I didn't even know until now that he made the FSB cover picture and story. It's real milestone for him as a paraplegic.

For some reason I can't get it to link here. It's on the Fortune Small Businesses May 05 issue titled "No Limits". I just copied and pasted it.

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After he had driven four hours to buy a wheel-chair that would allow him to play tennis—and was ignored by the salespeople at the company that made it—John Box was so angry that he decided to do something about it. When Box returned home, he and a brother, both engineers, teamed up to invent their own athletic-oriented chair. Box was soon marketing it at the wheelchair tennis matches in which he competed around the country. That was in 1992. Today Box, 41, sells eye-catching high-performance wheelchairs designed for everything from downhill racing to hockey. The chairs cost $1,500 to $3,000 apiece, allowing his firm, Colours Wheelchair, to turn a profit on more than $2 million in annual sales.

Colours, based in Corona, Calif., gets many of its design ideas from employees who use wheelchairs and also from 75 wheelchair athletes it sponsors around the world. "The only obstacle to doing anything is this little word called 'determination,'" says Box, who became a paraplegic as a result of surgery following a motorcycle accident when he was 17. "Once somebody is determined to do something, it's all downhill."

Box has raised eyebrows—and perhaps sales—with an advertisement for Colours that features a pregnant woman, half covered by a denim shirt, who uses a wheelchair, as well as another disabled woman in sexy lingerie, lying on her back in a wheelchair that has been tipped over. Even the names of his wheelchairs, which range from the Hammer, a model used for contact sports, to the Spazz, for everyday use, have an edge. Box says his Christian faith has allowed him to appreciate the compensating gifts that his disability has brought him, and he sees changing public perceptions of people with disabilities as part of his company's mission. "We're trying to educate people that having a disability doesn't change your personality," says Box, who, when he's not playing wheelchair sports, likes to race off-road vehicles in the desert.

As Box has discovered, making it possible for others with disabilities to pursue their passions is good business. The U.S. Census Bureau counts nearly 50 million Americans, or 17% of the population, who are at least 5 years old and are disabled, which it defines as having a condition that limits work, education, or another major activity. Those with extreme conditions—paralysis, blindness, cognitive challenges—account for no more than half of this group, according to federal experts. The rest suffer from afflictions such as arthritis and asthma. All are in the market for products and services that help them enjoy life more fully. Collectively they spend $796 billion a year on everything from rent to vacations, according to the most recent estimate by Packaged Facts, a New York City market research firm. "Don't go after this market because it's the right thing to do; go after it because you want to make money, and the rest will follow," says Carmen Jones, president of the Solutions Marketing Group in Arlington, Va., which helps companies target customers with disabilities.

More than a quarter of all disabilities strike Americans who are 65 and older, and with the huge wave of baby-boomers approaching that age, the rewards of reaching out to disabled customers soon will swell dramatically. "Boomers are not aging gracefully," says Joan Stein, president and CEO of Accessibility Development Associates, a Pittsburgh firm that helps businesses comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. "We're not willing to live with inconveniences that our parents may have been willing to live with."

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He has always amazed me with his can do attitude because not many people are as positive as he is after being put in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.

By Christylee on Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - 01:08 pm:

what a WONDERFUL story, that is just amazing! Thanks for sharing!

By Hlgmom on Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - 02:17 pm:

that is so great! My sisters father was a parapalegic- he died last year. He lived much longer than expected!