Published: March 21, 2008 11:18 pm      

Somerset Blind Center merges

SOMERSET — The Somerset County Blind Center started in 1995 with plenty of good ideas but no cash.

“That has always been one of the holdups,” former Director Rob Stemple said.

Since center administrators decided to merge with a larger and much older organization with a similar mission, the center should be able to seal the deal for more contracts, which means more jobs for locals who are blind or vision-impaired.

The center now is a division of Susquehanna Association for the Blind and Vision Impaired, based in Lancaster County.

“When you look at the transition, the main question people ask is ‘Why do you want to do that?’ ” said Stemple, marketing coordinator for the Somerset division.

The larger organization, he said, has a product development division and a marketing department, which includes fundraising.

“Those are some things we wouldn’t have resources for,” Stemple said. “We can partner with an organization that brings the rest of the pieces to the puzzle.”

For example, Stemple said the center should win a state and federal government contract for making presentation folders, which would create two new jobs and generate $1.2 million in annual sales. The older file folders manufactured at the center generate about $100,000 annually.

But to win the new contract, the center had to show it had the resources to complete the job and invest about $250,000 in new equipment.

Alone, the center would not have been able to invest the time and money, Stemple said.

“Susquehanna has a department where that is exactly what they do,” he said.

“The bottom line for us is, we can do these things now with Susquehanna, or we can wait 10 or 15 years. And even then, maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t.”

The center currently employs four blind workers and one sighted person in on-site manufacturing, with a goal of having 10 to 12 blind employees within the next two years. The center will maintain its own budget.