Promoting Relationships Involving Deaf Employees—PRIDE is a full service employment program for adults with hearing loss. PRIDE’s goal is to place deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals into competitive employment. For clients who need additional support, PRIDE offers job coaching to assist them in becoming a productive and self-supporting worker in the community. Currently, PRIDE serves approximately 40 clients. You may contact PRIDE at 585-336-5831 (voice or TTY) or via e-mail at PRIDE@rsdeaf.org

PRIDE Staff

Raymond Clark, PRIDE Coordinator

Prior to joining the PRIDE program at RSD Raymond Clark was operations director in the St. Petersburg office of Deaf Service Bureau of West Central Florida, Inc. He also worked as a group advisor for the Residential Treatment Center at Tampa Bay Academy in Riverview, Florida.

Clark, a native of Fairfax, Virginia, earned a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies at Gallaudet University. While attending college Clark interned as a reports officer for the Office of Counter Narcotics Enforcement in the United States Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C.

In 2005 Clark was a member of the United States Deaf Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Team competing in the Deaflympics in Melbourne, Australia.

At RSD Clark coordinates PRIDES’s job training, job placement, and supported employment services for deaf adults who have additional disabling conditions.

Mistie Cramer
Mistie Cramer, Case Manager at the PRIDE Program, earned her Bachelor’s in Social Work at Rochester Institute of Technology. After graduation, Mistie worked in the DePaul organization as a residential manager at Embury Group Home, serving deaf residents with mental illness and other conditions. From DePaul, Mistie accepted a position as a Deaf Companion with Center for Disability Rights (CDR). After two years working one-on-one with deaf consumers, Mistie was offered and accepted a position as a Medicaid Service Coordinator with CDR.

Candi Daviton
Candi Daviton is an employment specialist/job developer in the PRIDE program at RSD. Originally from California, Ms. Daviton holds an undergraduate degree from California State University and a graduate degree from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Joe Hamilton
Joe Hamilton is Scene Shop Foreman for Rochester Institute of Technology's National Technical Institute for the Deaf Cultural and Creative Studies/Performing Arts Department. When he's not working as a job coach for PRIDE, Joe teaches or assigns students to build scenery for NTID Performing Arts plays and shows. Also at NTID Joe works with students from Rochester School for the Deaf who are in the school's Work Experience Program. Joe supervises RSD students, giving them a taste of how to be a good employee. In the same way as a job coach for PRIDE, Joe works with PRIDE clients at their job site, so they can be successful employees.