We recently connected with Justin Ruger and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Justin, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
My resilience was ingrained into me by my late grandfather, Edwin Johnson. He was a Harvard and Yale graduate that instilled the importance of hard work, dedication, and never giving up. When I was younger, I had some health issues that discouraged me and his words of encouragement have given me the strength to fight no matter what happens in life. For example, I was a phd student at Catholic University studying Nuclear Physics until a car accident led to a traumatic brain injury and seizures. That TBI led to a stroke in 2020 and I lost all knowledge of physics and what I got my undergraduate in, computer science and computer engineering. His encouragement and words from when I was a young child led to me publishing a series of children’s books starting with Henry Meets a Honey Bee, This publication led me to beekeeping and the formation of my non-profit Accessible Beekeeping that gives back to the beekeeping community. Since the non-profit formation, I have been blessed to give talks at conferences about making beekeeping accessible and designed an application using AI to help disabled and new beekeepers.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Accessible Beekeeping is a nonprofit that works to make beekeeping accessible for disabled, new, and veteran beekeepers. We use multiple avenues to educate about beekeeping and accessibility. First, using education we train beekeepers and professionals how to provide assistance and guidance to new or disabled beekeepers. Second, we use research, design and implementation to bring new hardware to the beekeeping community centered around making it accessible. For example, we worked with a company called Guardian Bee Apparel to create a glove for a beekeeper with a paralyzed hand. Third, using community driven research we have published a paper that details the importance of accessibility in beekeeping and how being disabled can make beekeeping seem out of the reach of others. Our future goals is to create accessible apiaries in all fifty states for teaching, providing a safe place for disabled persons to learn about beekeeping, and a place to gather for community.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Education, Tenacity, and Resilience are the three things that were most impactful on my journey. Education was important because the things that I was taught in school and self study of beekeeping, has made it possible for me to be a leading person in the accessible field of beekeeping. Tenacity was beneficial because it made me determined to be successful regardless of what life brought across my path. It made it possible for me to relearn everything after a brain injury, develop an application while partially blind using tools given to me by those around me, and continue working even on the days that are hard or seem impossible to tackle. Resilience allowed me to bounce back from hardships regardless the level of difficulty. I am not saying that the come up was immediate and did not take time, but that in the end I was stronger than who I was before.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
As someone with a TBI and stroke, I feel overwhelmed quite often. Like my brain is not firing off the same way that I expect it too. This causes bouts of sadness and frustration. The best advice, which is advice I use for myself, is that there is always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You can be knocked down or knocked back twice, but as long as you make one step forward you will overcome every set back and be stronger for them. I made the mistake of ignoring my limitations and trying to make life live the way I was used too. Another piece of advice is to give respect to your limitations and adapt to them, but do not let it stop you from being the best possible version of yourself.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.accessiblebeekeeping.org
