Florida Developmental Disabilities Council, Inc. (FDDC) is pleased to introduce our new Council Chair, Eddie Hall.
Eddie was born in Michigan in 1964 to a multi-generational family of farmers where hard work and no-nonsense were his family’s values. At 8, he moved with his mom and siblings to Polk County, Florida. Three weeks after they arrived in Florida, Eddie was hit by a car going approximately 70 miles an hour. Eddie says it was a miracle he survived. He was left with several serious injuries that affected his ability to walk, leaving him in a wheelchair, and living with double vision. His mom was told to “send him to a home, he’s never going to amount to anything”. Mom took him home without therapy, supports, or even a wheelchair (his grandfather borrowed a second-hand wooden one for him). Eventually, Eddie ended up at a Florida hospital in Orlando for 6 months of rehabilitation.
Eddie was the first student at his Elementary, Junior, and Senior high schools in a wheelchair. After high school, at the urging of a friend, he became involved in the Lakeland Physically Handicapped Club. A natural-born leader he became President of the club at the age of 18 and was able to land a job at Publix, where he worked for 26 years in Warehouse Distribution, Manufacturing, Facilities Technology, and Information Technology departments. After Eddie retired he decided to work part-time for The Home Depot, where he remains.
Eddie married Katty, who is from Ecuador, and they have 3 children. He joined the local Parent Teacher’s Association and became the first person in a wheelchair to serve as a Commissioner of the Lakeland Housing Authority.
Eddie was appointed to the FDDC in 2015 under Governor Rick Scott and has served in several leadership roles on the Council’s committees and task forces.
“Sharing my life experiences and what I have overcome, has been an inspiration for others”, says Eddie. “We all have some disability; we are all people.”
“Real change takes all of us to embrace an idea and add to it so that it makes a difference for everybody.”