Tech Notes
Editor’s Note
This post highlights an innovative workforce training model that aligns with AFB’s focus on expanding access to employment and economic opportunity for people who are blind or have low vision. BuildABLE Academy reflects principles AFB advances through initiatives like our Digital Accessibility Internship Program, including universal design, accessible learning frameworks, and real-world skill development.
Creating a sense of belonging begins with carving out a space in society that fits who we are, not the other way around. For many disabled and neurodivergent people, that place has often been hard to find, not from a lack of ability but because the systems around us weren’t designed with us in mind. BuildABLE Academy challenges that pattern by shaping environments that honor individual strengths, learning styles, and ways of moving through the world, a commitment central to the work of founder Danny Combs, whom I recently had the opportunity to sit down with.
Drawing on years of experience across creative industries and hands-on trades, Danny shaped the early version of his vision through TACT, a Colorado nonprofit that grew from a local effort into a model built on competency-based education, individualized instruction, and real-world opportunities. Furthering Combs’s commitment, BuildABLE Academy, which was recently featured on Mike Rowe’s “The Way I Heard It,” evolves that foundation into a scalable, profit-for-purpose, community-centered approach designed for a demographic often overlooked and underestimated. While BuildABLE initially emerged from neurodivergent-led spaces, its methodology is intentionally designed as cross-disability to support learners with a wide range of access needs, including Blind and Low Vision individuals.
This mission now reaches beyond Colorado, shaping a national conversation about the skilled trades gap and disability inclusion.
The Evolution of an Inclusive Model
TACT began as something deeply personal and practical. Danny grew up working with his hands after school alongside his grandfather and great-grandfather, both of whom worked in aerospace for Northrop Grumman. As Danny imparted during our conversation, this shaped his understanding of purpose and contribution.
When Danny’s son was diagnosed as Autistic, and later Danny himself, he began to look more closely at the spaces where neurodivergent people are able to thrive. As he put it, “When people think of Autistic individuals or people with disabilities, they seem to limit the opportunity and the breadth of knowledge and depth that individuals have. It minimizes the opportunity of what our community can contribute.”
That sense of purpose, paired with a desire to create more opportunities for those often limited to the outskirts of unskilled labor, became the spark for Teaching the Autism Community Trades. TACT grew quickly, serving around a thousand learners a year. It became a place where individual strengths surfaced, pacing was personalized, and stereotypes fell away.
Danny explained that the goal now is to take what TACT has taught them and shape it into a separate and more accessible model that can support communities across the country. BuildABLE’s debut establishment in Nashville was promoted at the ACTE (Association for Career and Technical Education) conference on December 10th 2025, marking the first step in this expansion. The long-term plan is to bring this model nationwide, so it can reach a broader range of learners and benefit those who have long needed an approach built around their interests, innate abilities, and distinct learning styles.
Where Strengths Surface: Inside BuildABLE’s Philosophy
At the heart of BuildABLE Academy is a learning model shaped around the individual, not the other way around. Its commitment to competency-based education means learners progress by demonstrating skills, not by keeping pace with a predetermined schedule. This pairs with an andragogical approach, which centers adult learning principles and adapts to each person’s communication, processing, and sensory needs. For neurodivergent and disabled learners, this structure mirrors accessible design itself, providing instruction that meets learners where they are.
BuildABLE prioritizes exploration before specialization. Camps and workshops offer low-pressure environments where learners can try new tools, experiment with unfamiliar tasks, and discover what feels meaningful to them. In these early stages, strengths begin to surface, preferences become clearer, and confidence grows naturally.
The model further strengthens its approach through simulated job sites and real-world partnerships. Learners work with industry-standard tools, automotive software, and technology used in the field, often through partnerships with companies like Subaru. Coaches accompany learners into actual workplaces to support communication, reduce anxiety, and bridge the transition from training to employment. Danny explained that his focus is helping people succeed in the environments they will be in, not an environment artificially invented for them.
It is worth noting that neurodivergence rarely exists in isolation. Approximately 70% of Autists have at least one co-occurring condition that qualifies as a disability, and the overlap between Autism and other disabilities, including blindness, low vision, and physical disabilities that also affect Allistic (non-Autistic) people, remains equally relevant. BuildABLE’s approach reflects this reality. Rooted in universal design, its tools and environments support a broad range of access needs. This includes tactile and auditory tools such as click rulers and talking rulers for blind and low vision learners, alongside jigs and skeleton boards that serve as effective best practices for all students.
Together, these elements form a model that honors diverse ways of learning while opening doors to skilled careers historically difficult to access for disability communities that are largely under- and unemployed.
Breaking Stereotypes and Expanding Possibilities
For too long, disability programs have funneled people into the same narrow set of roles, often centered around food service, retail, or coffee shops. While there is dignity in every form of work, limiting entire communities to a handful of vocational paths reflects a failure of imagination, not a shortage of skill. BuildABLE Academy actively disrupts that pattern by opening doors to fields where disabled and neurodivergent individuals have historically been overlooked: automotive technology, carpentry, tech for the trades, 3D modeling, CAD, and emerging fabrication tools that mirror the future of skilled work.
Just as powerful is what happens between the lessons. Socialization emerges organically when people feel supported, respected, and invited to explore their strengths together, reinforcing the values that shape BuildABLE’s broader mission. Here, inclusion means choice, agency, and the freedom to envision a future shaped by purpose rather than limitation. As Danny shared during our conversation, opportunities must extend beyond stereotypes.
Building a National Network
Another arm of this movement is the Neurodiversity Chamber of Commerce (NDCC), a growing network designed to elevate disability employment, influence policy, and unite businesses committed to inclusive hiring. Co-founded in Colorado by Combs and now expanding to states like Georgia and Florida, the chamber creates a framework for national advocacy while supporting local communities. Combs remains a central driver of its national scaling, recognizing that the chamber amplifies the community’s voice and lends vital leverage with legislators, employers, and industry. It also builds the policy-level scaffolding that supports the learners and communities BuildABLE serves.
With each new chapter, its expansion offers an important opportunity for cross-disability collaboration and alignment with organizations already advancing equity in the workforce. It likewise gives allies a clear path to participate in reshaping the landscape of inclusive work. Getting involved begins with joining or helping establish a chapter in your state. Individuals interested in starting a chamber can connect with Danny Combs directly for support and direction.
A New Way Forward
BuildABLE’s long-term vision is to bring this model to communities across the country, addressing both the rising demand for skilled workers and the persistent gaps in accessible training. As demand for trades continues to grow, so does the need for training environments that honor diverse learners. Early expansion efforts are already underway with interest emerging in states like Arizona and Ohio, where educators and industry partners recognize the strength of BuildABLE’s individualized, hands-on model. Sustaining this growth requires local leadership committed to BuildABLE’s core values of equity, belonging, and respect for diverse learning styles. As new sites open, the goal remains the same: create environments where more people can thrive on their own terms.
By focusing on access needs, equity, and hands-on skill development, BuildABLE broadens the kinds of careers disabled and neurodivergent individuals can pursue. It reflects a philosophy shared across the disability community: meaningful opportunity emerges when environments adapt to people, not when people are expected to adapt to rigid systems. The evolution of TACT into BuildABLE is a reminder that inclusion is not an outcome, but a commitment to transforming educational best practices in ways communities across the country are now ready to embrace.
About the Author
Kristen Reed is a late-diagnosed Autist and psychology student at Western Governors University. With a foundation in digital design and web development best practices, Kristen aspires to embed accessibility into the early phases of design and development through inclusive user research. They’re passionate about advocacy and building digital and real-world spaces that work for everyone.
About AFB Talent Lab
The AFB Talent Lab aims to meet the accessibility needs of the tech industry – and millions of people living with disabilities – through a unique combination of hands-on training, mentorship, and consulting services, created and developed by our own digital inclusion experts. To learn more about our internship and apprenticeship programs or our client services, please visit our website at www.afb.org/talentlab.
