Love and Activism: Alan Hejl and Emily Obert Fight for Accessibility

(Terry Lakins, Dec. 14, 2024)

Ferndale, MI – When Alan Hejl met Emily Obert back in 2014, they were planning on meeting for a first date. Obert informed Hejl that she was a wheelchair user, and he took it upon himself to call around to places ahead of time to accommodate her needs. Their first date at Eastern Market was a success. Two things Hejl was unaware of at the time: he was on a date with his future wife, and that he would eventually become a passionate disability and accessibility activist. Love leads to interesting places.

Along the way, Hejl found himself speaking up often because running into accessibly roadblocks would be commonplace on outings with Obert. It wasn’t for lack of double checking either. Hejl would call ahead, and would be told everything was accessible, but then show up to find obstacles.

It would take various forms, such as a step where a ramp should be, tables being too high for a person in a wheelchair, or an accessible entrance being too far. When Hejl would bring up that he called ahead and was told that everything was fine, he was often met with confusion from the staff.

A bigger example of this happened at a concert venue about a decade ago. While there seeing a show Hejl and Obert dealt with roadblocks at every turn. The accessible entrance was an unmarked door through a side alley. They were then wrongly informed that accessible bathrooms were at the concert level, which is not true because the venue is an older theater with structure and architecture not up to current accessibility standards. Instead, they were directed to restroom in the basement. The supposed accessible bathroom was in an old shower area, which had a dingy shower curtain instead of a door and only a cell phone as a light source to navigate the dark space. Hejl described this experience as eye opening, and it led him to reach out to management about it.

“Every element of accessibility you can imagine was mismanaged,” Hejl said. “We had a long back and forth on how debasing and humiliating that experience was for my wife. No one knew how to do things properly and this is one of the examples where every part of the system had a crack in it.”

The dialogue made a difference. Since that first incident a decade ago the venue has been able to address many problems, including an accessible restroom at concert level and a full access platform for wheelchair users.

This frustrating date is what really fueled the fire for a decade of fighting for accessibility.

Hejl said that it’s not usually malice or deliberate exclusion that prevents businesses from making their establishments accessible. He treats every situation as an opportunity to learn and educate. For most people they just don’t realize there’s a problem until someone points it out to them.

“As an old saying goes, when folks know better, they’ll do better. Almost all the instances we’ve had where we’ve pointed out stuff, we’ve almost never done it in the realm of just complaining. We frame it through the lens of this was our experience and here is some of the resources and knowledge out there so you can fix that. Ninety-nine percent of the time people are receptive to that,” Hejl said.

Sometimes, though, people don’t act with kindness. Hejl recalled a time when he, his wife, and a group of friends were out drinking and a bouncer referred to Obert as a fire hazard, ordered her to move to one specific corner of the establishment, and was told not to move from that spot, lest they be asked to leave.

As the couple accumulated more of these roadblocks and experiences, Hejl grew from concerned husband to an activist for all. He got involved in the disability community in Ferndale, finding people with similar experiences and coming from different aspects of disability. In 2019 he was part of the City re-launching the Accessibility and Inclusion Advisory Commission. Hejl is also involved with two different disability collectives, the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition (which he serves as a member of the board) and Detroit Disability Power, which he’ll collaborate with on occasion (most recently helping to get accessibility at the voting precincts).

The biggest contribution by far is his work in the auto Industry. From 2010 to 2020 Hejl worked at Ford in connectivity and autonomous vehicles. During his time there he realized that accessible transportation still had a long way to go because the business didn’t fully understand disability and realities of it. Seeing this as another opportunity to provide education (and serve the business with in-house expertise) after Hejl joined General Motors in 2020, he began to work by leading initiatives around disability inclusion. He served as the Vice President of the GM Able employee resource group and leads company-wide educational series on accessibility. He started the Accessibility Center of Excellence in 2021, the first accessibility department in the automotive industry, to further educate and progress the initiative.

If there is one thing Hejl has learned in all his experiences, it’s persistence.

His next challenge, a civil rights complaint with the FRA (Federal Rail Administration), has tested this persistence because it has proved difficult to resolve in his current residence of Ferndale. Here is the issue at hand. Several of the railroad crossings in Ferndale (Hilton Rd, 9 Mile, Cambourne St, and Woodward Heights) are in disrepair and hazardous. One of the main issues lies with the flangeway gap, the space between the rail and surface, which currently is too wide. The maximum gap for safe crossing is 1.5 inches and the current gaps are double that. This makes it tough for pedestrians, cyclists, and it doesn’t meet the standards for accessibility, especially for a wheelchair user. Not only is crossing perilous for a wheelchair user but the possibility of getting stuck on the rail is a serious threat.

This is a fairly timely issue. Early this year in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Chicago, a woman was fatally struck by a train while in her wheelchair. A potentially serious incident in Royal Oak saw another person was unable to get off the tracks because their power wheelchair couldn’t clear the gap. Thankfully people nearby got them safely off the track without injury.

Using these and other examples, Hejl is hoping to inspire repairs to crossings in Ferndale and beyond. He’s spoken with the city about the uneven crossings and the gaps that make it difficult for people in wheelchairs, on bicycles, and pushing strollers to cross safely. The crossings are not under City control however, but with the Federal Railroad Administration.

After some research a formal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) complaint was made in December 2023 with the Department of Justice (DOJ), and in March was able to confirm that the complaint was received, though he has heard nothing more of it. These things certainty take time, but Hejl understands patience above all else.

Earlier this year, CN Rail did make improvements to crossings on 9 Mile Road in Ferndale, repaving the flange-way gaps. Though there are still problematic crossing remaining in the city.

Tripling down on his passion for activism, in 2023 Hejl started his own independent consulting company called Spark Access. His goal is to work with the mobility industry through an educational lens for disability and accessibility inclusion.

“The disability doesn’t matter, whether it’s vision, hard of hearing, wheelchair user, or cognitive disabilities. It’s not just about the technical implantation either. It’s about the opportunity to learn more and it’s being able to shape and change policies to make sure people with disabilities are included in this future that we are investing it,” he said.

Hejl isn’t the only one with activism as Obert has her own stake in it. Obert works at Ford Motor Company as an In-vehicle Digital Accessibility Design Manager, and often focuses on initiatives and entrepreneurship within the company to improve accessibility or find overlooked customer needs. One of her recent projects is SupportBelt, an accessory that makes seatbelts comfortable for people recovering from mastectomies. She also served many years for the Ferndale Parks and Recreation Commission advocating for improvements to accessibility. She has since taken a break from volunteer positions and got her master’s in business administration at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business earlier in May this year.

When not volunteering the couple enjoys a wide range of hobbies, including curling, fiber arts, cooking and traveling. Obert also loves water related activities and will go to places that have adaptive sailing and adaptive scuba diving. While Hejl is always a devoted traveling companion, but he always makes time to help others as well.

“I really admire Alan’s activism and volunteerism,” she said. “He advocates for people with lots of different disabilities, but sometimes his hard work feels like a love letter just to me.”