Earle Baum Center for the Blind

Dan Needham began his career with 18 years at Hewlett Packard in a variety of engineering and management roles. He is now the CEO of the Earle Baum Center of the Blind (EBC), formerly serving as Chief Operating Officer since 2012. EBC serves people with sight loss with training, counseling, social, and recreational programs helping them be active community members and reach new goals. Mr. Needham co-founded two technology companies, TriAccess Technologies and Brevidia as Chief Operating Officer and CEO respectively. He is an active Rotarian, past president of his club, and has served over 10terms on the board. He taught at the Santa Rosa Junior College for 17 years. Mr. Needham has served on and led boards of various nonprofit organizations (philanthropic, arts, and social) and for-profit companies. An avid open water swimmer, Dan was the first man under 40 to swim from Alcatraz over 100 times. Mr. Needham earned an MBA from Golden Gate University, a Master of Engineering from Cornell University, and a B.S. degree from UC Berkeley.

Bob's journey into the low-vision world began in January, 2004. While driving on the freeway on the outskirt of Sacramento, he suddenly lost a significant amount of his vision as a result of myopic degeneration. Shortly after this incident and while still transitioning into the world of low-vision, he had the wonderful experience of participating in a tandem bike ride with the Earle Baum Center. This memorable experience will always help serve as a springboard to him in fully embracing blindness.

Bob's professional background has included starting and operating his own insurance benefit business, running an investment retirement planning practice, and building a manufacturing business. For the last ten years he has been actively working for Guide Dogs for the Blind in their nationally recognized development department. He has had the good fortune of being actively engaged in all aspects of their planned giving and major donor operations. He has also been actively involved in board leadership for two local nonprofit organizations.