AccessAbility is all about MEE!!

MEE Inc. is a “for profit” corporation home based in Lansing Michigan. It now sells to three States and is growing each year. It is founded on the premise that blind and visually impaired people need choices. Although they may not look through a catalog as easily as others, they need to know what’s out there in the market place and make informed and personal decisions about what life adaptive tool works for them. This is especially important in light of often scarce resources due to the high un-employment rate for those who are blind or visually impaired.

For this reason, MEE Inc. was formed and a bus was outfitted so that individuals could come aboard in their home city and put their hands on the items, ask questions and try it out. Whether it’s CCTV(s), Note takers or GPS systems, it is our practice at MEE Inc to have more than one manufacturer’ represented for each type of adaptive tool. For some items , this is not possible as only one item is made. In this way, MEE Inc does not try to tell you which one to buy because it’s our mission to help you find the “right one” for your own personal needs. We can acquaint you with its features, strong or weak points and learning curve/requirements.

Today, the bus is not only a show room but a mobile training center. We can train up to four persons in each of our 20 different mobile classes. Our restraint style booth allows for each of four people to have hands-on instruction. A list of classes is found on our website. The bus and MEE staff travel over 25 thousand miles each year showing and training on equipment for blind and visually impaired.

To date, MEE represents over a dozen manufacturers of adaptive equipment either directly as a dealer or indirectly as a secondary re-seller.

You’ll find all the biggies aboard the bus represented by MEE in Michigan. Although not all manufacturers have signed up for IL, MEE now represents an exciting new innovative manufacturer there also. We are proud to be calling on the people of IL for GW Micro.

If you would like to sponsor a bus tour to your community to have an adaptive equipment fair, please contact MEE at 888-888-9533 and we’ll discuss sponsorship fees and place you on an upcoming schedule.

Consumer group chapter kickoff(s), community action groups and Lions chapter events are among some of the most often requested types of sponsored events.

Weather permitting, we often set up outside the bus on tables around and show items. Our the bus has its own heat/air conditioning, lighting/electric for all equipment and our own sound systems. Our 7000 watt generator creates a small community of exciting technological marvels. Six months lead is usually required and security fees are paid up-front..

In addition to the mobile training bus, MEE Inc currently has two training centers in Michigan. These facilities provide a wide range of training on adaptive hardware and popular software packages using the latest WindowEyes and other screen reading or screen enlargement applications. Duel boot machines allow MEE Inc to train under both XP and Vista operating systems. Office 2003 under XP and 2007 under Vista gives trainees the chance to train under the system used at their place of employment or used by them personally. More centers are planned for 2009.

Mike Ellis, the corporation’s president and CEO has a MA in Rehabilitation counseling with an emphasis on adaptive technology plus 40 years in the field of fitting the right equipment to individual needs. The MEE Inc staff have all spent many hours in personally learning particular items and developing good teaching techniques for helping a person learn their new, key to AccessAbility life, tool.