Page 8 - Mobility Management, June 2018

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MOAA Honors Tim Barone, VMI
VMI’s Tim Barone, right, accepts MOAA award.
Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) has awarded the Distinguished Service Award to Vantage Mobility International (VMI) CEO Tim Barone.
Barone and a team from VMI accepted the award at a ceremony held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on April 18.
In making the award, MOAA recognized VMI’s
efforts to provide wheelchair-accessible vehicles to military veterans. VMI was one of just two companies — Starbucks being the second — to be honored with the Service award this year.
Veteran Advocacy Program
In an interview with Mobility Management, Barone acknowledged getting emotional over the award.
“It was quite an honor to be in front of MOAA, their board of directors, their leadership team, U.S. Senators and members of Congress,” he said. “I had 10 of our team members with us, the people who made this all happen, and it was quite an honor to accept the award from such a distinguished organization. [MOAA] has 350,000 members, and we were one of 300 organiza- tions that were nominated for the award. They told us we received the highest marks of any of those 300 compa- nies. It was very, very exciting.”
VMI was recognized for its Operation Independence program that helps veterans with disabilities.
“There are two types of veterans who need our prod- ucts: a service-connected vet vs. a non-service-con- nected vet,” Barone said. “The service-connected vet is one who was injured during their time in the service. The military does a really good job of explaining to those folks their benefits. They’re injured, they’re in a VA hospital, and before they’re discharged, they get lots of informa- tion on what their benefits are.
“Then there are non-service-connected vets who become disabled — [for example] with Agent Orange or ALS — after their service is terminated. Those people don’t know their benefits quite as well. So our Veteran Advocacy Center was established to be the liaison to those folks, to explain their benefits and then to walk through the paperwork [so they can use] the well-de- served benefit that veterans have coming to them.”
Each veteran working with VMI is assigned an advo- cate who “walks them through the process, helps them
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complete the paperwork, explains what their benefits are,” Barone said, adding that all of VMI’s advocates are veterans themselves. “The VA provides lots of benefits, but the requirements that they put in front of the veterans to get the benefits are quite voluminous. So our advo- cates walk them through the things they need to figure out and what products would be best suited for them.”
More Accessible Vehicle Choices
Veterans and their families have more accessible vehicle choices following VMI’s launch of an accessible Honda Pilot SUV (pictured) earlier this year.
“We’ve developed patented technologies that enabled us to re-engineer the suspension to give the person in the wheelchair what we call Access 360,
the largest interior room of any vehicle in the industry,” Barone said. “As chairs get bigger and have more func- tionality, our products have had to be redesigned — we can now give that person in the wheelchair the ability to get in and do a complete 360 without hitting [anything inside] the vehicle. And we believe it looks better than the OEM’s! It gives customers something they’ve been asking for for a long time.”
New automotive technology and impressive awards aside, Barone said VMI’s veterans program has been very rewarding to the company.
“It gives you goosebumps to be able to help these people who have given so much of their freedom and mobility for us to have our freedom,” he said. “To hear testimonials about getting the keys to their new vehicles, and now they can go to church, they can go out with friends, they can have a job, is exhilarating. It’s what we owe these veterans, who have given so much for us.” m
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PHOTOS COURTESY VANTAGE MOBILITY INTERNATIONAL