Ken Jacuzzi, executive director of the Arizona Office for Americans with Disabilities, promotes independent living for people with disabilities. If the name sounds familiar, his father invented the namesake spa.

With a name like Jacuzzi, there has to be a success story —  and Ken Jacuzzi is living proof that family ingenuity, perseverance and community service pay off.
A life-long victim of rheumatoid arthritis, Jacuzzi serves on two companion state councils and is executive director of the Arizona Office for Americans with Disabilities. Knowing Jacuzzi’s background, it’s easy to understand why he is a member of the Statewide Independent Living Council and the State Rehabilitation and Advisory Council.
Flash back to when Jacuzzi was only 2. He was living with his Italian immigrant parents in Berkeley, Calif. The toddler came down with a case of strep throat, which led to rheumatic fever and then rheumatoid arthritis. For about four years his parents would drive him to a hospital a couple of times a week for hydrotherapy.
“It was quite a distance, but most of the concern was because it was cold and rainy in the winter,” he says. “The primary concern of my parents was my exposure to the elements and that I might get sick, because it was the strep throat that originally caused the arthritis.”
Birth of an institution
As fate would have it, the Jacuzzi family was in the business of manufacturing water pumps for wells and farmers.
“My parents noticed that after getting these treatments a couple times a week, my range of motion improved,” Jacuzzi says. “Physical therapy became easier because my body had warmed up, making it more flexible. So as with Italian parents, especially Italian mothers, like Jewish mothers, more is better.”
He says his mother Inez told his father Candido, “‘What Kenny needs is hydrotherapy every day at home. You’re in the pump business. Can’t you make something?’ So that’s how it got started. He made a unit for the bathtub and showed it to my doctor. And the doctor said, ‘You know, CJ —  that’s what he was called —  this is great. Why don’t you manufacture them and market them for a lot of other people who could benefit from hydrotherapy?’
“At the time, they thought the Jacuzzi whirlpool bath would be more for older people with arthritis and the usual crunches and grinds that come with old age. It evolved into tubs and spas with built-in jets, and as Paul Harvey would say, the rest is history.”
The family sold the business in 1979, and wheel-chair bound Jacuzzi has accumulated more than three decades of CEO and management experience in manufacturing, marketing, and research and development in the United States, Europe, and China.
As a member of the Statewide Independent Living Council (SILC), which encourages and advocates for independent living for Arizonans with disabilities, Jacuzzi serves as the liaison with the State Rehabilitation Advisory Council. The advisory group monitors centers for independent living, defined in the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as a “consumer-controlled, community-based, cross-disability, nonresidential private nonprofit agency operated by individuals with disabilities.”
The advisory group reports to the federal Rehabilitation Services Administration, which oversees grant programs that help individuals with physical or mental disabilities to obtain employment and live more independently, providing counseling, medical and psychological services, job training and other individualized services.
The concept of the independent living centers is to provide outreach and advocacy and to promote and facilitate independent living for people with physical and mental disabilities, rather than housing them in institutions. They focus on places to live, transportation, education and jobs, Jacuzzi says.
A hot-button issue continues to center on emergency management preparedness, particularly since the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, Jacuzzi says.
“The issue, with respect to older people or severely disabled people, is giving them more options so they do not always have to be housed and live in very restrictive nursing homes or care facilities but rather are able to stay at home and live independently,” he says.
Jacuzzi suggests that perhaps some of the funds that are provided to assist someone in a nursing home could go directly to the disabled person at home so a personal caregiver could be hired.
One in five will be affected
Another issue, Jacuzzi says, is to get more people with disabilities to vote. “Because we have been notoriously one of the lower groups in terms of voter turnout, we are making an effort through organizations like the Statewide Independent Living Council and centers for independent living to change that,” he says.
“The voting bloc of people with disabilities is huge. As a group of those with mental and physical disabilities, you’re talking about nearly 20 percent of the population. One out of five. A disability of some nature will affect at least one person in a family. It’s very important to come to that realization.”
Activities of the State Rehabilitation and Advisory Council are similar to those of the Statewide Independent Living Council, with an emphasis on vocational rehabilitation programs that help people with disabilities, including disabled military veterans, become able to work and to get a job.
“Obviously if a person is better educated and employable and can get a job, you’re much more likely to be able to live independently,” Jacuzzi says.
Jacuzzi’s job as executive director of the Arizona Office for Americans with Disabilities fits nicely with his volunteer roles. The office, which is part of the Department of Administration, was created in 1991 by then-Gov. Fife Symington, and formalized in 1993 by a Symington executive order in response to a federal mandate under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Jacuzzi launched the Arizona ADA operation in the Governor’s Office, devised a strategic plan, left several years ago, and subsequently returned.
“The office is here, first and foremost, to help the state of Arizona and its agencies and programs to be in compliance with requirements of the ADA and related disability laws, like the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Jacuzzi said. “That’s what we’re all about with respect to the state of Arizona.
“We’re also mandated by the executive order to offer assistance, advice, referrals, and training presentations to the general consumer market, which includes cities and counties, businesses, and in some cases individuals or small organizations.”
The two-person office takes a lot of phone calls and e-mails daily from the public.
“We hear from individuals who have issues with respect to a disability or an employment accommodation or education requirements and opportunities,” Jacuzzi says. “Usually it’s a parent, a mother or a teacher who have questions about students with disabilities, such as children with more severe disabilities —  physical or cognitive. Many have developmental disabilities, shortcomings in communications. Many require a personal care assistant during the school day to help them carry books, take notes, assist in toileting care and in some cases feed them.”
Parents who have a di
sabled student nearing high school graduation often express their concerns. “They want to know what happens now,” Jacuzzi says. “They won’t be subsidized anymore and they want to know who is going to pay for their higher education, if they can actually get a higher education. That’s where many people don’t know, including teachers, that vocational rehabilitation kicks in.”
Often that training can be subsidized in great part by the federal Rehabilitation Services Administration, which is within the U.S. Department of Education.
Jacuzzi knows of a young woman, also a victim of rheumatoid arthritis, who attended the University of Arizona Medical School, with assistance through a federal vocational program.
“There are many different levels of education if a person can be qualified for their choice of career,” he says.
His office also works with individual employees and their supervisors seeking advice on accommodations for an employee who may have become recently disabled.
Critical mediation services
“We just had a case this morning that I co-mediated with the Governor’s Office of Equal Opportunity,” Jacuzzi says. “It was between a state agency and one of its employees. Most mediations are two-to-three hours. This one took over five hours, and it turned out to be successful.”
Mediating such disputes is a key role for Jacuzzi’s office.
“It’s very critical to avoid such ugly things as lawsuits and big expenditures on both sides of the fence by the state and its agencies, and the employees represented by the attorney general or by the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). Somebody ultimately has got to pay the bill.”
This office has been in existence for 16 years. “It’s one of those federal mandates because of the ADA, but there is no federal funding going along with that mandate,” Jacuzzi says. “For whatever reason, the executive order of governor has never been converted into Arizona state law. If it were, it would be a line item in the budget. If that happened we would always have basic funding for the office.”
Funding tight
Now, the office receives various federal grants through the Arizona Department of Economic Security, but with belt-tightening in Washington, funding has been dropping, he says. To carry out its mission, Jacuzzi says the office should have a minimum of four employees. The only other employee now is Sherrill Cramer.
“We seem to be continuously behind,” he says. “We’ve been working a lot more than the standard 40 hours a week. After 16 years, the time has come”
Skydiving at 60
Six years ago, the time came for Jacuzzi to fulfill a life-long yearning. A friend asked him what he wanted for his 60th birthday. “I said I always wanted to skydive,” Jacuzzi says. “He arranged it and I couldn’t back out.”
Pictures on his office wall show Jacuzzi in the midst of his descent over Eloy. Making the dive in tandem with another man, they left the plane at 13,000 feet, free-fell 8,000 feet, and the chute opened at about 5,000 feet, he says.
Was he feeling anxious at the time? “A little bit,“ he says, “but I was ready. I was all hyped up for it. We were falling at about 130 miles an hour. It’s like riding pretty fast on a motorcycle. When the chute opens you don’t get wind noise anymore. Everything goes silent, and you’re coming down at about 35 miles an hour.”
On the way down, his diving partner pointed to Phoenix in one direction and Tucson in another. “Birds were flying around,” Jacuzzi says. “It’s the neatest damn thing. I never wanted it to end.”
Diving in tandem wasn’t difficult for the other man, Jacuzzi says, “because I’m a little shrimp.”
That turned out to be his one and only skydive. “Afterward my doctor had me do an MRI on my neck, and he said, ‘If had known these results, Ken, I would not have let you jump.’ ”
Jacuzzi’s motto posted on his Web site says it all: “Regardless of the curveball you are thrown, life is worth it!”