My name is Richard Buhnerkemper and I am 47 years old. I am an instructor at Gateway Technical College and manufacturing has always been my passion. I have been machining for 30 years. 3 1/2 years ago I was lucky enough to bring a child into this world and her name is Avery Buhnerkemper. When Avery was one year old she was diagnosed with stage two autism. Avery didn’t start walking until she was three and as of now she still is non-auditory, I never knew how big the autistic community was until I was lucky enough to have Avery.
A couple of years ago it was one and 50 people in America were diagnosed autistic and the last time I checked it was 38 people. My daughter Avery is unbelievably intelligent at first glance. Many people may not think so. That’s the thing with autistic people is that they may not appear to be the smartest people in the room. When you pair that with the fact that Autism is partly a social ailment, many of them do not get a fair shot at employment. Most of the artistic community doesn’t work and they are not employed. That’s thousands of people sitting at home during the day when they could be leading, productive, happy, fulfilling lives.
When I was young I felt that I did not measure up to society. I never felt smart in school, and always struggled when reading. No matter how hard I tried. I just could not get good grades. They ended up being put in special education classes, because I couldn’t comprehend what I was reading. When high school came along I was not smart enough to go to college and my mom didn’t have any money to send me. I basically had no idea what I could do. Since I did so bad in school, I didn’t feel like I was smart enough to even do anything. I started to become depressed and I thought for me in this world.
When I turned 16, I started working at a CNC machine shop in my whole life turned around. I started to feel important because I was producing parts. was programming and setting up machines. I might start to build my self-confidence because I was completing tasks that mattered for once in my life. I felt like I had purpose. Long story short Cnc saved my life. That is what autism works. Kenosha is all about giving people purpose, giving the artistic community purpose.