Listen to Henter Interview, Part 2
Ted Henter: After high school. We went together during high school, but the summer after our graduation, we were both going away to college, she went to Boston, I went to L.A. So we knew that was kind of like we were splitting up. Neither one of us had plans to get married and settle down right out of high school. There was a whole world out there and we wanted to go to college, and all that sort of stuff.
Yeah, so we had a long distance romance going on for a long time and saw each other as often as we could, which usually meant Christmastime and in the summertime.
We were only away for a year that first year. Then I went back and did a year of junior college. She was back there then too so we saw each other then and then I went away. So there was a lot of time when we didn't see each other.
So it wasn't until 1976 that we got married. But in '75 we started realizing, this is not working out. We've either got to take the plunge or forget about it. So we decided to get married.
Tony Candela: So you got married and she had a job and you were racing.
Ted Henter: Yeah, but my career wasn't going off all that well. I was doing a lot of racing but there wasn't a lot of money.
And one mistake I made in my racing career is I should have moved out to California, because that was the hotbed of motorcycle racing back in those days. And still is, probably. Cause I could have gone to work out there, done a lot of racing and progressed. Got to know the right people, which is always very important. Especially in something like motorcycle racing, because motorcycles aren't cheap. And to win races you've got to be connected to the factory. At least it helps to be connected to the factory, and that's where everything was happening was California.
But I stuck around here in Florida and Georgia and kind of just struggled on. Not too much of interest to talk about there. But I learned an awful lot about racing bikes that has benefited me in my business career.
Like I was saying before, I listened to what other people were trying to tell you. Another thing was don't swing for the fences. You don't get to get first place every time. That was a problem with me, why I crashed a lot, because I always tried to go faster than I should have been going.
And I realized that you have to finish to win. Those are important lessons that are very useful in business and in software development.
Tony Candela: Did you get another job, as an engineer, during this period?
Ted Henter: No. That one ten-month stint at CF Industries was it. I worked in this hi-fi store, selling hi-fi equipment and doing some installations. Doing car stereo installations, that sort of thing.
Not much exciting to talk about there.
Tony Candela: And I'm going to assume you were completely away from computers, during this time.
Ted Henter: Yes. I did not operate them. I didn't have one, nothing. Because that was when the Apple II first came out, the mid-70s, I think.
Tony Candela: A little later.
Ted Henter: The business was actually thinking about getting one, the hi-fi store. To do the books and stuff.
Tony Candela: So, in effect, you worked your way up the racing ladder and got to England.
Ted Henter: Yeah, in a manner of speaking.
I'd done a couple of World Championship races prior to the 1978 season. But in '78 I decided, I've got to make this thing happen or give up racing.
And I was at the top of the ladder—well, not at the top, but I was in the top five or ten, on any given day, here in the U.S.
And in the bigger races, like Daytona, we'd have all the Europeans come over. So I had raced against those guys and had done well.
Since I knew that I had enough talent and experience to win, but there was a lot more to it than that. So anyhow, I felt I had the important ingredients. I just had to get the rest of the things together. Like the money, the equipment, the support, and the luck. So much just depends on good fortune.
So I won a big race in Palm Beach at the beginning of that year. Beat the guy who later became a several time World Champion named Freddie Spencer. And then I was fourth at Daytona that year. A very smart race that I ran. I could have gone faster but I had made up my mind I wasn't going to crash and you had to finish to win. So I was relatively conservative and got fourth.
Then I went to Venezuela for the first round of the World Championship. I had terrible, terrible conditions. I was doing my own mechanical work and everything. I had an eighth place against the best in the world. And then I went to England, where I had a friend, Barry Woodland, and I was staying at his apartment and getting things ready to go to the first European race, which was going to be in Spain.
Tony Candela: So you were in England to prepare?
Ted Henter: To prepare. To get ready. The bikes were being shipped over and things like that.
So I was at the racetrack. I wasn't actually racing that day but I was talking to my friends and figuring out who was who, and who you have to know and what you have to know, and all that sort of stuff.
And I was coming home from the racetrack that evening, driving a little rent-a-car, by myself, on one of those dark country roads. No lights. No traffic. Nothing.
I was driving along, not paying attention to anything, daydreaming, thinking about the day, I don't know what I was thinking about but I was daydreaming. And I noticed that there was a car coming the other way but I didn't pay any attention to it.
Then I noticed the car is right in front of me, and that's when I realized, "Oh, I'm supposed to be driving on the left side of the road." And I was driving on the right, like an American.
Tony Candela: Is that what happened?
Ted Henter: That's what happened.
You may never have experienced this, Tony, but when you're driving a car, at night, you look ahead, you see if there are headlights coming. You can't tell if they're going to pass you on the left or pass you on the right. You can't tell, because when you do pass, you're maybe three feet apart. With no street lights, no traffic, everything was dark, there was no white lines, nothing. You don't know, I never realized it. It's a common thing.
What you just expect as the car gets closer, it's going to zoom by on your left. Well, I totally forgot I was supposed to be driving on the left and so at the last instant I realized, "Oops. The car is right in front of me."
So I swerved to the right, instinctively, like an American would have. Englishmen, they instinctively swerve to the left. So we still met head on.
And as the accident was happening, I knew I'd made a mistake and I realized, "Oh, my gosh. This is going to be a long journey before I recover from this." I just had that feeling.
As the accident was happening, as I thought I was going through the air, it turns out I never left the car, I just broke the windshield but as I thought I was traveling through the air, 'cause I've had lots of accidents, as I told you, on my motorcycle, and as you're flying through the air, sliding along the ground, you're just thinking, you're wondering, because time passes very slowly when you're in a situation like that.
But I just had this warm feeling and I knew that God was right there with me. I sincerely believe that Jesus, or an angel, was right there. Because I was at peace. I was very calm. I was very relaxed.
And I'd been a Christian for about four years, at that point in time, and I just had this good feeling even though I was right in the middle of this accident. And I figured I was going to get seriously injured, but I figured I would survive, also. I had no concerns.
Tony Candela: You'd become a Christian only four years earlier?
Ted Henter: Yeah. When I had that job as an engineer at that phosphate fertilizer plant. That's another one of those things that I should come back to. But good things just have happened to me.
So while the accident was happening I had this warm feeling. I went unconscious. I woke up a few minutes later. The emergency crew was already there. They heard the accident back at the racetrack. Of course they had emergency crews at the racetrack. They rushed out. And I woke up. I couldn't see nothing. It was pitch black. I didn't understand that and I started reaching out. I figured I was still in the car but there's no windshield. I cut my hand on the jagged edge of the windshield.
Turns out my face had actually broken the windshield. The emergency crew was trying to get in the car, in the side door to get me out. I switched off the ignition. Because in all my years of racing, but racing motorcycle don't have ignitions. Because in a car, when you're in a car accident, you're supposed to switch off the ignition so it doesn't ignite the gasoline. I always knew that.
The only time I'd been in a car accident where I could do it, so I switched off the ignition. I was very calm, cool, and collected. They got me in the ambulance. I was talking to them along the way. I got to this hospital. I had to check myself in, you know, sign a consent form for medical treatment and what not.
And I could hear the other people. They were screaming and hollering, but they weren't seriously injured, thank God. There was four people in the other car and they were wearing seat belts. They were not seriously injured. They did go to the hospital. I think they spent the night in the hospital but they got out the next day.
And why I wasn't wearing my seat belt, which was another one of those little things that have happened that have changed my life. Because being a racer, I was very conscious of safety and of seat belts. I almost always wore seat belts. But just that night I didn't.
So that was the start of my career as a blind person.
Tony Candela: How were you physically, as you were checking yourself in and they were asking you to sign a paper? Obviously, at that point, you couldn't see. How was the rest of your body?
Ted Henter: I had broken my kneecap, on my right leg, and so I had some pain there. Those types of pains never bother me because I've had plenty of 'em.
So anyway, I was injured. I knew my right leg was broken, or something was wrong with it, I didn't know what.
I knew my face was kinda messed up, because I could touch it and feel it. It had glass in it. Actually, I had 80 stitches in my face later on.
At that point in time, I was checking myself in the hospital. I was lying on a stretcher, of course I wasn't walking. I could tell there was something wrong with my face. I couldn't see. I figured there was a lot of blood or something in my eyes. And that's about it. I didn't have what I would term "serious" injuries, life-threatening injuries. I figured, "I'll be out of here in a couple of days or a week."
Tony Candela: You fully expected, at that moment in time, that you'd bounce back the way you'd bounced back before.
Ted Henter: Yeah. I figured I might have to miss the next race. I think the first race in Spain was the next week. I figured, "Maybe I'll have to miss that race." But I had no clue as to how "serious" or long lasting my injuries were going to be. And what effect it would have.
Tony Candela: Do you feel they treated you well in the hospital?
Ted Henter: Oh, very well. Extremely well.
But you know their technology was very primitive. Socialized medicine, they had great people, great doctors, great nurses, but they had no technology.
They couldn't figure out that I had detached retinas. It took them three weeks to figure that out.
And then I had to go to this other place and they did some very primitive tests. And they said, "Oh yeah, you have detached retinas."
When I finally came back to the States, I walked into the doctor's office in Miami, the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, within three minutes they said, "Yup, you've got detached retinas." They just hooked up this machine, looked in my eyes and they could see it.
The technology in England, at least in the public hospital where I was, was very primitive. I was in the same hospital where Jimi Hendrix died. St. Mary's Hospital, Goodwood, England, which is south of London.
I was there for six weeks, 'cause I was not only recovering, they were trying to figure out why I couldn't see, I was recovering from my knee injury. They wanted me to get good enough to where I could travel.
But there were things that happened, when I became this engineer at this phosphate fertilizer plant, and while I was there, I met a christian who was a draftsman and I got interested in some things he was saying. I read some parts of the Bible. I went to a revival and I got saved, or born again, as they say. Which was a huge revelation to me because I didn't know, I was not raised in a church and all this was new to me, that Jesus died for us. And you can live forever if you accept that. And that was all new to me and quite amazing.
Tony Candela: Had you had no religious upbringing at all?
Ted Henter: I'd been to church many times. Went to Sunday school, and all that. But I never heard that message. It probably came in my ears, came in one ear and out the other. But I didn't realize that that was the story of the Bible. I never realized it until I met this guy Bob Banner, and got interested in what he was saying.
Of course, at that point, the Holy Spirit was pushing me on. This is what I believed the way it works. And then I got saved in this little country church in Zephyr Hills.
So that's the big thing that happened in my engineering career at the phosphate fertilizer plant. It was one of those turns in life. I got the job. I never wanted to be an engineer in a phosphate fertilizer plant, but it was the first job that came along. I met this guy and all these little things combined to have this effect.
Which had I not been a christian when I had that car accident and been blinded, I would have been a mess.
Tony Candela: When you were saved, did you notice your racing change, did you have a different mental attitude? Any thing like that along the way?
Ted Henter: Actually, now that you mention it, I did. I can look back and see it because when I finally did get saved and realized all these other things that happen in the world, I didn't just happen by accident. Up until then I figured evolution was the way things were. But then I realized that I was actually created by a loving Creator.
I began to realize how stupid it was to race motorcycles. What's the point of motorcycle racing? And that's what I'd devoted my life to and so I began to realize that, in the back of my mind, that there's more to life than this. What am I doing here? Why am I here? This motorcycle racing is not something I can really be proud of.
Tony Candela: Did you have any ideas what else you might be doing instead of that?
Ted Henter: I think, I don't know what specifically, was leading me to believe there was something bigger and more important. A better reason for me to be here on earth.
But I do recall realizing that this motorcycle racing is kind of a trivial thing. But I was still committed to it, focused on it, but I was beginning to have that change.
Tony Candela: So thoughts of retirement were in your mind, at some level?
Ted Henter: Yeah. I could definitely see the end of my racing career was in sight, a few years ahead. What I was hoping was that I'd have a successful year or two, maybe three at the most, in Europe. Then I would be even better connected for the rest of my career, which would be in designing cars or maybe even motorcycles.
Or maybe team management and things like that. If you're a successful racer, as you get older, then you become like a mentor, team managers and stuff like that. Some people do.
Tony Candela: Had you ever done any of that? Any mentoring?
Ted Henter: Yes. I had done quite a bit, actually, as a racer. I had taught classes. Shown people how you're supposed to go around the turns on the motorcycle. I had helped a lot of people make a motorcycle faster, because I was a pretty good mechanic. And half the time I was doing my own mechanical work. And racing mechanics is different from just this piece goes here and then you put this piece here and then you tighten it up to 20 foot pounds. It's tuning the motorcycle to make it go faster. So you've got to adjust the timing and the gas mixture of the carburation. Lots of things like that. Plus the tuning of the suspension, the tires, the tire pressure. There's a lot of things involved.
Tony Candela: And they all have to be working in synergy with each other?
Ted Henter: Yeah. And if you go too far one direction, like advance the timing too much or lean out the fuel mixture too much, then the motorcycle blows up or breaks. Which is not what you're after.
There's a fine line there between falling off the motorcycle or going fast enough to win, and also, tuning the engine to where it goes fast but doesn't break.
Tony Candela: I get the feeling that motorcycle racing is a combination of pushing a machine to its ultimate and pushing the human to his or her ultimate, both at the same time.
Ted Henter: At the same time. Both got to be working just right to do well.
Tony Candela: Did you ever coach on the human side of things, I'll call it Human Factors Engineering, to put it into a framework. How to have a right mental attitude, physical abilities, that kind of thing?
Ted Henter: At that point no, I really didn't. I wasn't too much into that myself, so, after being blinded and learning about it, I learned about the mental attitude and the physical training and all that.
When I was racing, I was young. I was pretty fit. I didn't spend hardly any time in a gym and I didn't eat well. I wasn't on a real healthy diet. But all that stuff, I was still fit enough to race. So I really didn't get into that.
You're talking the mid '70's, there wasn't a lot of that training in that sport at the time. It is now. It's very serious now. Like all the other sports have stepped up professionally. But myself and my peers, we did very little of that.
Tony Candela: So, in the midst of the accident you were feeling protected by higher powers. So the Saving really did save you, in a sense?
Ted Henter: Yes, it did. It gave me comfort in the accident and in recovery. Once I recovered from the surgery, that evening, they put me out, unconscious, and I had surgery. They stitched up my face and my eyeballs. They had like 13 stitches in each eyeball.
I woke up the next day sometime. I still couldn't see of course and nobody told me what was going on. Finally, somebody comes by and sort of explained what had happened, as far as the surgery goes.
But they still didn't think I was going to be blind. They did say that one eye was damaged in the accident by the glass. But the other eye, they thought would recover.
By this point in time, I'm laying there, I'm all alone. I had some friends in England which had come to visit me but my wife and family were not there. And I was relying pretty heavily on my belief in Jesus and in God and so I was pretty comforted. I really believed that things had worked out.
As time went on, they told me how serious my injuries to my eye was and I needed to have an operation. I still believe that the operation would be successful.
I did have an operation, six or seven weeks after the accident. And the operation was successful. They reattached the retina in a very experimental surgery, for those days. And I started recovering my sight, in one eye. It was very, very primitive sight. First there was just light and then I could actually see colors and after about six weeks, I got to the point where I could sort of recognize people, like my wife. But it was getting better every day.
Tony Candela: So she got there, by that point?
Ted Henter: She came to England and helped me, in the hospital there. But then we came back here to the States to have the operation.
And I was recovering. But they told me, after about six weeks after the retina operation, that's the critical period because due to the scar tissue formation, the retina might come off. Sure enough, I went back for a checkup after six weeks. I visited my friends at a racetrack in Palm Beach, I think it must have been a Sunday. I was doing real good, I was recovering my sight, I was walking around. I went to the hospital on Monday and they stuck that bright light in my eye to see what was going on, and I believe that that caused part of the trauma to that retina and the retina, within hours, had fallen off again.
Tony Candela: My goodness.
Ted Henter: After the hospital, I went to a restaurant to have lunch and was going to drive home. That's a four or five hour drive back to St. Pete. We were in Miami. And I walked into the restaurant, I couldn't see very well. I couldn't see very well anyways, but it was worse than it had been.
And on the way home, the retina became detached again. So I went back for another emergency operation. It was not successful. When I recovered from that operation, the second one, I couldn't see at all. It was dark, like it had been, whereas the previous operation it was light.
And I realized then, although nobody told me, that it was not successful and I was going to be blind.
So then I had literally ten minutes of despair. And then I realized, I got that warm feeling again. There have been blind people for millennia. They survived. They've been successful. I'm sure that I can be successful too. I just got to figure out how to do it. I'm not going to be racing any more and I'm not going to be an engineer, probably. Actually, I didn't come to that realization but I knew I wasn't going to be racing. So I said, "Well, I'm just going to have to figure out how to make this work."
Tony Candela: How did you feel when you said to yourself, "I'm not going to be racing anymore?"
Ted Henter: That was the toughest thing to get over. That's what I missed the most. The racing, the thrills and that whole environment. The racing, the mechanical things and the motors, the engines, the speed, the thrills. I really missed it. It took me years to get over that.
That was very difficult to give up. I had to face the fact that I had no choice. And I had God to guide me. I had this belief that God wasn't going to give me something I couldn't handle.
So I felt certain that I would be successful. I would be okay. I would be able to handle it emotionally, because I had this belief and understanding that God wouldn't give me something that I couldn't do. And that's in the Bible.
Tony Candela: What year did you lose your sight?
Ted Henter: '78. April '78.
Tony Candela: How did Mel react?
Ted Henter: Well, very well actually, considering. She jumped right in there and helped me to recover from the injuries, initially, before the operation. She took up a lot of the slack in our family life. She got a job. She was very supportive, emotionally and physically.
She stuck with me, as far as I know, in that none of this decision about well, should we get a divorce or not? I'm out of here. None of that stuff. I'm sure it occurred to her but it never surfaced. She stuck with me and I'm very thankful for that.
Cause at that point in time I didn't need those kinds of issues to deal with.
Tony Candela: Your first daughter was not yet born, right?
Ted Henter: No. It was just her and I.
I had a strong family support. My parents lived here in St. Pete. Her brothers and sisters lived here in St. Pete. We had a lot of family around us to help out. Like when we needed a new roof on the house, the family got together and did it. Things like that.
But, it was tough. I'm not trying to say it wasn't tough. It was very tough times. There was a lot of adjusting on both our parts. But there was never any doubt in my mind that things were going to work out. Those emotional issues I recovered from very quickly, I'm sure because of my Christian beliefs.
And I'm also sure that the support from my wife and family helped a lot too.
And my natural self-confidence and I don't know what it was but I wasn't a 13-year-old kid. I was a 27 year old adult. I had seen the world. I had risked my life racing motorcycles. I had overcome a lot of difficulties in the past with injuries. I had competed at a world level, a world championship level.
So this was just another, not necessarily competition, but another challenge to overcome. So I was quite confident that I was going to make it. Although I must admit, I went through some very unhappy days, back in those days.
Tony Candela: Was there a period of time where you had so much time on your hands that you were able to think about all this?
Ted Henter: Yeah.
Tony Candela: How long did it last for?
Ted Henter: Oh, months.
When I first got back here to St. Pete, after the operations and all, I was working and I couldn't read Braille, I wasn't getting magazines on tape. Well the magazine I wanted, I couldn't get on tape. I didn't have any friends that were blind. I didn't know anything. I wasn't hooked up. I spent a lot of time listening to music. Sitting there in my house, listening to music. Trying to figure out, "What am I going to do?"
I also had an injury to my legs. I wasn't out walking around the neighborhood or anything like that either. I was learning cane travel. I was learning Braille.
Tony Candela: How did that all get set up for you?
Ted Henter: Division of Blind Services, here in Florida. They have a good system there and I got connected with them and they send a person over to teach me cane travel.
Tony Candela: Do you remember any key people from that period?
Ted Henter: Yeah. I'll think of their names in a minute. But very important people that helped me out.
Tony Candela: Did you take to the skills training? Was it something that you embraced or were you kind of hiding it? How did that go?
Ted Henter: I was very frustrated with all the skills training. Cause having been blind [sighted], having been able to jump on a motorcycle and go fast, it was quite a shock to have to walk around the neighborhood with a cane. It was extremely frustrating.
Tony Candela: Having it easy, as it were. Now having it hard.
Ted Henter: And then being used to getting a magazine in the mail, flip through it, looking at all the pictures of all the cars and motorcycles and read the articles and all that. And then reading it all in Braille. It was really frustrating. It was really tough.
And to this day, I'm a lousy Braille reader. But at least I've got a talking computer. If I want to read something, I can.
Tony Candela: So that's what motivated you. So we can say that Braille motivated you to create talking software.
Ted Henter: A huge part of it.
Tony Candela: It is the common experience of folks who have learned Braille in adulthood. That it's a tougher road to hoe.
Ted Henter: Yeah. So then in that recovery period, I had two inventions that I had, actually that I had just thought of at that point in time. So I worked toward getting them patented. One's a wheel alignment tool for motorcycles and one is a suspension system for motorcycles.
So I figured out a very primitive way to do some very primitive drawings using a T-square and rulers and, what are those things called, protractors and pins I could stick in the paper. I got drawings good enough to go to an attorney and get another person to draw them up and apply for a patent. So I had patents on this line of tools and the suspension system.
So then, I had a workshop with my mechanic, Herb Hitch, and my dad. We had a little workshop where we worked on the bikes and stuff. And we set about building this wheel alignment tool, which was an experience in itself. So for about a year, I operated the machine tools. Being blind, I operated the drill press and the mill. I didn't operate the lathe. Herb did that.
But we figured out ways to actually build this wheel alignment tool. And I actually sold hundreds of them. I think like 500 of them, around the world, to motorcycle racers and motorcycle shops.
Tony Candela: Does it have your name attached to it?
Ted Henter: Yes. The Henter Wheel Alignment Tool.
And to this day, I've been told, every year at Bonneville Salt Flats they have the World Land Speed Record event. And you'll see one or two of my wheel alignment tools there.
Tony Candela: That's where they put jet engines on the backs of motorcycles and cars and let them fly.
Ted Henter: Real crazy stuff.
Tony Candela: So to this day, is that tool being used to truly align wheels?
Ted Henter: That might be stretching it, but yes, I've been told that. Every once in awhile I hear somebody, "I was at Bonneville and I saw the Henter Wheel Alignment Tool." And my friends, I have some friends still involved in racing as interested spectators. It's still out there. It's still being made. There's a company in Clearwater that's making it now, because we sold it, after a while, we sold it to them. They make them but they're not making a lot of them.
Also back then, 25 years ago, the tires were much narrower. That tool will not fit on most of the motorcycle tires that are out there today. And there's other ways, alignment tools. But this had some clever things.
Tony Candela: You said there were two inventions.
Ted Henter: My hydraulic suspension system. That never materialized as anything other than a patent.
So building and selling this wheel alignment tool, I learned a lot in those days too. But it was never successful as a business. It was more difficult to build accurately than we anticipated and we were selling it too cheap and we never made any money.
So I'm working in this machine shop, basically, operating a drill press and I'm thinking to myself, "This is really not for me. I gotta do something more than this, drilling holes in metal was not what I wanted to do for the next ten years."
So that's when I decided to go back to college and learn to be a computer programmer.
Tony Candela: Now before we get there, who do you recall, if anyone, was the first blind person you ever met?
Ted Henter: I can't recall.
Tony Candela: Was it one of those skills trainers, perhaps, that came to teach you Braille?
Ted Henter: No, they were sighted.
I don't recall meeting a blind person.
Tony Candela: There are people in certain philosophies within the blindness world that would say that could have been part of your frustration. You didn't have blind people around you.
Ted Henter: I clearly see today the benefit of mentors and experienced blind people guiding inexperienced blind people. I certainly wish I had had those influences at that point in time.
But the first person from Division of Blind Services was sighted. I think the first guy I met was a vendor at the government building, down town. I don't recall his name. But yeah, I had very little to go on, as far as careers and a mentor. It would have been very helpful if I had had someone like that.
Tony Candela: It is also possible that you could have gotten steered in a different direction from some of these blind people. Cause the direction you went in, shall we say, was non-traditional.
Ted Henter: My counselor at DBS told me, "It seems like computer programming is becoming a popular career for blind people." And I think he rattled off a few names, I'm not sure. It sounded good to me. I'd already had a college degree. Computers were the big thing. In the late '70's everybody was saying that.
And there was also, I could go back to school. I didn't have to get at job. That was always a positive thing. By then I was getting SSDI payments. So I wasn't starving. My wife had a job. I had some insurance money. I had an insurance policy that paid off.
That was a funny thing. Not funny, but fortunate things that happened for me. When I was in college, an insurance guy came along and sold me a Life Insurance policy. Most people in college, single people, they don't need a Life Insurance policy. But I bought a $20,000 life insurance policy.
And just so happens, if you are blinded in one eye, it also pays $20,000. But if you're blinded in both eyes, it paid $80,000. So, unbeknownst to me, at some point I figure out, "Hey, I've got this insurance policy."
You know what it was, when I was going through the operations and all that, I contacted the insurance policy, "I'm blind in one eye and I'm going to recover in the other eye, so start processing the paperwork." And the guy says, "Let's wait and see how you do in the other eye." "Don't worry about the other eye. It's going to recover. Just process the paperwork." He said, "No, we'll wait."
So they waited and unfortunately or fortunately, however you look at it, the other eye didn't make it. So they paid off and so I had some money to live on. I wasn't forced to get a job and go to work right away.
Another very positive thing that just turned out to be a very good thing for me.
Tony Candela: And today there's a lot more pressure on the systems out there to push people back to work faster. Money is tighter. So it would not have precluded rehabilitation, even today. But it's good that you had some time to kind of feel your way around and find your thing to do.
Ted Henter: Yeah. It was a very positive thing.
I can tell you, I've been very blessed, all along the way. Things have worked out very well for me. And it was the little things that helped.
Tony Candela: How did you decide what school to go to?
Ted Henter: That's another interesting story. Another one of those road signs in the road of life.
I figured, "Okay, if I'm going to be a computer programmer, I want a Computer Science degree. I want to go all the way." So I went to the University of South Florida over in Tampa, and I talked to the Deane of the College of Computer Science, or whatever it was back then, I forget. I don't remember this gentleman's name.
But I went there with my counselor and we're sitting there talking to him and after the intros he pretty much said, "Well we don't want any blind people in our classes, because they slow everybody down." And then he proceeded to tell me a story about how he had a blind guy in the lab and it took up a lot of his time and it slowed everybody down.
Well I was shocked. This was my first experience with discrimination. I was shocked. And I was in a relatively weak state, emotionally, anyway, so I didn't get up and punch him in the face, which I should have done. But I was shocked. I was rocked back on my heels and I didn't say much and I kind of left there with my tail between my legs. And I was very discouraged, depressed, disappointed.
But by the time I got home, I thought, "Well the heck with him. I'm going to go to this other campus and see if I like computer programming. Which is what I did. There was a USF campus here in St. Petersburg and so I proceeded to enroll there and took a few courses. I ended up taking about eight courses all together and I got straight A's, 4.0 average.
But of course in those days, there was no Assistive Technology, at least not what I had at that school, so I had to have a volunteer. Occasionally I had a volunteer in class read me or actually write down what I told him to write down. But I also had a paid assistant, paid by the Division of Blind Services, to read the books to me and things like that.
So I struggled through but made it and got straight A's.
Tony Candela: Back in those days when they were teaching programming, they were using, maybe they still do, flow charts. Did you have to handle flow charts?
Ted Henter: Yeah. But I had a sighted assistant, typically another classmate. So I had to picture it in my mind and understand. I had no tactile stuff to help with. None at all.
But it was fairly simple too. Because these were all beginning programming courses. And I had actually seen a flow chart before, in my college career. So I sort of knew what it was.
It was difficult and I worked very hard at it. But that's why I was successful. Because I worked very hard at it. I'm sure I put in three times as much time as anybody else did but I got straight A's too, which was a good thing.
Tony Candela: Did you hit any major snags along the way?
Ted Henter: No. Not that I recall. Cause a lot of the stuff I didn't totally understand. They teach you to do this, do that and do the other thing. But I didn't understand. I didn't have the overview of how all this stuff worked. I just knew the task in front of me and that's what I succeeded at.
But I met some nice people along the way and had a very nice experience at college. But all the while, I had this self-induced pressure to get a job. By then I'd made up my mind that I don't want to do this for another four years and get a college degree in computers. I want a job.
Tony Candela: So how long did it take you to go through the program?
Ted Henter: I think I spent about two years there. But see, it was night courses mostly. Because I was still working in the machine shop, making these wheel alignment tools and I was going to school in the evenings. And then when I actually got the job, I was still going to school in the evenings. And that campus, at that time, was focused on career people that had to work during the day.
Tony Candela: So what was your first job?
Ted Henter: Well, another one of those fortunate happenings, my wife was a paralegal, working for an attorney. And the attorney's husband owned several hotels on the beach here at St. Pete. I think what happened was my wife became friends with her boss and we had them over for dinner one night and we started talking about my inventions and this and that and the other thing, this other guy and I. Jeff Fortune is his name.
And we got sort of friendly that evening and he was interested in my inventions. He was an inventor himself. He'd had a couple patents. He was working on a patent that he asked me some questions about. So he came to learn of my success at school and my ambitions to be a programmer. He had a computer himself and was developing software and he offered me a job. Just like that. In about two weeks, he offered me a job.
Of course we had the discussion, "How are you going to do it?" "Well I don't know. So then I set about finding out what kind of technology was available. And I found out there printers that would hook up to a computer and this guy up in Maryland, Deane Blazie, had this talking computer that had just been invented. And the Division of Blind Services offered to buy one of each for me. They spent, I think it was $13,000 on that equipment.
And so I explained this all to Jeff Fortune and he said, "Come on. We'll pay you this much, but we know you're learning." So we worked out a deal. I told him I would charge only for the hours that I was actually productive. So I didn't get paid very much that first year, because I was not very productive, but I had a lot to learn.
But there was another guy, Paul Benkin, who was a very experienced Systems Analyst and Software Designer and programmer and I spent hours with him and I kind of soaked in as much as I could.
Tony Candela: How did you first find out about Deane Blazie?
Ted Henter: My friends at the Division of Blind Services, they told me there was some guy that had this computer terminal that would talk, up in Maryland. So I said, "I'll take one of them." So they bought that for me. It was 6,000 bucks.
I believe it was the winter of '80, about the winter of '80. So Deane had a software company up there and he was kind of making these talking computers on the side, based on influence from Tim Cranmer, which I'm sure you've heard a lot about from Deane's history.
So he figures, "Hey, let's go to Florida." So he came and delivered it himself. Him and his wife. It was a computer, a Hewlett Packard computer terminal. It's called TotalTalk. I forget what it was called. But it wouldn't actually talk. It would only spell.
So as the words come up on the screen, it doesn't speak like JAWS does, for example. It would just spell each letter.
I think it was called T-Term. It was a Hewlett Packard terminal that would just spell. It wouldn't actually talk.
Later on they did an upgrade on it and it became TotalTalk. But initially, I believe, it was T-term.
So Deane came down and delivered. I met him. He came to the hotel where I was working and installed it and gave me about an hour's worth of training on it. And that was it. Then he went back to Maryland.
But, of course, being inexperienced, untrained, I would call him up as often as I could and ask him questions. That was the tech support. So I got to know the folks up there: Deane and Mike Romeo. They were the two guys mainly involved in this part of the business. Because the rest of the business was developing software for other Hewlett Packard machines, not assistive technology.
It was great, getting to meet those guys. And I used that product successfully. Then I got it upgraded to the TotalTalk, which would actually speak the words as opposed to just spelling.
So I was doing a pretty good job there as a programmer. I had learned a lot, listening to the other programmers and soaking up as much as I could. I worked very hard at it. As I think back, I kind of whizzed through that but it was very difficult. It was a struggle.
Not only to do the job and to learn, because very little of the information was accessible. It was all in books.
Also, the emotional impact. I'd hear these guys talking about the jobs that they had had and what they were going to do next. The chief guy was going out in a sailboat all the time. I was really struggling to make a living and I just felt that I would never have that kind of success in the industry. I'd always be kind of a low level programmer. And I always felt that economic success was going to be beyond my reach. Cause from where I was at the time, it looked like a long ways to go to get there. Cause I didn't have a college degree in that field. It looked like a real tough thing to do.
So I was really not happy, in those days. It was a struggle. No doubt about it.
But it was only for a year and a half that I struggled and then, because I was probably the best known TotalTalk user, because of my persistence on the tech support line, Deane asked me to come up and demonstrate TotalTalk at a show. I think Radio Shack had a contest for the best-computerized technology to help disabled people.
And so there was a show, up there in Maryland. So I said, "I'd like to do that." So we made a little vacation out of it, both Mel and I and our 6-month old daughter, Emley went up to Maryland for the weekend. It was a nice vacation. Get out of town. I could work during the weekend and Mel could do other stuff.
So I got to know the guys up there and worked the show and had a great time. And then before we left, Deane offered me a job. We were out to dinner and he offered me a job. Mel wasn't there. I think she was taking care of the baby, or something.
And I said, "Well, thanks, but no thanks. There's no way I'm going to get my wife to move out of Florida and move away from her family. She just had a baby and it was a tough time."
Tony Candela: What was the job that he offered you?
Ted Henter: Developing software for the talking computer.
Tony Candela: Were you paying attention...first it was only spelling and then it evolved and it was now saying words. Were you paying much attention to what was going on behind the scenes, at that point?
Ted Henter: Yeah, in a sense. I was constantly coming up with ideas for how to make it, what it should do. I was always giving them ideas. "How come you can't make it do this? How come you can't make it do that?"
So Deane realized I had a lot of issues there and I might be useful on the design team. And at the time they were looking to hire a programmer for that project. And so he offered me the job, but I turned him down.
Then about two weeks later, I happened to be talking to my wife, which wasn't that unusual, but we were having a discussion and I mentioned that Deane offered me a job over there and then Mel and I got talking about it and I realized that she didn't have any qualms about moving up to Maryland.
So next day I called Deane and said, "About the job. Is it still open?"
So we started talking about it and I think about two weeks later, we were up in Maryland and we moved to Maryland. It wasn't quite that quick but it was pretty darned quick.
So that was another of those little things that happened that have made my career what it is.
Tony Candela: Did you have any regrets when you first got up to Maryland? Like, okay, now I'm living here. You moved all of your belongings. Was there any immediate second thoughts?
Ted Henter: No. But we were really homesick. We were definitely homesick for family and friends, and warm weather. This was, I think, October. It was cold in Maryland and neither one of us were used to being where it actually got cold and snowed. And we didn't have any friends. So we were definitely homesick.
But I can tell you, immediate difference in my emotional outlook. When I was working down here, I started out at the bottom of the ladder. I didn't know a lot of people at the office. I got to meet them over the year and a half I was there, but I was the only blind guy around. I was, I don't want to say looked down on, but I wasn't really accepted as a peer, you know. I was treated differently. And that has some affect on your sense of well being also, the way others treat you.
So I never felt really good. Like I was saying before, I didn't think my career was ever going to go anywhere. By now I had gone away and gotten a guide dog, which was another really big step in my path of success. That really helped my mobility a lot.
Tony Candela: What made you decide to do that?
Ted Henter: Let me come back to that.
So, I never felt comfortable in the working environment in my job at the hotel. I don't know exactly why. It was just there.
As soon as I walked into the office up in Maryland, I felt great. Because now, I didn't know it, I didn't realize it, but they were seeing me as the expert in talking computers. Deane didn't, but a lot of the other folks did. And a couple of people, they really liked the project. I was the first blind guy they had hired.
But they really liked the project. There was a lot of interest in the project. And here I was, a blind guy. So they were interested in me. I could actually use the computer and I used it on the job. So I just made friends right away and had a lot of respect from my coworkers. So I really had my sense of well being and my self-esteem and that was another path toward that feeling. So that was an important step.
But back to the guide dog thing, I was so frustrated walking around with a cane. It was slow and difficult. Because when you walk with eyesight, you don't even think about it. You just walk. But with a cane, even to this day, you've got to think about it: stay on the side of the way or stay on the sidewalk, avoid the fire hydrant and the tree. So I got interested in getting a guide dog so I contacted the school. And of course their sales people, they try to talk you into it, so I was getting even more excited about it.
I had to wait like nine months or something like that, to get in The Seeing Eye. But Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Yorktown Heights, New York, they had a cancellation. So they could take me within a month or two. So I said, "Okay."
So that was January in New York. That's why they had a cancellation. Because somebody smarter than me, didn't want to go to Guide Dog school in New York, in the middle of the winter. But I took that step and it was a tremendous experience for me. A very positive experience, again, and I could walk freely. The dog walked fast and it was a thrill, a real thrill.
The first time I walked around the block with a guide dog, it was extremely thrilling and exciting.
Tony Candela: This was what they call an immersion experience. You go out there, I'm going to guess Mel didn't go with you.
Ted Henter: Correct.
Tony Candela: So there you are, basically concentrating for twenty-some-odd days on nothing but, not on being how to be a guide dog user but probably more how to be a blind person.
Ted Henter: Yeah. More blindness skills and meeting more successful blind people. It was a very positive experience for me. I'm very glad I did it.
Tony Candela: You don't have a guide dog now.
Ted Henter: I've had three. though. And I'll probably have another one. It depends on my wife, though. When I was actually working every day, traveling, I thought they were invaluable. I used to travel by myself. Airplanes and hotels and all that. When we were building the business, there was always training to do and trade shows to do. In the early days of Henter-Joyce, and even back in the days of Maryland Computer Services, which was Deane's company in Maryland, I traveled by myself and the dog was very valuable.
But now, I wouldn't call it retired, but I don't work full time at Henter Math. When I do work, my office is right here in the home. And when I travel, because my daughter Emley works for Henter Math also, we usually travel together. And where I live, everywhere you go is by car. So the dog has limited usefulness to me right now. But I do miss it and if I move or if I go to start traveling a lot by myself, it would be invaluable to have one.
And in the latter years of Henter-Joyce, once we got to be successful, and there was other people going to the shows, I used to go to the shows by myself, and have to walk in and set up the booth and all that stuff. But as time went on, we got bigger and more successful, more people, then I had less need to go and do it myself. There was always people there when I got there.
Tony Candela: At Maryland Computers, did you work on any other projects beside the TotalTalk?
Ted Henter: Yes, but they were all talking computer-related stuff. Cause there was the TotalTalk and then there was the ITS, the Information through Speech which was an HP125 computer, complete computer, personal computer. Then there was the TotalTalk 2, which is the terminal version of the ITS. Then we did the TotalTalk PC, which was an HP150 and then we did the VP, which was the IBM PC version of the TotalTalk PC.
So, I worked on all that and I had just a tremendous learning experience, not only about software but about blindness and other blind people and career opportunities and all that sort of stuff. It was better than going to college for three years. Those three years I spent at Maryland Computer Services were really terrific.
Of course I got to be good friends with Deane, who is a wealth of knowledge and experience. I met Tim Cranmer, who has had a major influence in my career as well as Deane's. Mike Romeo, the inventor of the Romeo Brailler and he has had a very important hand in all the things that Deane has done or might have done. So a lot of really cool people.
Tony Candela: Your day to day work, at Maryland Computers, was happening right at the time when the PC really was starting to become known to the average person out there and became something that you would find literally on the desktops of people in their offices. You were in an emerging period of the development of technology.
Ted Henter: A very exciting time.
Also, in those days, all the big companies had IBM Mainframes and we had a Hewlett Packard terminal. So we always had to deal with an emulator that would make the terminal look like an IBM terminal or vice versa.
And so I got involved in all that tech support stuff and learned an awful lot about the technology that's out there and how things work, how computers talk to each other, modems, 300 BAUD and all this stuff that you don't have to deal with much today. But it was a tremendous learning experience for me, to be right there, and you can't pay for that kind of education. It was wonderful.
The other good thing with Maryland Computer Services was it was 16 people when I started. Sixteen very smart people, most of them. So I learned a lot from them and I was just involved in all kinds of different stuff.
And in those days, not only did I do the programming which was Assembler Language programming on the TotalTalk and the ITS, so I had to learn Assembly Language. I also did the tech support, I did a lot of the sales calls, because for I don't know how long, I was the only blind guy there. Then as the company grew, they hired more blind people that operated computers so I wasn't as unique. Or I was no longer unique, at that company.
Tony Candela: Would you do us a favor and tell us a bit about what the different machines did for the end user? What did the end user use the TotalTalk for?
Ted Henter: The TotalTalk was a terminal, which is not like a personal computer, it doesn't actually run programs itself. It just displays what other programs, what other computers send it. So you hook it up with a wire to the main computer, in those days a mainframe or a mini-computer, and then you operate the software that way and it displays on the screen, kind of like what we have today. But it's coming from the other computer. And then when it would come up on the screen, the TotalTalk would speak it. As I said before, the T-term would only spell it. So I did COBOL programming, one letter at a time. COBOL is a very wordy language. It was horribly frustrating. So being able to speak was a major, being able to speak complete words, was a major improvement.
So TotalTalk you were hooked up to another computer. When we did the ITS, which is an HP125, it was a terminal sitting on top of a personal computer, all on one box. A lot like the PCs we have today. It ran CPM, which was one of the early operating systems.
But we made the terminal talk as opposed to making CPM talk. It's a minor technical difference.
And that was a very effective talking computer. By now we had really advanced the state-of-the-art quite a bit because computers were bigger, more powerful, more memory, so we could afford more code. That was a very big step forward from the TotalTalk.
And then we took a version of that called the TotalTalk II, which was again a terminal you hooked up to the mainframe. You could read the screen much like we do today.
(End of Part 2 of 5)
