500 Black students at the time.

He and his parents headed down to his room and knocked on the door.

A realization

The roommate told them to come in. It was a bright, sunshiny day, Howard recalled, but the room was completely dark.

As he met his roommate, Jaime Ferrera, he quickly realized his new roommate was blind.

“This shattered all of my dreams of toga parties and girl-watching together,” Howard said. In addition to being blind, Ferrera was deaf in one ear and going deaf in the other.

“I have to admit to you that I actually thought myself better than another one of God’s creations,” he said.

Howard believed the dorm leaders had given him a blind roommate because of the color of his skin.

But as he thought about it, Howard also recalled the teachings of his parents: “They taught me to treat everybody the way you wanted to be treated,” he said.

Despite his conflicted feelings, Howard went to the housing office and asked for another roommate. He was turned down. The dormitories were full.

A few weeks later, the housing office called Howard and said a new room was available for him. But by this time, he had gotten to know Jaime and, “He was a real cool guy. And besides that, he was a chick magnet,” he joked.

The Rotary audience laughed at that line, but Howard had a serious point to drive home.

“I had actually gotten to know him,” he said. “In all the fears of the unknown, the arrogance that I had, thinking that I might be better, had been pushed aside.”

Later that year, Howard was asked to be a resident assistant working the front desk.

He asked the resident assistants who had initially checked him in if they had intentionally put him in with Ferrera because he was blind and Howard was Black.

They told him they knew Ferrera wouldn’t care what color he was.

‘God behind me’

While working the front desk, Howard found the card of the student who was originally supposed to be his roommate. On the card, the parents had asked the student not to be put in a room with a dark-skinned roommate. It could have made him angry, he said.

“That day I decided, I had God behind me,” he said. “Not only that, I made it a personal commitment of mine that I was going to try to do everything I could do to not judge people by their appearance.”

Howard’s roommate ended up dropping out of college his senior year because he had lost his hearing in both ears.

“Still, he helped me to graduate because every time I thought I couldn’t make it, I would think about him. If he could overcome his challenges, I could, too,” he said.

Howard earned his diploma and returned to Fort Worth.

In 1983, he became president of the company that his father, Leroy Howard, established in 1946.

Howard’s father also helped others, he said, often hiring formerly incarcerated workers.

The impact of that experience in college has not been lost on Howard and the business he has been president of since 1983.

“We have employed 13 people who were totally blind, partially blind, in a wheelchair or physically impaired, a lot of folks who didn’t necessarily look like me,” he said.

Howard said the Mayor’s Commission on Persons with Disabilities and Linbeck Construction, which is partnering with Howard on the new City Hall building, embraced a proposal to make Hill, a woman who has been in a wheelchair all her life, the very first hourly employee for the project.

Howard closed his story to the Rotary Club with a message to this year’s honorees and the audience.

“We challenge everybody in the room to look at our differences and to open up opportunities, doors, to everyone’s talents,” he said.

Howard still thinks about his former college roommate and hopes someone will help them reconnect.

He wants to offer thanks for how Ferrera helped him see the world more clearly.

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