I'm Mark, I'm 49 and was Dx'ed with AS last summer. I have been an employee of General Electric for over 18 years.

The first four years were in the General Electric Machinist Apprentice program, a 40 hour a week hands on training program, requiring very good math skills (still have my slide rule), as well as requiring year round night school at Penn State. I attained a Mechanical Engineering Technology Degree with a 4.0 GPA in that time, paid for by GE.

During that time GE recognized my contributions to the Company with two separate "Managerial Awards." It is extremely rare for someone not in management to get one, I got two. I was the first of only three Apprentices to go to GE's Corporate Entry Level Course at the Company's Crotanville facility.

After graduating from the Apprentice Program, I knew my people skills were ill suited for a management job, and joined the work force on the floor as an NC and CNC programmer and a "second hat" duty as a Material Controller for the Heavy Fabrication building. These jobs were normally filled by salaried people, but I was among a small test group to try something new, highly skilled and highly educated union employees doing those things.

After those positions were eliminated, about the same time Asperger's made the DSM IV in 1994, I was laid off for a year.

While unemployed, I taught myself HTML on a text editor, created a commercial website for a local company for a fee, and got a job at the Gertrude Barber Institute http://www.barberinstitute.org/ repairing computers. The funny thing about life is that the Barber Institute is primarily for the autistic youth of the area. This was 13 years before my Dx of AS.

I was recalled to GE in 1995, and worked a few different jobs that were what would be called "semi skilled" positions. My senses of social justice and moral integrity lead me to become an occasionally vociferous union steward. Eventually my senority and skills got me back to skilled positions, and now I am an inspector and auditor in QC at GE in Erie, PA.

While at GE, I was sort of active in the community also. During that time I have been a T Ball assistant coach, Den Father for the Cub Scouts, on the Board of Directors of ABATE of Pennsylvania http://www.abatepa.org/index.html for four years, and custodial parent of a son with Social Anxiety Disorder after my divorce.

Since my Dx, I have taken on the challenge of restarting the local chapter of GRASP http://www.grasp.org and am ready to "come out of the closet." My desire is to improve people's perceptions, and am willing to announce to the world "Look at me, I'm an independent self supporting community asset with an ASD."

It would also be nice if GE decided to recognize neurodiversity as part of the extensive diversity policy in place now. Sometimes my autistic behaviors are misunderstood, and my union http://www.uelocal506.org/ has come to bat for me more than once.

Perhaps enough faces and stories will get us recognized as different, because the only thing handicapping me is society, in all it's facets.

Mark

Great success there, Mark. Anyone who's ever told you that you couldn't be independent was a big fat liar, and obviously proven wrong.

I love the wording "free range aspie".  I think all that any person needs to be happy is to be free, free to be.

Mentatmark well done. You certainly have an active life. My handicap is not me it is the society we are in that refuses to recognize neurodiversity and would rather have everyone fit the same mould. I must say my uni doesn't recognize neurodiversity either just accomplishment on the academic level. So many unwritten rules to learn...

What about the physical traits?

The ones I think of are:

Stronger, and more robust.  They can even withstand blows to the head.  (Puny NT's for humor)

That's how I think of myself.