Robert Stack (activist)

Robert Paul Stack (born November 15, 1955) is an American List of disability rights activists, author, and nonprofit executive. He is the founder, President and CEO of Community Options.
== Background ==
Stack was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania in 1955. He originally studied for the priesthood at St. Fidelis Seminary in Butler, Pennsylvania. During this time, he worked as a volunteer with children with significant disabilities. Stack withdrew from the seminary but later graduated from the University of Dayton in 1976 with a B.A. in Philosophy. Stack subsequently taught at Kent State University as a graduate assistant, receiving a Graduate Student Teaching Award.
== Early Career ==
After graduating Kent State University in 1979, Stack began his career with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities as an assistant recreational therapist at Long Island's Suffolk Developmental Center, where he opened the first two state-operated group homes. In 1981, Stack joined the New Jersey Department of Human Services as Executive Assistant and spokesperson to Eddie C. Moore, Director of the Division of Mental Retardation. Stack wrote the original white paper advocating converting the Division of Mental Retardation into the Division of Developmental Disabilities. Stack left the state agency at the end of 1984 to serve as the Executive Director of United Cerebral Palsy Associations of New Jersey until 1988.
During Stack's term (from 1985 until 1988) the United Cerebral Palsy Associations of New Jersey demonstrated that people with disabilities can live outside institutions by placing 180 people with severe disabilities in jobs that paid significantly above minimum wage.
== Community Options, Inc. ==
In 1989, Stack founded Community Options, Inc. in Bordentown Township, New Jersey. Community Options seeks to help people who otherwise live in institutions find jobs and housing so they can live in the community, including people with developmental and intellectual disabilities such as autism spectrum, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, physical disabilities, traumatic brain injury and dual diagnoses.
Stack has written two books, I Matter So Does Your Cause: Starting a Nonprofit in 2015 and a manual for Direct support professional called Meaningful Day: Day Program Services Curriculum & Staff Guidebook.
== Advocacy ==
Stack has served on gubernatorial transition teams for both Democrat and Republican governors, serving as a member of Governor-elect Jon Corzine 2006 transition team and in 2009 being appointed to governor-elect Chris Christie|Chris Christie's transition team as Chair of the Developmental Disabilities Transition Team.
Stack advocates for state governments to close institutions and move people with disabilities out of institutions and into the community. Stack has been vocal in his opposition to aversive conditioning.
In 2008, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson appointed Stack to the Poverty Reduction Task Force.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stack advocated for additional Federal funding for employment programs for people with disabilities, asserting that funds were needed to address the significant increase in the number of people with disabilities in the US as a result of complications from the virus. He was also an early advocate calling for providing hazard pay for caregivers and staff supporting people with disabilities.
In December 2020, Stack urged state agencies to transition people with disabilities from long-term care centers into the community.
He is on the board of directors for Pennsylvania Advocacy and Resources for Autism and Intellectual Disability (PAR).
== Publications ==
* Meaningful Day: Day Program Services Curriculum & Staff Guidebook (2015, Publish Green, ISBN Special:BookSources/1634136632|1634136632)
* I Matter So Does Your Cause: Starting a Nonprofit (2015, Publish Green, ISBN Special:BookSources/1329183045|1329183045)
Category:1955 births
Category:American activists
Category:American authors
Category:American nonprofit chief executives