Ron Klein interview; Grandfather of Possibilities

May 18th is Global Accessibility Awareness Day;  is to get everyone talking, thinking, and learning about digital access and inclusion, and the more than One Billion people with disabilities/impairments.

Ron Klein, the grandfather of possibilities, developed all kinds of inventions that impacted people with disabilities, including the braille, the TTY, and the MLS.  Listen to my interview. 

Cush Pocket, a proud sponsor, is a disabled owned company that sells wheelchair bags. Get $1 off by using code Angela Fox 

Transcript

intro: 0:00

Welcome to AI Home Podcast, the first podcast for real estate resources and independent living strategies for the disability community. Why? Because accessibility is home. Hi, I'm Angela Fox, blogger, author, and your host. Now, let's begin.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 0:20

I always like to describe what I look like for visually impaired folks that might be listening. And I am a young. I call young, 40 white woman with brown hair. I'm wearing a purple shirt, a purple jacket, and I got a black necklace and I'm sitting in my office above a microphone and my headset. Today we have Ron Klein and I will let him introduce himself, but as a spoiler alert he is considered the godfather or grandfather.

Ron Klein: 0:51

Oh no, the grandfather. I carry a gun. No. If I was the Godfather, I'd a gun.​So I'm grandfather of possibilities.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 0:59

He has invented all kinds of things. He'll talk about it. But I'm really excited to hear about some of the adventures that have assisted the disabled and also housing when he will be talking about his involvement in the multiple list servings as well as everything else. And I'm so glad you are here, Ron.

Ron Klein: 1:19

Thank you so much for inviting me, Angela. It's my pleasure and I think can speak from both sides because, I'm not visually impaired. I'm only blind I had glaucoma at a younger age and it finally took hold and I lost one eye first and then the second eye is down to a point where it just has a pinhole vision and I can see light and I can see some shadows. But and I work with it. It doesn't slow me down. There's a few things I can't do that some of the people who were who lost their sight earlier are much more proficient at it. But I find my way around the situations. Okay.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 1:59

Absolutely, absolutely. Now and back then, so I know that I have reached out to you, Ron because you were a guest on a speaker, excuse me, a speaker at the podfest conference. I attended. Virtually. And I remember I saw your information and that you gave out and I reached out to you and I was delighted that you responded. We've talked to you and I quite a bit about disabilities and how that's housing. But you also shared with me your history on how you invented the TTY and the braille and MLS and so much more. Would you like to share that with the audience?

Ron Klein: 2:40

Sure. My first biggest invention was the magnetic strip on the credit card and the validity checking system. For checking credit. So that was the first, and that was back in the early sixties. So it was the magnetic strip on the credit card. Then the second biggest invention was MLS, multiple listing for real estate. Then another one I'm not too proud of is voice response for the banking industry. Where you would key in your account number on a touchtone phone and back, get back your account information in voice. And that became an annoying process over the years. Then I did a lot of development for the hearing loss folks and of course for the Visually impaired. No, I shouldn't call'em visually impaired. The people who had sight loss and poor low vision. I did a lot there. And then eventually through my career and lots of things that were happening, and through some lack of planning and just taking advantage of opportunity. I ended up at the New York Stock Exchange, automated most of their trading there and developed the, corporate listed bond trading system, which moved into working with the treasury market for wall Street. So that was up until my latter years. And then after I retired and failed at it for the third time, I developed a device for the blind to help them identify different things that they came in contact with every day and still working in that area for both the blind and for the sighted. With a mobile marketing studio. So that's just some of the few things that I did and I can talk about some of the things we did for the disabled early in my career.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 4:37

Yeah, I would like to talk a little bit more about that. So I know when we talked you gave a little bit of the history about telecommunication equipment that you bought in stock and how that just snowball, into not just the stock market, but also if I recall correctly, the TTY and the braille and how it all kind happened almost by accident.

Ron Klein: 5:03

Some people will say, you know, entrepreneurs do a lot of planning. I was an entrepreneur that never planned,

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 5:10

I love it

Ron Klein: 5:10

and I'm being very honest. But there was always opportunity out there, and every time I saw opportunity, I saw how can I improve it, enhance it and help others. After I developed and invented the magnetic strip on the credit card, my company started growing and got into MLS and it grew quite large and I had a lot of employees. In the late sixties, I had a my company was up to 125 employees because in those days, the word software hadn't been invented yet. Software was a lot of programming and everything at that in those days was done with printed circuit cards and components. Put together on circuit cards and the assembly of circuit cards to implement what it was that you were trying to do. So my company became very interesting to some of the other industries. One happened to be the insurance industry and at by age 34, I was approached to be bought out by a very large insurance company, and I figured, okay, I guess a 34, you're supposed to retire. That lasted about three days after fishing and saying, no, this is not for me. I gotta go to work, back to work. So I went, and this was an interesting story. I went back to that company and said, I really don't wanna be under contract as a consultant. I want to give back all my options stock, just keep what I got from you directly, and I wanna be released and I want to go back to work. With that I said, okay, now what am I gonna do? I'm going to get involved with selling other people's equipment until they can find out what it is that I want to do, and I wanna make sure that I don't wanna be involved with another 125 employees. I want to create and innovate on my own. I was calling on one of my old accounts offering him some communication equipment. While I was doing that, I saw on his desk reading upside down. When you're in the sales business, you learn to read upside down. I saw a bid sheet from Western Union Company and I asked him, I said, what is this? And he says, oh, because they were associated press, so they did a lot of communications, telecommunications. He said, we have so much telecommunications. Every week, Western Union puts up refurbished teletypes for sale and for companies like ourselves, as we need inventory, we would go and bid on them and acquire them. He said, but we have so much inventory he said, we really don't need them now you're welcome to the bid sheet. I figured, wow, this could be an opportunity. Let me think about that. So I went to Western Union with the bid sheet. While I was there, I saw so much opportunity. I figured, geez, I could buy some of these teletypes and just sell them for the parts, pull'em apart. They were just refurbished, pull'em apart and sell the parts for 50 cents on a dollar to major companies. I started bidding on them and winning some of the telecommunications, the Twix and the Telex and the old 83 B3 systems that were used on battleships. I was starting to look at them as, what can I do with these machines? Some of the older machines had great value from the standpoint of using them for TTY for the deaf. All they needed was acoustic couplers. So I designed some acoustic couplers so I could use the Teletypes to communicate for the deaf, where they could dial up the interested party and the interested party would take their phone, put it into the acoustic coupler, and the transmitting party could transmit a return into acoustic tones received by the other party and turned into printed matter. It was wonderful,

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 10:43

Was there anything before that time that could assist those who might be deaf in such a way?

Ron Klein: 10:51

No, That was really how it started. In fact the beeping of tones up and down the line was called frequency shifting key. It was known as TYFFK.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 11:02

That's awesome.

Ron Klein: 11:04

Interesting. And then while I was doing that, I got involved with, I was in southern part of New Jersey and the very close by was the Neville Corporation, which was the Society for the Blind. I figured, I've got an idea because with these Teletypes, they had keyboards, printers, paper tape punch, and paper tape readers. As you would type with the keyboard, it would prepare paper tape punch. So they could put the paper tape punch in a reader and transmit that. I said, I've got a great idea. Instead of punching the holes in the paper tape, how about if I just punched little impressions that would pump up? In other words, adjust the machines so it didn't punch the hole clear through it, just made an impression. Then I figured out if I tried every key, it would punch a different configuration on the tape, and it would resemble, it could, I could take a key, a note from a key, and that would be converted to a braille character. I figured what a great idea of blind person, if I teach them the keyboard, they could teach, they could key the keyboard and type real characters on the paper tape punch, transmit that to another blind person, and that blind person would now be receiving information in the form of braille, that was working out fine. Then the biggest thing was shortly after I started buying these teletypes and bidding on them from Western union, I got a call from them and they said, Ron, we have an idea. We're going into the satellite business and we're putting up 12,000 of the old teletypes, the ones that were used on battleships for communications, up for sale. Would you like to bid on them? And I figured, oh, what an opportunity. And I didn't have that much money. So I bid pennies on the dollar for all 12,000 machines, and I figured it, and t and rCA and at and t they were all in the teletype business. And they were, they figured I, I could start selling them parts. For a big discount on the dollar, I'd bid on these machines and I was so excited. I got a call from Western Union, guess what? I won all 12,000 machines. Wasn't that wonderful? That was wonderful, wasn't it? No it wasn't because it was one of my big mistakes. I found out nobody else bid on the machines. 4,000 were there in the warehouse, 60 miles from my home. The other 8,000 were all over the united States, Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, and western Union got ahold of me and said, now you understand Ron, you have to take possession of these in 30 days. I said, excuse me, where am I gonna put'em? They said if you've got a big garage in home, there's 8,000 of these giant machines that are gonna be put on a train and shipped to your garage. Oh my God. Now what do I do? This is a perfect example of a challenge. I had a situation. I said, no, it's not a problem. I now own 8,000 machines that are not within my reach. The others in the warehouse, I could just take over the warehouse rental. But the 8,000, I've got 30 days to make a decision. Not a problem, Ron. It's a situation I. What do you do in that situation? I call the junk man. I say, Mr. Junk, man, what do I do? I need help. He said, let's look in the bottom of these big 200 pound machines. They have keyboards, printers. They have, pipe paper punches, paper tape readers. Let's look in the bottom. We open up the bottom, and they're loaded and loaded with printed circuit cards to make them work. And I said, okay, that's great. And he said, what I noticed, these were manufactured in the fifties and back then out at sea, they didn't want anything to rust. So all the printed circuit cards are made with gold traces, and gold at that time was$35 an ounce, and it had just jumped the$70 an ounce.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 15:34

Woohoo.

Ron Klein: 15:35

He said, let's take all these thousands of printed circuit cards. Hundreds were in each machine, submerged them into a cyanide bath, and the cyanide will eat the gold off the boards and surface to the top. We'll skim it off and sell the gold and split it. We were fat in cash. had so much gold, and that's when the gold went from$35 an ounce to$700 an ounce. And it was wonderful, which also created another situation. Now, we had 8,000 pieces of junk because they had no electronics. What did we do? Call the junk man again, to our understanding, we found out that the steel cabinets that were used out on battleships out in the fifties. They were very rich in steel with chrome in them and that was to keep em from rusting. And right around that time, a Japanese firm that was introducing, I'm not saying the name, one of their foreign cars into the us, but they had a major rust problem because they didn't have enough chrome in their steel. Guess what we did? We gave foreign company all that chrome and all those machines as scrap for nothing. Now we had 4,000 machines and a big market and no headaches. Take a d a deep breath. There's how that story started with just being able to read a bit sheet upside down on somebody's desk and ask him if we can get involved opportunity from a situation.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 17:23

Yeah, and it was like, no, no planning it, it was, which I think is fabulous. Sometimes you just gotta dive into the situation. From my house, I had a bathroom that would be totally non wheelchair accessible, like I couldn't even get into it. And it just came down to the point where I don't really need that bathroom, but what am I going do with it? I don't want it to just sit there and the pipes get rusty and mold counts because I'm not using it cause I can't get into it. And so I found it as an opportunity by calling a local nonprofit and ask them. They always need donations, like toilets, I had jacuzzi, things, all that nature. And so they would do all the renovation, basically gut it down, tear down the wall, all the things that I would've had to pay somebody To and do and say. They're like, no, if you donate the toilet and sink and the jacuzzi and anything else that we could take, we've got volunteers and we will go ahead and do that. I said would you mind also knocking down an additional wall because I really just need the space? And they're like, sure, no problem. Cause it'll be, we don't know how we could get the jacuzzi out. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Yeah, it would be a whole lot easier to get this night jacuzzi out if you could make the doorway I e part of the wall just And so they just knocked down the whole down wall because, it was safe to do as long as I got that approved. I totally understand about like where you feel like something is a problem, but

Ron Klein: 19:00

opportunity. It was a situation.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 19:03

It could be a

Ron Klein: 19:03

Angela, you're never gonna use the word problem again.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 19:07

Nope.

Ron Klein: 19:08

Everything is a situation.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 19:10

It is. is. It is.

Ron Klein: 19:12

So you became an entrepreneur in your own sense and not through a disability, through being an entrepreneur that God gave you the gift.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 19:22

Yeah.

Ron Klein: 19:22

go.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 19:23

Yeah. I, and one thing I think in addition that I always I try to do mentorship. I'm a young 40, but I've never walked a day in my life. So I've been in a wheelchair for 40 years. And so I always like to, and I think I heard you doing this, and that is take the situation, not a problem. Take the situation, whatever adversity situation you have. And break it up into pieces. And sometimes you don't have to have the full steps laid out to the end. You might know where you wanna be at the end, but you may not know how to get there and breaking up into small bits and pieces while you're completing Step one, step two or step three can come. find you, and instead trying just, kinda like you did, you saw this opportunity, you had this equipment and you didn't know what to do with it, but you got it. And then you are like, okay, I'll sell the goal, but then what to do. And instead of being like, oh, I don't know what to do with that equipment. Why would I buy it? Or, or I'm just gonna away the junk after the gold is gone. You took it step by step, but you didn't know each step along the way.

Ron Klein: 20:35

You have to simplify every situation and understand what you have. Then you can say, I'm not gonna make anything different, but how can I enhance what I have? And the enhancement will provide a benefit and then you move forward.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 20:51

Mm-hmm.

Ron Klein: 20:52

But then after all this happened with me, then I was able to concentrate on what do I do with the other 4,000 machines? And then I got very active in providing it for the braille, the braille function, and also for the TTY for the hearing loss. And I spent a lot of time doing that. Many, many months. And then the rest of it I was taking and providing parts for the, the major communications industries. Then opportunity knocked once again. I got a phone call from the New York Stock Exchange and I said, wow, what's this all about? And they said, we discovered a few months back that Western Union took. 273​But then after all this happened with me then I was able to concentrate on what do I do with the other 4,000 machines? And then I got very active in providing it for the braille function and also for the TTY for the hearing loss. And I spent a lot of time doing that. Many months. And then the rest of it I was taking and providing parts for the major communications industries. Then opportunity knocked once again. I got a phone call from the New York stock Exchange and I said, wow, what's this all about? And they said, we discovered a few months back that Western Union took. 273 of our special machines that we used years ago and put them up for bid with a small company in New Jersey. And we found out that you're that small company in New Jersey and we're expanding our trading floor operation. This was in the early seventies. We're expanding our trading floor operation and we use these machines, these special teletypes for inquiry machines on the trading floor. Are you interested in cooperating with us and doing some selling. The machines to us are wet so that we don't have to rent them from AT&T and I said, I've got a better idea. How about if I give you a full payout lease for two years because I owned them for nothing at that point. I'll give you a full payout lease for those machines. Over two year period if you give me a maintenance contract to maintain them for the life of the machines, as long as they're on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. And they said, absolutely. We don't wanna maintain them. You bring your people in and do it. I found myself a guy in Brooklyn who was a good maintenance man, and I said, how would you like a job? And I put him at the New York Stock Exchange. To run around on the trading floor with a two-way radio. Every time one of these machines would break down, just swap it with a spare. I'll come to the New York Stock Exchange trading floor every morning, take whatever you have, take it back to my shop in New Jersey, have the mechanic repair it and bring it back the next morning. And I had a business going. I was now in the teletype maintenance business, and it was wonderful. We were making money.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 24:18

I bet

Ron Klein: 24:19

an opportunity. Yep, great opportunity because. While I was there, I'm seeing this institution that traded on inertia because they were so antiquated at the end of the day. They had paper scrap of little transition cards leading up to the knees on your floor on the trading floor. That's how deep the paper was everything was done with Mark Senses cards, it wasn't automated. And I went to the exchange and I said, I could automate this so easily. Why don't we just program, trade this with a little computer and program, trade that and do this and do that? And they said, okay, here's little taskforce jobs. Do it. Here's a purchase order. So I went now and befriended a programmer, bought little boxes that we could program and started automating some of the exchange to minimize the paper handling. And they thought I was IBM and it was just a handful of guys solving some problems. But I was there every day and had the opportunity of seeing this. And then the big opportunity came about, and remember all this started with reading a bid sheet on a guy's desk. going to Western union. I went to the New York Stock Exchange was trading their stocks. Automatically through the Bloomberg terminals, but they also traded corporate listed bonds. But they did that in an auction crowd. So I went to the bond trading floor, and this was in 1983. And I see that they're throwing their hands up in the air and they've got their telephones and their ears and so on and so forth, and they're screaming. And I said, what's going on here? And they said they're trading the bonds of the equity. but they trade those in an auction market on the floor. I said, why are they doing that? That's so easy to filter out and automate? And they said, ron they've been doing it like this for 205 years, they're not gonna change. And I said, if I could introduce them to a new, simple way that they can stay in their offices and do the same thing, would you gimme an exclusive contract? With the new York Stock Exchange to disseminate corporate listed bond information, quotes and trades, they said certainly, because it'll never happen. You're ridiculous. I had my programmer build this little box, buy a little video terminal. We built it, tried it, it worked. Beautiful. It would filter out the bonds and they could see it even before they would trade and get auctioned it off on the floor. I started calling all the bond traders on the New York Stock Exchange. There were 1500 that traded corporate listed bonds. If I wasn't buying or selling a bond in 15 seconds, they'd hang up on me. I forget. Oh my God. I built this thing, now what do I do with it? How am I gonna market it? So I befriended the largest bond manager on Wall Street for a major company. And I said, if I run a private lease line from the New York Stock exchange to your office and put this information on that line and give you this free terminal with a video terminal for nothing for 30 days, will you try it? He said certainly and he became a friend.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 27:46

I bet he

Ron Klein: 27:47

yeah, after two weeks, his phone rang off the hook. All these bond traders on the trading floor started calling him and saying, what the heck are you doing? He said, every time we try on top of bid, you top on top of us. He said, oh, that's because I have the information in milliseconds. And they said, what do you mean? He says, oh, you need one of those Ron Klein boxes.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 28:10

I love it.

Ron Klein: 28:11

the, they said, what's a ron Klein box? And he explained it to him. My phone rang off the hook in three months. I had every 1500, every one of those 1500 bond traders as a customer and I charged them an absorbant amount of money to join my club.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 28:30

Oh, I bet

Ron Klein: 28:31

they said, that's ridiculous, but we can make that up in a couple of months. And I said, okay, now you have to buy the piece of equipment. And they said no, we don't buy anything on Wall Street. We only rent equipment.

Ron Klein interview video AI podcast 4.27.24: 28:44

I figured,

Ron Klein: 28:45

oh, I gotta make a decision real fast. They cost me$150 for the box and the video terminal. I said, how's$300 a month? And they said, fantastic. It was in there for a quarter of a century. And that took me to the beginning of my life on Wall Street.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 29:04

Oh, I love it. I love it. And it's just about being curious too, right? Could have just gone to the stock market and it just, fulfilled your maintenance contract, or saw it as a problem in not a situation when somebody told you we've been doing this for 200 plus years, I absolutely love it. That's fantastic.

Ron Klein: 29:24

And along with that, I, again, concentrated in the latter part of my years on helping the blind. And that's when I created, i, I don't know if you wanna take a break, but that's another story. I can tell

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 29:40

No, we? could keep going. I will, I would love to hear more.

Ron Klein: 29:43

Okay. My wife was very involved with animals in animal health studies, and we were very involved with a company foundation called Dam, Morris Animal Foundation, and the chairman of the board at the time was a very good friend of mine who I met who was totally blind. He was blinded in an accident that happened in high school when he was age 16, and he lost. Part of his hand and totally lost sight, but he was so sharp. He ended up being a vice president for a major company and he was the chairman of the board of this 75 year old foundation, which is a multimillion dollar animal health study foundation. One day I went to him, we were having breakfast, and I said, Jim, what's on your wishlist? I said, something simple. I said, you, you can do everything. You have all these gadgets on your computer and voice recognition and so forth. He said, I would love to be able to go into a room or go into my kitchen or my medicine chest and know the difference between my aspirins and my blood pressure medication. He said I would, I need some kind of identifier. And I said, you know what? Let me think about that. I'd love to solve situations. And I said, I haven't solved anything in a couple of weeks. I'm gonna think about that. And I said, A few a month ago, I learned about a new thing called a QR code, I didn't know the difference from a qR code to a manhole cover. But I learned all about it because it was fascinating to me, and I'm not gonna go into all the details of it. And I said, what can I do with a QR code that's never been done so far? Because it was used in Japan, in manufacturing before it was introduced in the US and there wasn't much use of it in the us. It was introduced way back in 1995 in Japan, in manufacturing. And I figured, and it was open source, so it was patented, but open source, nobody, it wasn't restricted. And I thought about it, and when I went back to gym, I said, I've got an idea. I can take that thing and make it an identifier for the blind where I can make little sticky labels a half inch square pasted on anything you wanna identify. Point your cell phone at it, which your cell phone is your electronic leash. It's on your body all the time. Point your cell phone at it and it'll tell you what it is. You'll know your green shirt from your yellow shirt. You'll know your peanut butter from your jelly, and so on and so forth. And it worked. They love it, and that was the invention

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 32:39

I love love it.

Ron Klein: 32:41

after I did that, I figured if it works so well for the blind as to what's in the box. And what's anywhere, why can't it work for the visually world? And I started developing for the visual world, and it has grown astronomically. It's now used in so many different aspects. And that's my legacy that I keep going.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 33:06

I love it. I really enjoy that.

Ron Klein: 33:08

I'm not, empty yet.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 33:10

oh, I'm sure when you were talking about the sticky qr. Stickers that you could stick on. I immediately thought about a home closet. So I'm always, a big part of my audience. Not just the disabled, real estate agents and housing developers. Those are involved in selling homes and working with clients, which could be those who are blind as well as other disabilities, organizing and having access. To the things within your home is just as crucial as the interest rate, that you have for your mortgage if you are a person who are blind. And as soon as you were saying that, I was thinking, wow, that could be something that could be easily put on like the shelve of a closet, to identify like your clothes as say it, right? As well as like inside a refrigerator, particular

Ron Klein: 34:01

It's unlimited. unlimited. The innovation comes from the potential user because the more you think about it, the more applications you can come up with. It's just unlimited.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 34:13

When I contacted you, I told you like May 18th is a global accessibility design and a big part of of that day of celebration throughout the world is design things that are accessible to individuals with disabilities and those who are not. Basically what we always try to tell, and that is universal design, by the way. It is truly more inclusive for everybody.

Ron Klein: 34:40

And i I always say that and here's a statement that I'm gonna make, and it may sound a little derogatory, but it's really helpful. I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. Which means if I'm gonna simplify something, I better make sure I simplify it to a point that whoever I'm talking to doesn't have the knowledge or the information that I have. So I wanna make sure it's simplified enough that I put them on the same wavelength that they understand in the first eight seconds what it is with an analogy, and then discuss it. So I offer advice, not opinions. In other words, educate them first so that we're on the same wavelength and now we can discuss it. That situation, and that's so important with everything. If people don't understand in the first few seconds of what it is that you want to communicate with them, lost them. They lost interest. They, they can't even catch up. In other words, if you ask me, how does airplanes fly, I'm not gonna​They can't even catch up. In other words, if you ask me, how does airplanes fly, I'm not gonna take you into a whole scientific situation as to how we take these tons of metal and put them up in the sky and they suspend themselves. I'm gonna give you a simple analogy first and you'll say, I get that. Okay, now let's. Transform it to the principle of aviation. If we were gonna move into something that complicated,

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 36:23

Yeah.

Ron Klein: 36:24

but that's what's so important. You have to simplify. Enhance and make sure they see the benefit. Otherwise, you lost them.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 36:33

Now, let me ask you this, because what we're coming up to we got about 20 minutes and I know how valuable your time is, but when you say simplify it, and I kind wanna connect two dots simplify and then, trying to change people's minds on how they do things. Like when the stock market said, we've been doing this for 200 years, when it comes to the multiple list servings. So my understanding before the MLS there was no center for the listing housing like we are so used to today when you go on Zillow or Redfin, it was really relied upon the local real estate agent of having their own list of houses are available. So you were changing that concept of how they were doing it for God knows how long, but then trying to add, I call additional layer of. Including the, those who are blind. How did you tackle that? Can you dive a little bit into that for the audience?

Ron Klein: 37:33

When you say multiple listing, what's the most important, the most important thing about real estate? Multiple listing one word.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 37:45

Free.

Ron Klein: 37:47

pre-qualification.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 37:50

Okay.

Ron Klein: 37:51

Okay.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 37:52

Okay.

Ron Klein: 37:53

I'm in New york and I'm gonna relocate to California. When I get to California, I don't wanna have to go through every city every town, every house, every possibility. I want somebody to know exactly what I'm looking for close to a school, three bedrooms, et cetera, this, et cetera, that in other words, everything that I want, and somebody, and some group is going to know pre-qualified what it is that I want. And I'm not gonna waste their time and I'm not gonna waste my time. What's the benefit pre-qualification. I just simplified it for you.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 38:37

sure did. Now, when you added the braille to that, I, I, I'm just curious because what challenge,​I'm just curious because what challenge what situations or challenges did you have? Because I know even to this day, the concept of disability home ownership is really, really not mainstream. Not mainstream. It's it is always with, either aging in place or you're disabled, but you live with somebody who might be assisting you. So even in 2023, disability home ownership, is really Not there yet, when you were dealing with, the multiple lists of me saying you, you showed the benefit of not wasting people's time with pre-qualification. How did you overcome the challenge of like, why would people who are blind wanna be engaged in this process?

Ron Klein: 39:34

Okay. The way that information was, nested early in MLS was the results ended up on teletypes as a printout. In other words, if something matched, the resultant would be printed out on a teletype. Okay. So what I did was I converted basic teletypes into. more simple teletypes that responded to the output of a match when it came to the disabled blind. I noticed just being a little bit of attentive. that, do you have any idea as to what a Braille character looks like?

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 40:24

Yes. Yes. I have a good friend that

Ron Klein: 40:27

Paper tape punches. In the old days, you can make. And the holes come up in any configuration you want predicated on what key causes that. So when they design the teletypes, certain keys, punch a hole configuration accordingly. Who cares what the hole configuration is? Because as long as it matches down the line, it sees those holds, it prints that character. I looked at the keyboard and I studied the configuration of every key. Uppercase the lowercase and shift keys as to what whole configuration it punched. And I only chose those keys that punched holes that were brail characters. And I figured, okay, a you equals this, a Y equals this, and so on so forth. So if I wanted to print something in braille, I knew what keyboard. Printed those braille characters. Now I was able to make a result in MLS system also being able to be read by a blind person.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 41:33

Excellent, excellent. So it was more about the accessibility of information at that time. Would that Okay. Okay.

Ron Klein: 41:44

So then they can take that information. And not waste their time and move forward or determine is that a major factor or not a major factor.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 41:54

Fair enough. And how did you, I'm just curious, how did you go about I like to say recruiting, like advertising, getting those individuals who are blind, because it seems like that's, compared to what Braille. It's using use now, which is like everywhere. Right? To, to use it for listing of houses in such a narrow scope as far as introducing the braille to, to the Americans. How did you connect the dots? How'd you advertise? How'd you get the visually the blind individuals involved? You know what I mean?

Ron Klein: 42:30

You ready for a simple answer?

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 42:32

Yeah. I love it.

Ron Klein: 42:34

Wasn't my job.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 42:35

Okay. Whose job was it?

Ron Klein: 42:38

The marketing.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 42:40

Okay.

Ron Klein: 42:41

My job was innovation. I didn't even say invention. I'm an innovator.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 42:48

Uhhuh. Okay, so

Ron Klein: 42:49

I take things that can be in, yep. I take things that can be enhanced and when I enhance them, if it provides a benefit, it's good for the marketplace.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 43:00

Okay. It Is a, but do you recall a particular individual, that was successfully, who was blind, that you are aware of that was able to find find a home easily? Do you have a story or an individual in mind?

Ron Klein: 43:18

I only have in mind the person who was responsible for taking this creation and moving it to the biggest. And moving it to Naru, which is the National board of Realtors in Chicago.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 43:32

Okay.

Ron Klein: 43:33

That gentleman who unfortunately is long gone now, his name was Hazard reeves and was the chairman of the board of cinerama

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 43:43

Wow. Wow. Wow. How'd you find him?

Ron Klein: 43:48

No, he found me

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 43:49

Oh, wow. How did you find you?

Ron Klein: 43:53

because I was a legend at the time.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 43:55

Okay. Okay. Your name, Pre, pre pre What I say the name and the legend. So you reached out to you, kind like I did say hello.

Ron Klein: 44:04

Here's what happened. I changed the world with the magnetic strip on the credit card, but that was not my original intent. My original intent was to change something that a large, the largest department store in the country. Called it a problem, and I said it was a situation and we solved it, how simple it was. They came to me and said, it takes too long to make a charge purchase. That's what they called them then. And I said, okay, what's the problem? Every month the credit card companies give the merchants a big, thick book of all the negative account numbers, and he has to look up to see if your number is on that before he gives you. Before he, he scrolls it on the credit card imprint. And I said that's easy. I said we'll shorten that process up and speed it up. So I took all those books and negative account numbers that they would get every month and put it into a memory system. Not important what I used then. And I gave the merchant a little keypad to key in the information. So I said I solved one situation, I speeded things up, but I didn't take the responsibility away from, I didn't put the responsibility on the right party, who is the credit card company? I put it on the merchant to make sure he puts in the right number and right around that time, reel to real tape recorders came out from music and voice and I said, what a wonderful idea. If I could take a little piece of that tape, paste it on the back of the credit card, record the account number on it and make you the motor.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 45:40

Oh, I love it. I love it.

Ron Klein: 45:43

how smiled the

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 45:45

helped with the credit card. A barcode, I should say. That's awesome. That is awesome

Ron Klein: 45:51

see how I simplified it? course, the patent took 35 pages,

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 45:55

all right. Thank you Ron. I know we're two minutes to three and I know how valuable your time is, so I really do appreciate this.

Ron Klein: 46:03

Okay. thank, you so much. This was wonderful.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 46:06

Oh, I'm so glad you enjoy. I, I enjoyed it. And thank you so much.

Ron Klein: 46:10

Thank you and bye-bye to your audience.

Angela Fox audio only for Ron Klein interview. 4.27.23: 46:12

All right. Bye-bye

end intro: 46:13

Horizontal houses.com is the hub for all things related to disability home ownership. You will find my blog, this podcast, my book, and how my consulting services can help real estate agents or housing developers market and tap into the largest minority group, the disability community. Please help me continue this exploration of disability home ownership by connecting through my Facebook page, remember. Sharing our collective experiences will allow us each to lower the kitchen sink, but raise the bar for disability home ownership. Thank you.