DETAC Webinar and Office Hour on Scaling Supported Employment With Large Businesses

Webinar: Tuesday, May 12, 2026 | 3:00-4:30 p.m. ET
Register for the webinar

Office hour: Thursday, May 14, 2026 | 3:00-4:00 p.m. ET
Register for the office hour

Join the Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center (DETAC) for a webinar highlighting Microsoft's Supported Employment Program as a proven, replicable model for building partnerships with large employers to advance competitive integrated employment for people with disabilities. Speakers from the Washington Initiative for Supported Employment (Wise), Microsoft, and Microsoft's supplier partners will discuss how they've aligned funding streams, addressed benefits concerns through planning, and collaborated with vocational rehabilitation and service providers to scale supported employment hiring across Microsoft's supplier network over more than a decade.

The session will feature a supported employee and her manager from the Compass Group at Microsoft's Redmond campus, who will share firsthand perspectives on how effective supports enable meaningful work and career growth. Participants will leave with strategies they can adapt to their own programs and partnerships.

The accompanying office hour will offer an open forum for participants to ask questions, share reflections, and explore topics in more depth with webinar presenters Susan Harrell and Gillian Maguire.

Learning objectives

• Understand key steps for building and scaling supported employment partnerships with large employers
• Identify the roles of key partners, including employers, funding agencies, service providers, and benefits planners in sustaining supported employment hiring and retention
• Apply lessons from an established partnership to strengthen or replicate supported employment efforts within participants' own systems

Presenters

• Emma Ogazuma, Sr. Program Lead, Microsoft Accessibility and Inclusivity
• Gillian Maguire, Sr. Program Manager, CBRE at Microsoft
• Susan Harrell, Assistant Executive Director, Wise
• Tara O'Rourke, Café Attendant, Microsoft Food Hall 4 - Compass Group at Microsoft
• Mike Shea, General Manager, Compass Group at Microsoft

Registrants can note accommodation needs - such as captioning or sign language - on the registration page. The webinar will be live captioned (with Spanish machine translations) and have ASL interpretation available. Webinars are recorded and posted with supporting materials on the DETAC website.

The ACL-funded Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center(DETAC) provides evidence-based training and technical assistance to Administration on Disabilities (AoD) grantees for improving competitive integrated employment and economic outcomes for individuals with disabilities across the nation.