Tom was one of the early pioneers in the dyslexia strengths movement.
In an earlier interview, I learned from Tom about how he first heard about the word “dyslexia.”
A relatively new friend of his in Washington DC was describing his son. At the time, Tom said he wondered, “So that’s why Leonardo Da Vinci wrote backwards.”
Some time later, his wife, then a producer for NPR, had done a story with Sally Smith at the Lab School of Washington, an independent school for students with “language-based learning differences like dyslexia”, and so much about the school was about fostering creativity and the arts.
“…this puzzle of that had been with me virtually all of my life, from the earliest days, of what I was interested in and what I was good at and what I was bad at what was, what was a constant recurring puzzle. How do I see a failure situation coming and avoided? How do I hide?” – Thomas G West
Tom’s recognition of his personal connection to dyslexia came about from these experiences and from the realization that the struggles that his children were having were all part of his family history. When he was child, he had come to the conclusion that men couldn’t spell, but women could.
Both Tom’s parents are artists and he would recall that everything he did with his family was in some way related to art. Whereas some students grow up with sports heroes, he grew up with artistic ones.
Tom West and Brandon King
ECLECTIC CAREER – INTERCONNECTED THINKING – NARRATIVE REASONING
Tom’s 20’s and 30’s reveal a very varied history in various fields that would almost seem impossible from the outside- but not impossible for a social interdisciplinary thinker like Tom. In college, Tom majored in Literature and Philosophy – although he liked the ideas, he was a slow reader and quickly became overwhelmed by long reading requirements. For written assignments, he hired others to type his papers and correct misspellings.
He began graduate school, but quickly realized this wasn’t for him. He decided to go into the AirForce and received medic training. He found the practical and hands-on instruction fit well with how he learned best.
Once he had a regular hospital shift, Tom realized he could study in his spare time. As an enlisted man, he found out he could have his Master’s Degree paid for by the US government if he got either a degree in aeronatical engineering or International Relations. Engineering wasn’t his thing, so he got his Master’s degree in International Relations.
Tom worked in the government for many years, but with changes in different administrations (Carter and Reagan), he found himself working in very different divisions where his people skills, eclectic background, and ability to solve problems led to new positions. His first position after getting his degree was at a consulting firm where he became a computer person without any formal training at all. At one point he was working with data involving drug abuse treatment centers, then he switched to the Department of Energy where he worked on sources of renewable energy. Because of his background in international relations, he was picked for a trade mission to Japan, Korea, The Philippines and Indonesia. After he did well at that, he became a leader of the next trade mission to The Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. For a project in Egypt, while still working on how countries might adopt renewable sources of energy, he interviewed various businesses, learning how much energy they would need – ranging from learning how much heat was necessary for cooking chicken to how a resort on the Red Sea might be able to use wind power Questions such as this require strong analytical, visualization, and scenario-constructing abilities.
By the time Tom returned to thinking more deeply about dyslexia – in particular, the talents associated with dyslexia – he had had a great deal of experience researching and writing reports. As a technical outsider to the field, but also an insider in terms of personal and family experience, he brought a new perspective and insights to what would become his first book, In the Mind’s Eye, Creative Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics, and the Rise of Visual Technologies.
He would go on to write, Seeing What Others Cannot See: The Hidden Advantages of Visual Thinkers and Different Wired Brain, and Thinking Like Einstein.
It was Tom’s fascinating research that helped inspire us to eventually write
The Dyslexic Advantage. BRANDON’S STORY
We were introduced to Brandon King through Tom West when we sought out young professionals to see what policy changes were needed for the workplace. Dyslexic students in higher education should be grateful to Brandon (and Tabitha Mancini, Direct of Winston Online) because they reached a landmark settlement with UC Berkeley with the help of the firm Disability Rights Associates to make sure that colleges and universities make course materials accessible to students with print disabilities. This addressed problems accessing audiobooks, ebooks, course readers, and other assistive technology – and it became a model for other colleges and universities thereafter (read more here).
But as an outsider, Brandon’s path to his current position, leading a robotics team at CoVariant is anything but a straight line.
Just as Tom West’s occupations took on many twists and turns (he later reflected that many of his career pivots- like choosing not to pursue a career as a university literature professor) were due to failures, so Brandon had to make serious pivots (failure to graduate high school, job loss after the Silicon Valley Bank failure) that could have permanently blocked his way forward if he hadn’t had the ingenuity, flexibility, and grit to carve out a path for himself and find some way to make every work day a day working on something new – solving problems and working and leading a talented and creative team.
Not everyone is capable of successfully navigating the significant educational and/or work changes that Tom and Brandon have had to face, but I think it likely that dyslexic individuals as a group have a stronger potential to be able to do it. Dyslexic strengths in big picture and interdisciplinary processing make it more possible than others who don’t have these skills – to switch fields – bringing the full range of their experiences from their previous work.
