Speaking
Keynotes, panels, workshops, classrooms, veteran groups, disability organizations, healthcare and rehabilitation audiences, businesses, and conferences.
Speaking topics →
QuadCapable • Work With Charlie
Build something useful.
I work with brands, media, organizations, product teams, event organizers, and people solving real accessibility problems. The common thread is simple: the work has to be useful, honest, and grounded in how disability actually works in the real world.
Ways to work together
Different projects. Same standard: make it matter.
QuadCapable works best when lived experience adds something a spec sheet, policy memo, or generic accessibility checklist cannot.
Media & Interviews
Television, podcasts, documentaries, reporting, interviews, and long-form conversations about paralysis, assistive technology, travel, caregiving, veterans, accessibility, and adaptive gaming.
Media center →Brand Partnerships
Selected partnerships with companies whose products, services, or missions genuinely fit the QuadCapable audience.
Product Testing & Reviews
Real-world evaluation of assistive technology, adaptive equipment, smart-home tools, gaming hardware, mobility-related products, travel gear, and accessible consumer technology.
Assistive Technology & Accessibility
Practical input on environmental controls, computer access, voice and eye-gaze systems, adaptive gaming, smart-home access, workflow design, and product usability.
Content Collaborations
Co-created videos, articles, demonstrations, educational resources, campaigns, and projects where lived experience makes the end result more useful.
What I bring
Lived experience is the starting point, not the entire résumé.
The value is in connecting disability experience with hands-on technology, business, advocacy, travel, caregiving, and the practical question that matters most: does this actually work when someone depends on it?
High-Level SCI Experience
More than a decade of rebuilding daily life after a C3 spinal cord injury—from caregiving and transportation to work, travel, recreation, technology, and the systems behind all of it.
Hands-On Technology
Years of real-world use and evaluation of assistive technology, environmental controls, adaptive gaming systems, voice access, eye gaze, smart-home tools, mobility technology, and accessible computing.
Business, Nonprofit & Veteran Perspective
Experience spanning Marine Corps service, business development, nonprofit leadership, veteran advocacy, technology procurement, public speaking, and community work.
Collaboration
The best work gets closer to the real problem.
I am especially interested in projects where somebody wants more than a disability checkbox—product teams that want practical feedback, organizations that want lived experience in the room, and companies willing to test whether their idea survives contact with real life.
Good fit
The best collaborations solve a real problem.
A project is usually a good fit when it helps people participate more fully, makes technology or services more useful, improves accessibility, tells an honest story, or gives people practical information they can actually use.
Good matches can include:
Assistive technology, adaptive gaming, accessibility, mobility, accessible travel, smart-home technology, veteran programs, disability services, caregiving, rehabilitation, consumer technology, transportation, media, and products designed around independence.
How I work
Useful beats polished nonsense.
Honest
I do not trade credibility for access, free products, or a check. Paid relationships are disclosed, and opinions stay mine.
Practical
I care less about what a product or program is supposed to do than whether it actually works when somebody depends on it.
Personal
QuadCapable is a personal platform. Collaborations should fit the audience and the larger story rather than turning the site into an advertisement.
Start here
Tell me what you are working on.
Send the organization or brand, what you want to accomplish, the audience, timeline, deliverables, budget if applicable, and why you think QuadCapable is a fit.
Charlie Merritt / QuadCapable
Charlie@QuadCapable.com