Olds for President

New Rockford's own Nathan Olds has been elected president.

Board President of the Self Advocacy Solutions, N.D. Executive Committee, that is.

Self Advocacy Solutions (SAS) N.D. is a non-profit organization with a mission to inspire and support people with disabilities, and to hopefully influence change where it's needed. And now Olds, who's been a part of SAS since 2011, has an even larger role to play in that mission.

"I was shocked," recalled Olds about finding out he was elected. "It was surprising, it took me a little while to collect my bearings."

Olds ran against one other person for the position, and came out on top after a majority of individuals in the SAS organization chose him to be president. It's a great honor to be chosen, said Olds, but he also recognized that his new position comes with plenty of work and responsibilities.

"It's fun, but when you're in an organization like that you just don't get given a gavel and told 'okay, here you go,'" said Olds. "There's work, you're a part of committees, you have to help get the meetings together, find out when you can have the meetings, where you can have the meetings, talk to your representatives and talk to your officers."

Olds said the committee meets on Zoom once every two weeks, and comes together in person every quarter. As the president, Olds is in charge of making sure the meetings run smoothly, and he also holds the tie breaking vote if any decisions become deadlocked.

Since joining the organization in 2011, Olds has worked hard to help accomplish a number of goals SAS has set out on.

"What this organization does is we do different kinds of training to help facilities with motor training, shred the 'R'-word, stuff like that," said Olds, "It's fun but it's hard work. If any self advocacy agency needs help, we help them get the means of the training."

Olds said he's particularly proud of the work he and the organization has done to "shred the 'R'-word."

"People like us, we get discriminated against and get called the 'R'-word all the time," said Olds, "... So we go into schools, colleges just to spread the word that we're individuals too, we're not defined by one word."

Olds is looking forward to continuing that work and continuing to make progress from his new leadership position, and he expressed appreciation to all of his fellow board members for making it possible to become their president.

"Like I said when I was elected, I'm not there by myself, we run as a group, we're there to move forward, not backwards," said Olds.