BATAVIA, Ohio — Clermont County commissioners proclaimed October 2026 as National Disability Employment Awareness Month at their board session Wednesday, honoring a UC Clermont engineering student who told commissioners he hopes to one day build robots that help people with disabilities.
The proclamation, signed by the three-member Board of County Commissioners, recognizes the contributions of residents with disabilities in the workforce and calls on local employers to create meaningful job opportunities for them, according to the county.
Dan Ottke, superintendent of the Clermont County Board of Developmental Disabilities, known as Clermont DD, joined commissioners for the signing along with Deklan Montes, vice president of Clermont DD’s Action Club and a mechanical engineering student at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College. Montes’ mother also attended.
Montes addressed commissioners directly, sharing his personal journey and his advocacy for others with disabilities. He told the board of his ambition to use robotics to help people and said, “I may just change the world someday,” according to the county’s account of the session.
Outside the Action Club, Montes runs Sensory-View, a social media page on Facebook and TikTok where he reviews Cincinnati-area businesses from the perspective of someone with sensory sensitivities, according to the county.
Clermont DD provides services to county residents with developmental disabilities from birth through adulthood, including early intervention, school-age programs through the Thomas A. Wildey School, transition services for teens and young adults, and adult employment and community-living support. The agency, led by Ottke, operates out of the Thomas A. Wildey Center in Batavia.
National Disability Employment Awareness Month traces to 1945, when President Harry Truman issued the first proclamation establishing a national observance aimed at employing physically disabled veterans returning from World War II. Congress dropped the word “physically” from the observance in 1962 to include all types of disabilities, and in 1988 it was formally designated National Disability Employment Awareness Month. The U.S. Department of Labor’s 2026 theme, “Celebrating Value and Talent,” ties the observance to the nation’s 250th anniversary.
The information contained in this story was obtained from Clermont County.