Compassion Without Limits: Transforming Lives Through Evidence-Based Care with Emmett Highbaugh Jr.

Anthony Codispoti : Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Emmett Highbaugh Jr. He is the chief program officer at NCIA, an organization founded in 1977 to empower individuals facing life challenges. NCIA offers vocational training, special education, residential support, and employment services focusing on people with disabilities and those reentering society. Now Emmett has held executive roles in social services, guiding program development, compliance, and operational management in areas like mental health and human services. He served as an executive director and compliance officer before joining NCIA and has been recognized for his commitment to community service, including a community achievement citation from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He also holds CPI and CPR and first aid certifications, demonstrating his dedication to creating safe and supportive environments.

With his leadership, NCIA remains at the forefront of inclusive programs that uplift underserved communities. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. Alright, back to our guest today, the chief program officer of NCIA Baltimore Emmett Highball, Junior. Thank you for making the time to share your story today.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Oh, thank you. Thank you, Anthony. I appreciate it.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay, so Emmett, you’ve had a long history in leading and improving major social service programs. What first got you started on this path?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So, you know, I have a sister. She’s 13 years younger than me. My sister has autism. I was young at the time. I really didn’t, you know, I really didn’t think too much about it. But as I got older, I have two sons. I have three children. I have a daughter and I have two sons. And my two sons also have autism.

So they’re on the spectrum as well. So, my initial journey was just to learn, to learn so I could, you know, provide, you know, provide them, you know, with great care at home before they, you know, enter the school system or even a residential program or a day program. So I just, I think really, I just really wanted to learn about autism.

Anthony Codispoti : And so it was specifically just sort of learning and growth process for you to learn more about autism that took you kind of into this space of helping others.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti : And as you look back at your career before NCIA, think about the different stops along the way, pick one of those that was maybe sort of the most formidable for you and talk about the impact that it had kind of on your career and your personal development.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So I think the most impactful place I worked at, I worked at a place called Eden Autism Services. It’s pretty well known in regards to autism services on the, on the northern east, I mean, on the, you know, east coast.

I got there, I really didn’t know anything. I went through a bunch of trainings, learned, you know, different levels of autism, how individuals, you know, the thought process, how, you know, how they think, how they view things, how they communicate. But then besides the, besides the education in regards to autism and the spectrum, the ability to, to lead, to take care of it, other individuals, I got the opportunity to learn more in regards to the administrative side of those things. Like I was given a couple group homes to oversee. Then from there, I was promoted and I got to see oversee a bunch of other group homes in the day program. So I was given the opportunity to learn. They saw the passion that I had in regards to taking care of those guys and those young girls and those young guys and those young ladies.

And I was given an, the door was open for me. And I felt like once I got that opportunity, I felt like, oh, I could keep going and keep enhancing my skill set. And one day I could sit in the C-suite chair and I could really lead an organization. So that’s kind of, that organization, I think really kind of started me on my, on my, on my journey in regards to sitting in the seat that I sit in now.

Anthony Codispoti : It kind of opened your eyes to maybe the role that you could hold in more of a leadership capacity.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti : And so how did the opportunity to join NCIA first come about?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So as you mentioned before, I was an executive director. I was, I ran a, basically a state for an organization that was called BroadStep. They were a national organization. They were in, I think, nine states at the time. It was owned by private equity. It was backed by private equity. So it wasn’t a non-profit.

It was a for-profit agency. I was basically asked to come in and basically kind of fix, fix the problems that were there. Some staffing, staffing shortage.

It was right kind of the tail end of COVID. So we were, you know, need to rehire, I’m sorry, need to hire new staff, fill vacant beds, reduce overtime. Some of those, you know, those kind of things that, you know, non-profit social agencies, you know, look to, you know, those are their KPIs that they’re kind of focused on. So once I did that, and I thought I was pretty successful in that, they were, they actually took the organization to market and they sold it. Now, during that time, I had met our, my current CEO, Kara Argo, I met her through a mutual friend. Carol and I exchanged emails. I came down to Baltimore from New Jersey a couple of times.

I checked out the NCAA and the programming. It was very similar to what I was doing. And then that mutual friend also told me that Carol was a new CEO and that she was looking to do what I was doing and what I’d be interested.

So I was like, yeah, absolutely. So of course, you know, I went through the, you know, I went through the process, sent her my resume. I interviewed with Carol. I interviewed with our CFO. I interviewed with the leadership team here and the rest is history. I kind of got the job.

Anthony Codispoti : So before we dive into what it means to be a chief program officer, I want to understand in more detail what it is that you guys do at NCAA.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Okay. So we are a DDA provider, Division of Disability Association provider. We have, we have about 40 residential group homes. We have a day program, it’s licensed for 100 individuals. We do employment services, which means we get those individuals jobs. We also have a non-public school and we work with youth who are on the autism spectrum. We also work with youth who have behavioral challenges. And then we also have a vocational training program, which is in Baltimore.

It’s also in Baltimore and Wells and Charlotte. And we have developed and created our own behavioral services program. So the behavioral services program was kind of like my baby.

It’s kind of what I’ve brought here. We write, we create and manage and write our own behavioral plans, which we used to outsource to another organization. And now we do that in-house. So that’s kind of all the services that we provide here.

Anthony Codispoti : Say more about the component of helping sort of those folks that are reentering society. What does that look like?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Oh, yeah. So our vocational training program. So the vocational training program, you know, those individuals that are coming back, those returning citizens that are coming back home, we are able to support them and get them skills. Automotive, HVAC, CDL, where they can provide themselves an excellent living, give back to the community that their jobs, the jobs that they get based off our training, they are able to pour that back into their community and be more self-sustainable. They don’t have to go back to, you know, whatever they did to, you know, to be incarcerated. I hate to say that. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti : Kind of, I don’t know, break it down from a percentage standpoint. Like how much is helping folks who are formerly incarcerated? How much is helping folks with, you know, some behavioral developmental issues?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So our behavioral, our developmental disabilities areas, that’s probably about, I’ll say that’s about 80%. That’s our largest kind of, if you want to say like bread and butter, that’s our largest program.

As I mentioned before, I have 40 homes throughout the Baltimore, PG County area. We have our day program and then we do the employment services. Our VTC, I mean, it’s not a small program by any means. We graduate probably about three to 400 individuals a year, but it’s still smaller compared to our DDA program.

Anthony Codispoti : And so where does the funding for all these services come from? You guys able to generate revenue internally? Or is there some donations or state support?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So the DDA, the DDA programs are funded by, you know, the state and Medicaid, Medicaid dollars. Our VTC is funded by grants and donations, philanthropic donations. Yeah, some snap benefits, some federal funds, but mostly grants.

Anthony Codispoti : You guys do any fundraisers?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yes, we have started doing fundraisers. We do a yearly golf event. We’ve also started doing, you know, we’ll do like we’ll donate, like buy a tool kit or something like that for the students. We’ve recently started doing that. We started to expand our fundraising because we usually only, we’ve only, I’ve only been here for two years. We’ve only really done our golf event, but we’re starting to, we’re looking to expand on those things, on our fundraisers.

Anthony Codispoti : So if folks were to go to your website, which is ncanet.org, ncanet.org, would they see opportunities to give or participate in any of these fundraisers?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yes, and we just updated our website. So there is an ability to donate, click on it, donate, and of course all donations are taxed.

Anthony Codispoti : I still want to get to what a chief program officer does, and I have a feeling you wear a lot of hats. I’m already getting that sense. But I want to understand a bit more about what you guys do at NCIA that separates you from other folks who may be providing similar services.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Well, I think for me, I think one of the things I think differentiates us from other providers is that we have this really, we have this, this attitude that we can help anyone. And I know that may be like a cliche, I think a lot of providers probably say that, but I’ve seen that, you know, firsthand, like my first week here, we took someone that no one would take, and we were actually able to be extremely successful with that young lady.

And I think that was the eye-opener for me. I sat in this meeting, I looked at this young lady on paper, and I was like, oh, no, there’s no way we should be providing service for this young lady. And my CEO was like, no, that’s not what we do here. We help everyone, you know, support without measure. This is what we do.

And we were able to do that. And I think for me, that’s really what separates us from other providers. We take individuals that usually other providers won’t take or they kind of steer away from, and we are successful with those individuals, whether it’s, whether it’s them being in the community, whether it’s them getting a job, whether it’s them getting training, we are successful. And I think that is what separates us from other providers.

Anthony Codispoti : Without giving away any personally identifiable information, can you say more about this woman’s situation? Why most people wouldn’t want to have worked with her?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah. So this young lady, not only was she IDD, she had mental health challenges, she had pica, she would have elopement, she would run away, she had self-injurious behavior. She was, if you looked up someone like, no, you don’t want that person in your program, she kind of checked all those boxes.

She had a significant mental health diagnosis. And we were able to, we actually got her in our crisis program. We stabilized her. She lost weight, was going back to school. She was doing a lot of things that a lot of people told us that she wouldn’t be able to do. And I think that was a testament to our team, like the team pulled together and we were able to, you know, we were just able to foster her.

And I think the other thing that we did, that she, I remember she told me this and no one ever asked her, we asked her like, what does she want to do? What’s your definition of being successful? What’s your definition of normalcy? And she gave us a definition and we used that. We used that as the roadmap to help her.

Anthony Codispoti : What was her definition? Do you remember?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, she wanted to be able to go out in the community, go on a date, go back to school. So we were able to provide that for her. We helped her. The date thing, we didn’t really, we didn’t get all the way there, but the school and signing up for classes, we did that.

Anthony Codispoti : Can you walk me through a little bit more about what those sort of in-between steps were? Like what you got her into the, you know, your crisis management service and like, how do you help somebody that is sort of, that dysfunctional kind of get to the place where they want to be, where they can kind of be a bit more of a part of society?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So what we, I mean, we, you know, we get them, we get them from the state, obviously they come in and there’s, we look at their history and we get them in. If they need some med management or some med, you know, med adjusting for them to be okay, we take them to, we take them to a psychiatrist or a therapist, get them where their meds are at a therapeutic level first. And then what we do is then we meet with them. If it’s them alone or if it’s them with their family, we meet with the whole team and then we ask them, you know, what, like I said before with the young lady, what do you want to do?

What, what do you think your problem is or what do you think this is or that or whatever? And then we create a plan, an evidence-based plan that we can track the data, show, show growth, show areas of challenge. And then we implement that plan and we, we use that plan to help guide and shape that individual. I think the evidence-based part, I think is very, very, it’s very helpful because it shows, you can track everything.

So it shows the pitfalls, it shows the successes. A lot of times, you know, a lot of places you just, oh, you’re just not doing well in this area. But you’re also, but here in NCIA, you’re doing well in all these areas. So let’s focus on these areas and we can maybe come back and maybe course correct what’s going on in this area, you know, obviously with the team and your input. So I think those are, you know, those are, those are kind of how we, how we do it. And then of course, with, with unconditional support, my behavioral services team, those young ladies that, you know, they care and they care a lot and they talk to the individuals, they work with the families, they do everything that you could do to make someone successful.

Anthony Codispoti : I’m going to say you guys really emphasize this idea of compassion without limits, right? As I understand, it’s one of the core values there.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yes, absolutely.

Anthony Codispoti : How does that kind of show up in daily operations?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So it shows up like in everything that we do and we are, we’re going through like a culture shaping kind of exercise of our executive team. And one of the things that we talked about was, you know, hiring people that fit in our culture.

Like, yeah, you can, I mean, I can, I mean, anyone, we can hire you and teach you how to do the job. But if your, if your culture mindset doesn’t match up with us, you’re not going to be successful here. So we, we hire, we have started hiring people who fit into our culture. So that way, yes, we talk about it, we introduce it to you. But if it’s ingrained in you, if that’s who you are as a person, then we really don’t have to beat you over the head with it for you to understand, you know what it is. Like helping people is really what we do here with, without measure, without limits.

Anthony Codispoti : Have you found an effective way to help sort of identify those, those folks during kind of that interview or onboarding process?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, we, we, you know, the thing is that we go through like a couple, you know, you go through a screening process. So we have like an initial screener, the HR person, they screen the person. And then we have formulated some questions to kind of see and we ask people if they have their own personal challenges, etc, etc. So we try to get people, we really try to get you to share in the interview. So then that way we know, we know if this is a good fit. Like if I interviewed you and you said, yeah, I’m just really here to work this job.

Okay, this really might not be, you know, a fit for you. But if you came to my office and said, hey, you know what, I have a, I was, I was a TA, I was a teacher’s assistant, and I realized that they weren’t really teaching, but I felt like I could do it better. And I went back to school and I did this and I did that. And now I want to leave the school. I want to do this.

I would do that. Okay, okay. Maybe you’re not going to leave the school, but I do like your passion. And you know, you sound like you might be a good culture fit. Now, am I saying it’s 100% accurate? No. But it has, it has worked for us.

Anthony Codispoti : Everything’s part art, part science. You just, you try to get as good at that filtering process as you can so that, you know, you’re not having to go and replace that person, you know, a few weeks or a couple of months down the road because it wasn’t a good culture. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, okay. So now I want to understand what a chief program officer is. Emmett, what is it that you do?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So I oversee all those programs that I listed for you earlier. Each program does have a director. Some of those programs have executive directors. I oversee, you know, I oversee those programs. I provide them with administrative support. And realistically, I mean, I think that’s really what it is best to describe it. I mean, obviously, I’m ultimately responsible for the programs I report directly to the CEO, the CEO.

But it really is about providing my leadership team with the support they need to, you know, get the job done to make sure they’re doing the job and doing it at a very high level. Hmm.

Anthony Codispoti : So I want to talk about an award that you got, Community Achievement Citation by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. How did that come about? What is this recognition for?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So when I worked in Philadelphia for eight years, Philadelphia at that time was there was a movement called Healthy Minds Philly. It basically was to reduce mental health stigma for people to, if they had mental health challenges, you could get a free screening and then that screening could lead to you maybe choosing whether or not to, you know, to get mental health outpatient services or mental health services. So the organization I worked for, I kind of stumbled, I went to a meeting, I kind of stumbled onto it and I was like, oh yeah, we could really do this. So what I did was I gathered a couple of my clinicians around, I spoke to the governing bodies at the time and we started going to fairs, not just health fairs, like any type of community fair, any type of community activity, we would go to it and I would, we would set up our tent and we’d have all our information but we also had the screening tools. So we screened up, we screened a lot of people in my time there and I got nominated and I received that reward for all that community work that I did because we traveled all over Philly, we were based in West Philly, but I would be in the northeast, I would be in the south, I would go east, we would go anywhere there was a fair available because we really wanted to reduce the stigma around mental illness.

And I really wanted to, in the African-American community, a lot of times mental illness isn’t talked about openly, it’s more hidden, so we wanted to kind of reduce that stigma and get people to know that hey, it’s okay, this is a safe space. So I did it for a bunch of years and then I got, I did get recognized for that. I felt like it was a really great honor because I didn’t really know if anyone was really paying attention.

Anthony Codispoti : Not only were they paying attention but you got an award for it.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, they actually really were so it was, it was good to be recognized.

Anthony Codispoti : So the work that you were doing at the fairs was to raise awareness of mental health issues and so the people attending the fairs are who? Just the general public?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, it was just the general public. So one of the things I learned like kind of marketing 101 is that we would always have, you know, we would have like swag or grab bags and things and a lot of times what happens is that when you go to these fairs and even when I was speaking to people, maybe they weren’t currently dealing with anything mental health wise, but they would take the sticker and stick it on their refrigerator or the magnet sticker on their refrigerator and then when something did happen they were like, hey, remember that big guy? Because I’m not a small guy. I’m sitting down so I’m like six eights.

I’m pretty tall guy. So they would be like, remember that guy? With the, hey, let’s call this number.

And like I said, it’s a number, it’s a website. You can go on the website. There’s a whole bunch of like information on there. There’s screening tools on there. There’s like checklists and one pager. So there’s like a slew of information that even if you don’t feel comfortable and now I went on there the other day just to kind of look, you know, now the nine eight eight is on there, but you know, the mobile crisis number. So you could call that.

So there’s a lot of resources on that on that. So we were just, we were just talking to anyone that there would be, you know, there would be kids there and be adults there. There’d be older adults.

There’d be city officials, just regular people. Like so they’re like everyday fairs and like health fairs or like farmers markets. And we were just talking to people trying to get people to understand, you know, the importance of, you know, of mental health and getting your and getting a checkup. That’s what we called it. Like, hey, come get your mental health checkup.

Anthony Codispoti : And so they could come in to the program that you’re working with at the time and they could get evaluated. Yeah.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So really what was interesting about it is they gave us these iPads. Initially, it was like a check off, but then they got fancy and it became iPads. So you could come actually, we would have an area set up the privacy. So you go over, speak to a clinician in private and the clinician would ask you these questions. And then you would, based on your answer, it would say, Hey, I think maybe you might want to maybe look at maybe getting some counseling, maybe getting some out, you know, maybe some outpatient counseling, maybe you want to do this, maybe want to do that. And then we could also then, we could also then direct you, Hey, where do you live? Oh, I live here. Okay.

Well, you can go to this clinic. They have a walk in day on this day. Or if they lived in, like my organization was in West Philadelphia, so like, Oh, if you live in West Philadelphia, you might want to come here.

So we’re accessible by, you know, public transportation, etc. So it was basically really just like an outsource to, you know, help people, you know, to reduce that mental health stigma.

Anthony Codispoti : And you touched on something there that’s interesting to me, because we’ve talked about mental health on this show before. And the sort of the general stigma that has, and in many cases still exists with it, people who are suffering from it think they’re the only ones sometimes, you know, because, you know, other folks who have gone or are going through something don’t give voice to it enough. And so I’m always grateful when one of my guests who has gone something, you know, through something, you know, shares about their stories, but you’re touching on something interesting here that I don’t think we’ve explored before, which is the idea that there’s an even greater stigma within the African American community around mental health. Tell me more about that. Yeah.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So I mean, I think that I mean, even when I was a kid, when I was going through, when I was going through some of my own challenges at particular point in time, you know, you just don’t talk about those things. Like, you don’t talk about them, you know, you keep that in the family.

And those are just those are just our family problems. So you don’t really get an opportunity to express those things. And, you know, honestly, for me, I wasn’t able to express, you know, some of my challenges until I got older.

And when I mean older, I’m talking like 30s or 40s older, not like in my 20s. And I think it’s just something that, you know, you don’t talk about. And I know I’ll give an example. This is this is it’s funny. It was funny.

But it’s really not funny. So I when I was I was talking to my grandmother, she has a long past. And my grandmother was talking to me about my uncle. And she was like, Oh, you know, your uncle was was was touched by an angel. You know, he was he was a little different.

He was touched by an angel. And I was like, Oh, okay, you know, I didn’t really understand it. But now that I’m older, no, my uncle had autism. And that was my grandmother’s way of saying that, you know, he, you know, he had autism.

So she she described it as him being touched by an angel. And the interesting part about it is they never he never went to a special school or anything like that. It was all in house, in the family, you know, but he had autism. So that was my my grandmother’s way telling me, you know, your uncle is different. Yeah, yeah, he is. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti : Back then they, I don’t know how many people knew the word out to you. Exactly. Absolutely. You’re absolutely a way to be evaluated. Yeah, absolutely. You know, you we’ve talked about kind of mentioned the importance of the, you know, unconditional support. And, you know, now we’re talking about marginalized communities. You know, it can you describe maybe a time where you encountered significant barriers when trying to provide this kind of support to folks and maybe how you or your team overcome that?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : I think we actually encounter it every day. I think that that’s the one thing I think that there’s there are challenges, you know, but I think what we do, you know, we just find a way. I think there’s challenges every day, you know, there’s challenges in regards to, you know, sometimes the families aren’t really on board with what needs to happen. We, you know, we say, hey, this is really what we’re doing to provide the best level of care. You know, sometimes, you know, I just I feel like honestly, there’s just there are challenges every day and I really can’t even put a specific like, oh, this is one of the things that we face every day.

I think that dealing dealing with dealing with people, which is the most precious commodity, in my opinion, we’re faced with challenges every day. We have, you know, matter of fact, I’ll use this one as the biggest one denial. There’ll be you have parents who and I’ll use this, I’ll use another example of our respite home, you have parents who think that, oh, you know, not my son, not my daughter, etc, etc. And then, you know, unfortunately, ma’am, yes, your son or daughter, we have to work, we’ll work with them, we’ll help them, we’ll fix them. But they, the family won’t accept the fact that their loved one has a diagnosis or, you know, needs special care. So a lot of times, when we remove them from the family, like when they come to our crisis home, and they’re in our crisis unit, a lot of those behaviors that they are exhibiting at home, we don’t see them at the crisis, because our crisis house, because we’re trained and we’re, you know, we’re able to stabilize that. So those things, those things that we’re making the situation more difficult at home, we don’t see them there. And I think a lot of times, for me, when we have to talk to the families, that’s the biggest challenge, because there’s that, like I said before, there’s that underlying, first of all, there’s underlying guilt, they think that they’ve done something, that’s why there’s a challenge. And then the fact is, oh, I don’t know, no, not actually not, it can’t be anything that I’m doing, it can’t be this or that. And I’m like, you know, we and we are, I think we are, I think my team is very good at, at letting people know, no, you know, don’t please don’t take it personal.

We’ve seen this before. This is just, you know, how it is, but we’re going to work with you and your, your, your child to make sure that they have the best, they have the best life.

Anthony Codispoti : Is there, is there also an element of, you know, as a parent, like we think it reflects, like poorly upon us or our gene pool? Yes, absolutely. How, how could my son or daughter, my son or daughter have this concern, this issue, this. Absolutely.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So I’ll use myself as an example. My, my children’s, my two, my son’s mother was tremendous guilt. Like we, my oldest son, she was in such denial, we didn’t even get him evaluated. We got him evaluated late. And I think, I mean, he’s doing great now, but her, the guilt, and also I had my own guilt. I’m not gonna lie. I thought, hey, my sister had autism now. I have the gene.

And I’m just thinking, you don’t even, all the things I was thinking of in my head. And yeah, so there’s a lot of self-guilt, a lot of self-blame, and it can delay, it can delay them getting help. And it can also, it can hinder them getting help. So you have to, and it’s interesting when my second son was born and he was kind of showing delays, we were quick. We were quick this time around. I was like, oh no, no early intervention for him. Boom, boom, we got him in early intervention right away. And it reaped some great benefits for him.

Oh wow. Yeah, so I think, that was the opportunity. I don’t know if most people have back-to-back autism children, but I think in that situation for me, it was definitely a learning process. And then I was able to remove the self-blame because my son went to a neurologist and neurologists talked to us. He was like, oh, you don’t blame yourself. He gave us all the definitions and all the things we could do. And he really did help us.

And I think from there, I was able to almost kind of like snap out of it in a sense and be like, oh listen, we’re ready to go, let’s move forward. And I think that a lot of times some parents do have that difficulty. Like you said, not my child, oh my, but something wrong with my genes. Something’s going on, something’s wrong with me, et cetera, et cetera. Unfortunately, they don’t know why it is. So you can’t really put a blame on it.

Anthony Codispoti : As I think about the vocational training, the educational alternatives that you guys offer, are there any innovative techniques or ideas that you guys have implemented to help distribute these programs and make them effective?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, I think what we’re doing now is that we are really involved in our grant management. And I think before we kind of, I hate to say it, I’m not gonna say we relax and days ago, but we kind of, I will say that. We’re a little lax and days ago in our grant management. And I think what we’ve done now is that we’ve created a tracking system. We’ve brought in a grant accountant to manage our grants. I mean, we are really specifically focused on any and everything we can do to manage these grants better and effectively. We don’t wanna leave any funding on the table. And then we wanna be successful in our data collection to send out to the grantors so that we can ask for more money.

Anthony Codispoti : You guys have grown now, you’re in multiple locations. What are all the geographies that you’re serving now?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So we do Baltimore County, Baltimore City, PG County. We also do Charlotte. Yeah, that’s it.

Anthony Codispoti : Okay. Any thoughts of expanding into other geographies or any thoughts about adding more services?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, so we, so since I’ve been here, we’ve added the behavioral services division. We didn’t have that before. So we added that. That is a growing division. We are looking, my CEO wants to buy additional homes to provide residential care. Our day program is really expanding. When I got here, I think we only had like 50 or 60 individuals. Now we’re almost at 80. So we’re growing that day program. Our employment services is growing. We’re looking to get more individuals employed in the community. And our VTC, our VTC is growing. We do graduate, like I said, we graduate 300 students a year. We would like to do more than that. Our school, our school houses 60 students. We have trailers in the back because we are growing. So we are looking, our CFO said it the other day, he’s like, oh, I would love to buy another building to have an additional school. So I was like, oh yeah, that would be great.

Anthony Codispoti : Where does the funding come from for something like that?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So from the school, that would be us managing our funds better. But those students are paid for by Maryland Board of Education. Gotcha.

Anthony Codispoti : You mentioned wanting to buy more homes. What goes on inside the homes?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So basically it’s like, it’s basically, the way I would describe it is it’s community living, it’s normalcy. So they live in those homes, the home that’s their house. There’s a lot of life skills stuff that goes on. Some individuals cook their own meals, do their own laundry, take care of themselves, go to work.

They just live in our homes. And other individuals need a little bit more hands on care, but there’s learning. There’s life skills learning that goes on.

Teach individuals how to cook, teach individuals how to do their own laundry. There’s a lot of community engagement that goes on. We like to get them out in the community. Obviously we just had an Easter egg hunt. Easter was, you know, last Sunday we had an Easter egg hunt.

The guys and girls created Easter baskets and actually donated them out to the rest of the community, which I thought was great. But if I could, the way I would describe it is normalcy. Normal living is what goes on in our group homes. You know, those individuals, we say it’s their home. It’s their home. They live there. We are just here to make sure you’re okay.

Anthony Codispoti : Where would the funding for those additional homes come from? Is this grants or donations?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, to buy the homes would be grants are, I will say our CEO and CFO are really, really good with numbers. So we do have some money that we could possibly buy an additional home if need be. That’s something that we always talk about. We talk about expansion. My CEO told me the

Anthony Codispoti : other day, I would love to buy more homes. And I was like, yeah, that would be great too. Yeah, be able to help more people. Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know, slightly different. I’m kind of curious to take some of your maybe expertise and things that have helped you along the way and help other folks. Is there a particular book, a tool, a podcast, something that has been helpful to you in your development that our listeners might get benefit from?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : You know, that’s, I don’t, I don’t, this is gonna sound really bad. I mean, I’m a self-help book reader. I read a lot of, just a lot of self-help books, but what I will say is this.

What has helped me the most is I’ve always been able to find a mentor somewhere where I work and they poured into me. Because I feel like everywhere you go, things are different. I’ve worked in like four states now.

I’ve worked in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and now Maryland. And I feel like everywhere you go, there are some differences. But for me, I’ve always found, I’ve found people to pour into me. Like when I was in Philadelphia, my CEO there, we took, he took a liking to me. He poured into me. We got, I got a lot of information from him.

When I was in New Jersey, my COO poured into me. A lot of information from there. A lot of fiscal information. And even here in my C-suite role, my CEO has always given me information.

Now, it’s a little bit of a different information because obviously she’s a CEO and it’s that really high level of information. But I think for me, I’ve always been lucky enough to have someone who has liked me or poured into me. So I think that, if I could say that, I mean, I think that’s the best thing. I mean, I’m currently in school now, so I’m getting information from school and my classmates and things, but I don’t think nothing beats that real life application that I’m getting from mentors.

Anthony Codispoti : Any advice for folks who are like, how do I find a mentor? How do I find somebody that, I don’t know, is willing to help, that can help me, is kind of a good fit for that? They ask.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So I’ll give an interesting example. I worked for an organization in Pennsylvania. It was a for-profit and they were really, really good. Their CFO was really good with their numbers. And I wanted to learn. And so one day we were in a budget meeting, he was doing his numbers thing, his budget thing. And after the meeting, I asked him, I said, hey, would you mind walking me through the budget process? He was like shocked, because I guess most people don’t really want to do numbers and social services. So he was like, absolutely, I’m gonna put something on your calendar, you and I could meet for lunch and we’ll go through the process.

And we did. And then it’s funny because I was able to take that knowledge that when I worked at an organization affiliate, I was actually able to help them grow, their fiscal department. And then along the way, being able to know the budget process helps.

There’s your CFO doesn’t have to really explain everything to you like, oh, this is this, you’re able to know. And I think that was one of the things, but I asked, if you find something that’s interesting to you in a workplace and there’s someone that you feel is good at it and ask them, I don’t see anything wrong with that.

Anthony Codispoti : The only thing they can say is no. And then if they say no, you look at them kind of funny. We’re in social services, we help people. You’re supposed to be helping me too. Well, and maybe for people that are outside of social services, it could just be like, hey, if they say no, you’re in the same position that you were before where you’re not getting that mentorship. But what I like about what you just mentioned there, Emmett, is that there was some specificity to the request. Like you didn’t just go and say, hey, can I be your shadow? Will you mentor me? It’s like, hey, you’re really good with the budget stuff.

Obviously that’s your umbrella. I am fat, I don’t know this stuff, but I would love to learn more. Would you be willing to teach me? And I’m glad that you brought it up and you kind of added that layer of specificity because I think people would be surprised by how often people say yes, even outside of the social services world.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Exactly, no, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. It’s like, oh, wow, like you’re going to that person, you’re kind of recognizing them for their expertise, which feels good. And most people who aren’t psychopaths and narcissists, they enjoy helping other people. They’re like, wow, yeah, I’d be happy to help you. So yeah, that’s really good.

Anthony Codispoti : I mean, I’d like to hear about a serious challenge that you’ve gone through in your life, professional, personal, maybe a combination of the two. What did you learn? How did you get through it?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So I’ll use my sons because I think it was, it’s really, really challenging. Like I said, my first son was born, he was talking, then he kind of like shut down and kind of didn’t know what was going on, took them to get evaluated. The school was like, oh, we have a neurologist, take them here, they’ll evaluate them. They kind of, it was interesting, I remember it like it was yesterday because they were so nonchalant about it. Like, oh, just take them here.

It’s not that big of a deal, just take them here. So when we took them, the neurologist was like, oh, can you guys, we’ve stepped out to the room, I’m gonna run, just do some tests or whatever. He came back very quick. He was like, oh yeah, your son, he has autism. And I was just kind of like, I didn’t really know what to do.

Anthony Codispoti : Like I was- That’s big news to have. Yeah, like it really hit me. And then like I’m really gonna share with you, like I played basketball at a high level and I was like, oh yeah, my son’s gonna play. And I’m thinking like the worst of the worst, like he’s not gonna get married. He’s not gonna have kids. He’s not gonna have a normal life. He’s gonna end up in an institution because even though I had my sister,

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : who has a normal, who was living a normal life, for some strange reason, for me, all that went out the window. So I was just thinking the worst doom and gloom. I blame myself. I cried for like, I used to, I would cry. And then of course his mom, she was doom and gloom as well. So it really, really, really affected me for like, it affected me for like a long time.

And then the neurologist was like, okay, well, you know, I’m gonna do, I’m gonna set you up with another day, bring them back. And then I’ll give you some resources and things you can do. And then, you know, we can move forward from there. So that, I felt like, and it was, when I think about it, it was only like two days later. Like I think like we went to see him on a Monday and then he was like, bring him back in on Wednesday or something like that. But I felt like it was like the longest day, those days that they just dragged on. And I remember I was sitting with, I would sit with my son in the living room and I would just hold him and I would just cry. And it was just, it was like really, really emotional for me. And when we went back to the doctor’s office and he was like, okay, so we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this. And I was like, well, you know, is it, you know, and he was like, he’s like, listen, listen, he goes, listen.

Your son’s gonna be okay. You need to do all these things and you need to do these things and you do them quickly. And then you’re gonna see an instant turnaround.

He goes, you know, I’m telling you, I’ll never forget. And we started doing those things, we called the school, of course, we had to do IEPs and all those other things for the school, but it worked. It reaped very quick dividends. He started speaking again. He started doing things again. He was, it was really, it was like almost like a light switch. And it really, I mean, his success helped me because like it helped me to snap out of what I was going through.

And it was, you know, it was really an emotional time. And, you know, at that particular point in time, like I mentioned to you before, I never thought like, maybe I should go get some counseling or maybe I should talk to somebody. Cause I probably was, you know, I’m not gonna lie. I probably was depressed from that period. I mean, I’m kind of shortening the time span, obviously, for this conversation, but I can probably honestly say I probably was depressed at a particular point in my life.

And I just didn’t, you know, I never knew to go get, go to council, go to council or go to a therapist or talk to somebody or et cetera, et cetera. So I just dealt with that. So yeah.

Anthony Codispoti : Sounds like the person who delivered the news on a Monday probably could have used a little bit of coaching on delivering that message rather than putting you through that 48 hours of strife and thinking, you know, the absolute worst. Obviously, you know, even after you had that meeting on a Wednesday, like there was still a lot of work in front of you and it wasn’t like, you know, everything, but you saw that there was a plan and you saw that there was hope and you heard from the specialist, he’s gonna be fine.

He’s gonna be okay, which is a big thing that you really needed to hear. I’m super curious, what were some of the things that were prescribed that they said, hey, you’re gonna see a pretty quick turnaround here?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So they really did, so the school district that we lived in at the time, they had a really good early intervention program. So instead of like regular like preschool or kindergarten or whatever, he went to like this early intervention program, he had a case manager, they worked with him, they developed a plan, they had a plan for school, he had a plan for at home. So like it really was, and I think that’s, this is gonna sound pretty funny. I am a planned person, like I plan things, like, so I think that, you know, that worked for me. So, oh, these are things that we’re gonna do at home, these are things you’re gonna do at school, they’re gonna reinforce one another. And it really worked, it really worked. Like we would do money, we would, not money, but we would like do the alphabet at the time, and you know, we worked on his fine motor skills with writing and things like that. So it was really, the plan really, really helped. And you know, and I think the other thing that was good about it was the neurologist, and I know he was just, he was just a doctor in the bedside manner sometimes, just lacking, but I think that the case manager at the school, and the IEP coordinator at the school, they were very, very, like, very compassionate. They were like, oh, don’t worry, we’re using good hands, don’t worry about it, you can come visit us anytime, if you have any questions, you could call me, you could do this, you could do that. And it was interesting because his case manager at the time was a young gentleman, and we ended up later on working together, like he ended up leaving, my son had graduated and went on to a different school, and then he ended up, the case manager that I worked with, that worked with my son, we ended up working together at another social service agency down the road, so he would always talk about my son, and like he would see my son, my son come to the office, and he was like, oh, I can’t believe that’s the same little guy that I worked with now. I was like, no, he’s a giant now. So yeah.

Anthony Codispoti : That’s great, and hearing this story, which is very heartwarming, by the way Emmett, it makes me wanna hear maybe another story or two about some of the folks that you guys have been able to help at NCIA, we did hear about the one woman who nobody wanted to touch, too difficult of a case, anybody else come to mind that would be a good example of kind of what you guys do?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, so we had a gentleman here who was in our, he’s in our residential program, he’s also in our day program. He had a one-to-one, because he had really bad behaviors.

He would have behavioral outbursts at the day program. He just, he would, he was a handful, I’m gonna say it, he was a handful to deal with, but it was interesting because they asked him one time, the thing that we talked about the most, we asked them, what do you wanna do? He’s like, oh, I wanna have a job. We’re like, but you had a job, you weren’t successful with the job, what’s gonna be different this time? He’s like, oh, if you give me a job, I will, I know I can do it this time. So like, okay, so they worked with him, our job coaches worked with him.

He, he had his behavior improved, he got, he didn’t need a one-to-one anymore. He got a job at Family Dollar, and he can work, he works there independently, and he was recognized, I don’t wanna mess the award up, but he was recognized by, he was recognized by the Baltimore County Commission of Disability Award. He got the, for the outstanding employee, and we had a celebration in our day program, they came, they presented him with the award, he was all dressed up, he had his steeped tie on. I thought that that was probably like the, oh, and then also, he now sits on one of our boards as a individual representative. So I think that right there shows, the good work that we do, like he had a one-to-one, he had a lot of behaviors, he did not wanna do anything productive, he had gotten a job, he had got fired from the job, but then they pulled him to the side, the team at the day program, and the employment services team, they pulled him to the side, and they asked him, what do you wanna do? And he was like, I wanna work, and they’re like, but you haven’t been successful, he goes, no, give me another opportunity, and I will be successful. And he was.

Anthony Codispoti : What was it about the second opportunity that you think sort of clicked?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : I think it was the team that worked with him, we have a young lady, I can say her name is Michelle, she’s fantastic. She is, she’s a realist, she tells him, hey, you know, you don’t do this, you’re not, I think, another thing that we do, the natural consequences of things, like if you don’t do this, you won’t go to work, if you don’t do that, you’re not gonna get a job, so you know, I was like, think about it, think about your experience.

Anthony Codispoti : She’s kinda helping him connect the dots on the consequences.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : And I think that was awesome, and

Anthony Codispoti : one of the things that I really, I enjoyed seeing him get the award,

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : but what I enjoy the most is when he comes to our corporate office, and he’ll say to me, hey, Mr. Immett, are we having our board meeting this month? Absolutely, we sure are, he’s like, okay, I can’t wait to be there, and I think that is great, like you went from someone who couldn’t hold a job, who had a one-to-one for behaviors, now this gentleman sits on one of our boards, as an individual representative, I think that’s great. Yeah, that’s touching.

Anthony Codispoti : Emmett, if you and I reconnected in a year, and you’re celebrating something, what would you hope that is?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : I would hope that we were celebrating, that we’ve expanded, that we’ve expanded more into Maryland, some other areas, or possibly maybe we expanded it in North Carolina, like maybe we’re doing our IDD work in North Carolina, I think that would be great, if we connected in a year, and you were like, what do you guys do, or we did all these wonderful things, I think that would be great for me, because when I came here, like I said, I came from an organization that was in nine states, and they grew, and that’s one of the things that I really talk about a lot, is trying to expand the program in here.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, and be able to help as many people as you can, right? Absolutely, absolutely. How about some daily practices or habits, Emmett, that help get you started, keep you on track, keep you centered?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Yeah, so every morning I wake up, I go to the gym, I work out, I go to the gym, I run on the treadmill, lift weights, I sit in the sauna, I come home, and I have two dogs, I walk my dogs, I give them, you know, walk, and then I kind of, I say, I have like these four things, I tell myself every day, usually while I’m walking, walking my dogs, and then I, you know, I obviously take care of them, get in the shower, and then I start my day, but yeah, that’s kind of like my process, it’s every day except for Sunday, so that’s kind of my process, I wake up, I go to the gym, I come home, I take care of the dogs, I do my daily affirmations, and then I start my day, and I do it, it’s funny, because I always had the, you know, the gym part and the dogs part, but then I introduced the daily affirmations, because I just felt like, you know, one of the things that I, you know, I’ve kind of changed myself, is that I really want to be, a positive person, and I think at NCIA here, I think, like I said, when I came here, you know, our CEO was like, oh no, we help everyone, and I’m like, can you help everyone?

And I think like moving, like, taking that mindset in, I think it’s helped, it helps me at work, and it helps me in my personal life, I really want to be, you know, a positive person, I want to spread positivity in the community, and I want to be positive, like, you know, I got that award for the positive things I was doing in the community in Philadelphia, and I want to continue to do that in my career.

Anthony Codispoti : Are you comfortable sharing what those four affirmations are, or is that too personal?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : No, I can’t give you all of those. Not all the secrets, okay. I can’t give you those, I mean, I would if I could, I can’t give you those.

Anthony Codispoti : That’s fair, that was totally fair, I had to ask, but I respect that. And what’s one thing that you wish more people knew about your industry?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : That there are more individuals that need service than what people think. And the other part of it is, is that I think that more people need to know that they’re entitled, those individuals that we serve are entitled to the same quality of life as you and I. I’ll tell a quick story, is that we were out in the community, and one of, I forgot where we were at, but someone was like, oh, that’s a group home there? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And they were like, oh, they shouldn’t be allowed, they shouldn’t be allowed to live there. And I was like, no, I was like, sir, that’s not what we believe. I said, they deserve the same quality of life as you.

And I think we gotta respect that. He was like, oh, well, you know, he was an older gentleman, I’m not trying to be agist or anything like that. But when he said that to me, normally I would have just been like, I just would have ignored it, but I was like, no. That one struck a nerve.

Yeah, I was like, absolutely not. They deserve the same quality of life as you and I. One of the things I learned, it’s funny, because it was opening to me. I think I mentioned to you when I went to, I worked for the organization, Eden, the founder, Dr. David Holmes, he would be like, if you go on vacation, they should go on vacation. If you go to the movies, they should be going to the movies. If you go swimming, they should go swimming.

Anything you do, they should do. And he used to hammer that home. And if you did not believe that, you didn’t work there. And for me, that’s something that I carried along with me. And then even for my own sons, I was like, oh yeah, no. Cause I remember I used to, for my own son, like he had a schedule, right? Cause sometimes autistic, they’re very regimented. I used to change my son’s schedule up so that when things were different, he wouldn’t like be off kilter. He would just be like, oh, okay, I got a role with this.

Everything in life isn’t planned out. So we did start to do some other things when I learned, as I went on in my career and learned some certain things. But now my son, like, he’s like, oh yeah, we’re doing that. Okay, cool.

Anthony Codispoti : You helped him be conditioned to the unpredictability of natural life.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : He was like, oh, you said we’re going to play basketball. Yeah, but we’re going to do this now. Oh, okay, yeah, no problem. All right, let’s get in the car. I like it.

Anthony Codispoti : And then I’ve just got one more question for you. Before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, I want to invite all the listeners to go ahead and hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app. You want to continue to get more great interviews like we’ve had today with Emmett Highball at NCIA. Emmett, I also want to let people know the best way to either get in touch with you or NCIA or follow your story or that of the organization. What would that be?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : So to follow NCIA, it’s ncionet.org. You can go on there. We’re all on there. I’m on there. My CEO’s on there. If you wanted to get in contact with us, you can just drop a message. I’ll get it. Or if you want to email me directly, it’s Emmett, emmett.highball, high, b-a-u-g-h, at ncianet.org. I’m also on LinkedIn. I don’t know.

Anthony Codispoti : We’ll include links to everything in the show notes.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : No problem. I appreciate that. We’ll take care of that. Yeah, my career’s on LinkedIn. But yeah, that’s how, if you want to get in contact with us, that’s kind of the best way to do it.

Anthony Codispoti : Last question for you, Emmett. As you look to the future, over the next, call it two to three years, what exciting changes do you see coming to your industry?

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Well, what I would like to see is more community partnerships. I would like for us and any other organization like NCIA to partner more with the community, more community providers, more industry. I would like to see more jobs for our individuals. I would like to see, I would just like to see more community partnerships.

I could really say that. Industry, like I mentioned before, like Family Dollar gave our individual a job. I would like to see more opportunity like that for our individuals, more organizations getting involved in this area.

Not just a quick donation and then you leave, but no, actually being involved. Let’s get a partnership and let’s grow that. I think that’s something that would really, really like to see to happen in the future. Because I think it would bring more awareness to the work that we are doing.

Anthony Codispoti : Emmett, hi, Bob. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Emmett Highbaugh, Jr. : Oh, thank you, Ethan. It was a pleasure and I’m really honored that you reached out to me. Thank you.

Anthony Codispoti : My pleasure, Emmett. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.