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Interview with Ron Pettit
Director , Disability & Inclusion & ADA Compliance , Royal Caribbean Group
by Crystal Vaughan-Gagnon , student at St . Cloud State University
“ Plane ,” was Ron Pettit ’ s second word . When he was little , he would go over to his grandmother ’ s house and watch the airplanes from the nearby airport . He loved that he could hear and watch them take off . His happiness in watching planes when he was so young was just the beginning of his passion for travel . It wasn ’ t until Ron was about 3 years old that he found out he was hard of hearing .
After Ron ' s parents made this discovery , they took him to a doctor to find out what they could do to support him . The doctor told them that Ron may need to go to a school for the deaf and that if he went to public school the best he would be able to do was be a
“ C-Student ”. Instead , Ron said that his parents gave him the opportunity to be whomever he wanted to be . Ron went to public school and earned all A ’ s and B ’ s .
Ron moved often when he was younger , referring to himself as an “ Army Brat ”, eventually he settled in Worcester , MA . When he was growing up , Ron wanted to work with an airline saying that he was a bit of an , “ airline geek .” His passion for planes and travel had always been a constant in his life . Ron went to Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts because they had an aviation program . For Ron to major in airline management , it was required that he got his private pilot license . Because of hearing loss ,
Ron felt he was unable to fulfill this requirement , so he changed his major to communications . It wasn ’ t until he was in his senior year of college that he found out that that pilot license requirement could have been waived . This was when Ron realized that he would need to self-advocate , he said , “ I should have spoken up for what I wanted and said , ‘ This is what I want to do , how can you help me achieve this ?’” It was around this time that Ron said he started to understand that even though he didn ’ t identify as a person with a disability in the past , he began to realize he was a person with a disability . Ron says that his hearing loss is a part of who he is today , because of what he has had to adapt to and overcome .