Travel barriers overcome

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, January 11, 2004

SNOHOMISH — Faron Shanklin always wanted to visit Australia.

As a sailor aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger in 1980, that’s where he was headed. But the mission changed in midocean during the Iranian hostage crisis, and his crew was sent to the Persian Gulf for 133 days.

Many of his life’s dreams, including travel, were derailed again five years later. On July 20, 1985, Shanklin was working the night shift at a gas station off 164th Street SW near Lynnwood. It was one of two jobs the Everett native was holding down to make ends meet.

A robber entered the station around 1 a.m., and Shanklin, then 24, was shot and paralyzed from the chest down, leaving him a paraplegic. Eighteen years later, no one has been arrested in the shooting.

But the Snohomish man still wants to find his way to Down Under — and to all sorts of places around the world.

And he might just get there.

Shanklin is a travel and tourism student at Edmonds Community College who long ago decided he had a choice to make.

"Either you are going to lie in bed and watch TV all day, or you are going to go out, go to the ballgame, be out and about and a part of society," he said.

Shanklin has been to Florida and the Grand Canyon, and he camps in a tent in Eastern Washington each year. He went to Shoreline Community College and learned computer programming and how to repair computers. He talks people step by step through the process of making repairs that his own hands cannot.

By this time next year, he could be entering the travel business with a special emphasis on helping people with disabilities.

That is an underserved market, said Beth O’Donnell, an EdCC instructor and department head for the travel and tourism program. She cites a 2003 national study that found disabled Americans spend $13.6 billion on travel and would be inclined to spend twice that much if their access needs were met.

"I just think it’s a huge market that is not being adequately assisted right now," O’Donnell said.

Often, there are just too many barriers.

Shanklin understands the access issues all too well. He knows what it’s like to attempt to check in at a small-town hotel, only to be turned away as night falls and fatigue sets in.

"We would literally have to beg sometimes," he said.

Once, he was told, the motel feared his wheelchair would damage the doorjambs.

Shanklin keeps tabs on places that accommodate the disabled and those that do not. A lodging with wide enough doors for wheelchairs and realistic shower access can make all the difference between a good trip and a bad one, he said.

He has a network of acquaintances with disabilities, many with spinal cord injuries, who he has come to know through Internet chat rooms. The idea of becoming a travel agent came to him after one particularly enjoyable trip he took.

"It was like opening a can of worms about everybody’s bad experiences or good experiences," he said.

"People would write me, ‘You become a travel agent, and I will use you."

He explored the possibilities and found the program at Edmonds Community College, where he started his second quarter last week.

"Many jobs don’t make sense for me; my help would be doing most of the work," he said. "But in travel, I could answer the phone and work on a keyboard with little assistance, working from home or a nearby agency."

He can use a mouth wand to type as fast as many of his classmates.

O’Donnell said Shanklin could succeed either at home or working for an agency.

"Faron is not only very personable, but his computer skills are strong, and the fact that he is disabled himself, he knows the correct questions to ask people and still have them be comfortable," she said.

In the past, Shanklin hosted a friend from South Australia with cerebral palsy. These days, he’s thinking it would be nice to repay the visit.

"It’s only fair," he said. "He visited me."

Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.