A Year Ago, I Left a Good Career to Fix Some Paperwork

By Burt Brooks, Founder & CEO, PathAble

Deciding to Leave

June 2025, I dropped the last of my items at the Easterseals office and started PathAble.

I had spent the better part of twenty years in human services. I started in direct service and worked my way up to run marketing for one of the biggest disability service providers in New Jersey. It was a good job. I was good at it. And I walked away to go build AI software, which is not a sentence I ever expected to say out loud.

I didn't leave for a new opportunity, a new title, and certainly not for the money (there was none). I left because I saw how stressed and inefficient our support systems are, bogged down with paperwork and scattered information. I saw well-meaning staff unsure how to balance it all and getting burnt out. The worst part for me though? I felt powerless to help.

And then I started using AI…

Not just using. BUILDING. Tools I would have had to get a grant or shmooze a donor to pay for, they were at my fingertips at a fraction of the cost. I saw how plain-language coding and digital assistants could solve so many of the systemic issues our community is facing. I could also see how if this technology was formed without disabled voices at the table, it would only have a negative impact. So someone needed to do something or I feared we'd be left behind in this next wave of digital revolution.

Who would take the risk? Who could take the risk? And who could do it fast enough to make an actual difference? I foolishly decided I was the guy and it still remains to be seen if I am the RIGHT guy for this job. But I am going to try my darndest to be up to the task and I'm lucky enough to be working with an incredible team to make up for my deficiencies. This mission is bigger than me and therefore it requires a team of committed professionals with similar passions and lived-experience if we are going to be successful. We need affordable tech solutions that are finally made for us by us and solving our particular challenges.

For my entire career, the technology in our field has been built by people who have never done our work. Expensive tools get handed down to professionals like a fancy uniform that doesn't fit. These tools were designed somewhere else, for someone else, by someone who's never spent a Tuesday helping a person eat breakfast while writing notes with your free hand. I got tired of waiting for an outsider to build the thing the field actually needed.

I remember speaking to one IT professional back when I was considering this move, and when I asked how AI could be used by our staff, the answer was, "I see some limited use-cases where they write emails and do some research." The most revolutionary technology we have seen since the internet and that was the limit of consideration for front-line staff. I couldn't allow that mentality to continue. If those who know this technology best are not building tools for our people, then what hope do we have that someone outside our circles will?

The First Few Months

The first months were exactly as humbling as I thought they'd be.

For context, I only started using AI tools early last year and previous to that I was in marketing. Previous to that I ran a performing arts program. Previous to that I was a theater major from Rutgers pounding the pavement in NYC. My tech background is minimal, to say the least. So, I had a lot to learn!

I knew I needed to find a technical co-founder who could help me on the tech side. So I started searching for someone with the proper background and skills to lead the tech side. I met with a number of founders, but no one was quite right. That was until I connected with my co-founder, Jake Shilling. We both had disability backgrounds and were building similar tools to serve a similar space. It only made sense to team up and double our impact.

We spent time doing research, meeting with disability professionals all over the country. Learning about their issues and documenting common themes. We used that information to build our first prototypes and engage our partners. Still, it wasn't as if everyone jumped at our solutions. Lots of ghosted emails, LinkedIn messages, and empty promises. Each one a lesson. Each conversation pushes us forward to find our right partners.

Then we started making official partnerships and growing. We started getting the attention of some large players. Eventually, a large milestone hit us out of left field. We won a CES 2026 "Innovation for All" award, which meant a guy who used to run marketing for a nonprofit six months before will now travel to the most influential tech conference in the WORLD and talk about disability employment.

Unreal, but just the acknowledgement we needed to advance our mission.

Today and Tomorrow

So what is the state of PathAble now after one full year has passed?

We landed our first pilot at Mercer County Community College. We got into the Multiple Launchpad accelerator. We created free disability-resource portals online for every state AND county in the United States. We started a podcast. We built a grant outcomes tracker tailored to government projects. We built a small team and a wide bench of advisors who are smarter than me. And we have new pilots launching for multiple verticals coming at the end of 2026.

All this pre-funding, bootstrapping our way to a successful outcome. Not a major billion-dollar company, not a well-funded non-profit, and with no wealthy benefactors. No ivy league degrees or well-connected family members. Just pure passion and drive to solve problems for the disability community.

All this to help you with your paperwork.

If you run a program where your best people spend half their time on paperwork instead of with the people they're supposed to be helping, I'd like to talk. That's the problem I left a good job to solve. I'm one year in, and I'm not going anywhere.