Mike Caruso

Many young people fantasize about becoming a broadcast success like television's Barbara Walters or radio's Howard Stern. Others would happily settle for being a nationally recognized newspaper columnist like Dave Barry.

Having a neuromuscular disease surely doesn't make it any easier to fulfill such dreams. But the following stories show that having muscular dystrophy or a related disorder can't stop a determined, talented individual from finding a rewarding career in print, radio or television.

Each of the individuals profiled in this article demonstrated early in their lives a strong willingness to work hard and tackle a variety of tasks and positions, not all of them glamorous.

Also, each of these successful media professionals had the courage at some crucial juncture to say to prospective employers:

"Look at me! Give me a chance. Let me show you what I can do!"

Their stories may provide some guideposts and even inspiration to those who wish to follow in their footsteps and seek fulfilling employment in the media.

Mike Caruso: TV Sports Broadcaster

Mike Caruso, 34, has an indeterminate neuromuscular disorder which has affected him from birth. He uses a power wheelchair.

At TV station WPEC-TV in West Palm Beach, Fla., Caruso is a triple threat as sports producer/director/reporter.

Caruso earned a degree in telecommunications at the University of Florida and obtained his first job as a videotape editor for a TV news program in Gainesville, Fla.

Eventually he got a news editing position at WPEC, an MDA "Love Network" station that has carried the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon for nearly three decades.

Sometimes finding himself at loose ends waiting for news footage to be made available, he offered to help out the sports director, who was working frantically to meet deadlines.

Caruso was put to work assembling highlights from a baseball game. So successful were his efforts that he made a transition to full-time sports editor and, eventually, sports director, responsible for all the station's sports programming.

"If you're a sports fanatic, it's sort of a dream job," he says. Mark McGwire and Dan Marino are a few of the famous athletes he's met through his work.

Not long ago, his career took on another dimension when WPEC offered him the chance to work in front of the camera hosting a series of "Athlete of the Week" reports.

Caruso went for it. Now the sports reporter in a wheelchair has begun to be recognized in public. Of the many people he interviews, he enjoys talking to high school players as much as he does to famous pro athletes.

"They're very enthusiastic, very young," he says. "It's really a lot of fun."

Kate Brausen: Newspaper Journalist

Kate Brausen finds that the free-lance lifestyle lets her spend more time with family, including her husband, Jim.

Now a San Diego resident, Kate Brausen, 45, grew up in the Chicago area and learned she had Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) when she was 7. In the last few years, she's used a motorized scooter to get around.

After completing three years at a liberal arts college in southern Illinois, Brausen set out to find her place in the world. She was drawn to publishing, and obtained a marketing management position in a Chicago publishing firm.

As a result of budget cuts, Brausen started doing the writing for brochures, catalogs and other pieces herself. She realized she had a flair for the creative side of the business.

After moving to San Diego, she accepted a position with a human resources publishing and marketing company.

"It was a great job, but it was in an old building with no elevator, and they wanted me to work upstairs," Brausen says. "I asked to be moved down to the ground floor, but they didn't see that it was necessary."

Eventually, she and the company would part ways. Meanwhile, she looked into the possibility of becoming a free-lance writer.

"I got some good results from a small local paper, starting off with a letter to the editor about disabled parking spots," she says. "I guess the editor liked it. He called me and asked where I learned to write and was very encouraging. So I ended up doing some free-lance stories for them."

Brausen now has steady work as a columnist and news reporter for the North County Times, a daily newspaper serving North San Diego County.

"I do a weekly column about personal everyday occurrences, and then the rest of the time they're either assigning me stories or I'm developing a story myself," she says. "It's turned into my full-time career at this point."

Sometimes she can do all her research over the phone, but other times she needs to venture outside for her reporting. There's only been one occasion when her CMT prevented her from doing an on-site interview and, in that instance, she was able to complete the job using phone, fax and e-mail.

Because she experiences fatigue as a complication of CMT, Brausen appreciates the flexibility the free-lance life gives her. "I can take a day off and rest the whole day if I need to, and then be writing at midnight," she says. "It's my schedule. As long as I can e-mail the story to my editor before the deadline, he doesn't care when I do it. That's one of the things I really don't miss about having a corporate job."

Recently, Brausen branched out into a different area of writing and had a fiction piece published in a children's magazine. The story was about a little girl with CMT.

"I love the fact that there are different forms that I can experiment with," she says.

Brausen advises beginning writers to start locally, since that's often where there's the greatest need for good writing. With regard to disability, she warns against being overwhelmed by a sense of one's own limitations.

"Even that one time when I couldn't get the interview done in person, I still found other ways to get it done," she says. "There are ways around everything. And what's wonderful about it is that when you're doing it, you're focusing not on the disease. You're focusing on your life.

"If you take that leap of faith and try it, you'll be surprised and rewarded. It is doable."

Greg Smith: Radio Talk Show Host

Greg Smith

Greg Smith, 35, has an indeterminate form of muscular dystrophy and uses a power wheelchair. His disability hasn't prevented him from enjoying a flourishing career as a radio talk show host.

He was born in Mississippi and spent part of his childhood in upstate New York, before settling in a Chicago suburb for his high school years.

Smith walked until about age 13, when he underwent surgery to correct his scoliosis (curvature of the spine) and began using a wheelchair.

Indicative of Smith's character was his determination to play the drum in his high school marching band. "We found a way to modify my power chair so we could mount drums on it and I was actually able to get out on the field and be in formation with the rest," he says.

In order to be part of the school's athletics program, Smith began doing play-by-play reports on football, basketball and baseball games for a local radio station.

"I went on to do it again in college at Arizona State University on the campus radio station," he says. At ASU in Tempe, he earned a degree in broadcast management, with an emphasis on marketing.

"I went out into the world and got all the doors slammed in my face," he says. "I wanted to be a sales representative in radio, but got declined by every radio station in Phoenix. They didn't think I could do the job, that I had the energy level.

"They thought my disability would be in the way of my being able to connect with clients.

"I went back to the number one station in town and wrote another letter, this time to the general manager, suggesting that they look at my qualifications more closely. While I was in school, I did everything. In addition to doing play by play, I was an intern at the local NBC TV affiliate, at the newspaper, and I did stringing for stations across the country at Phoenix Suns games.

"I just said, look at my qualifications, there's got to be something for me." Smith made a convincing case, and KTAR in Phoenix created a position for him as research director.

"I did all the analysis of the ratings information, turning it into sales materials, and I did newsletters. It eventually evolved into kind of running the in-house ad agency."

Smith had scored a victory, but soon grew restless.

"I became frustrated with the lack of growth in my career. So I thought, what is the one thing that's stopping me from getting what I want? The answer was people's perception of my disability. And so the solution was to take that negative thing and, instead of trying to fight against it, turn it around and make it work for me. It became obvious that the thing I needed to do was to start a radio talk show on disability."

His call-in talk show, "On a Roll," became nationally syndicated in 1997 and has been heard in over 30 markets. In recent years, both Smith and the show relocated from Phoenix to Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Recently, Smith brokered a new syndication deal in hopes of bringing the show to some of the larger markets that it hasn't hit yet. "On a Roll" broadcasts live on Sundays from 9 to 11 p.m. EDT. (Check Smith's Web site at www.onarollradio.com for more information.)

Smith has used the talk discussion format to grapple with some of the more serious issues of concern to people with disabilities. Guests have included actor Christopher Reeve, former Sen. Bob Dole and golfer Casey Martin. Smith insists that his show has broad enough appeal to engage all listeners, disabled or not.

Smith offers this advice to young people with disabilities who are interested in working in broadcasting: "Get involved early and in as many different areas of broadcasting as you can. Write some copy. Write some commercials. Practice reading out loud every day.

"Get involved in anything that's communications related. Volunteer to do the classified ads at the local newspaper because you'll learn how that works and meet people."

One of Smith's assets is a deep, resonant voice. But he says it isn't a prerequisite to success in broadcasting.

"Having a good voice may help a little bit, but not if you don't have anything between your ears," he says. "What you're saying is what's critical."

Brian Swica: Public Access News Broadcaster

Brian Swica

Brian Swica, who's 25 and grew up in Michigan, has Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and has been using a wheelchair since age 11. In high school he became interested in pursuing a career in broadcasting, inspired in part by the journalists in the movie "All the President's Men."

He studied broadcasting at Wayne State University in Detroit. During school he worked as an intern at WBRW6, a public access TV station in Romeo, Mich. His volunteer work included preparing computer graphics, editing videotape and producing his own sports talk show.

After graduating in 1997, he approached the station about doing a weekly news program. He was hired full time to produce the news show and anchor it on camera.

"I have to find the stories, and give a list of the shots I need to the camera person who goes out and shoots them," Swica says. "Then I write the stories and edit the video footage." The weekly news program premieres on Wednesdays and is repeated several times during the week.

Swica says that working at a public access station provides certain liberties that other stations don't have, including freedom from union worries. It also allows him to take rest breaks when needed, which has become more important now that he's begun to experience respiratory complications due to his DMD.

Swica says his DMD progression may prevent him from being able to continue anchoring the program. Nonetheless, he's resolved to keep on producing, writing and editing, no matter what.

Geni Cavitt: TV Weather/Traffic Reporter

Geni Cavitt

Geni Cavitt caught the broadcasting bug early on.

"My dad worked in radio and TV when I was little," she says. "I would hang out with him while he worked. I was enthralled. I even demonstrated how TV cameras worked for a junior high project."

Cavitt was raised in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but moved to San Diego in 1978. She got her first job as a board operator for San Diego's KJMC-AM radio.

"A board operator is somebody who pushes buttons and makes it sound like there's a high-paid disc jockey there," she explains.

Cavitt began to "sneak" on the air as a disc jockey during the nighttime hours. Eventually she was able to put together a demonstration reel that earned her a daytime disc jockey job.

In 1985, Cavitt began to experience troubling symptoms, including excessive fatigue. When the unknown disorder started affecting her voice, she became really alarmed. She sought help and eventually received a diagnosis of myasthenia gravis.

She opted to undergo a thymectomy, removal of the thymus gland, a procedure that has been known to alleviate symptoms in some cases of MG. Cavitt experienced a remission, which has lasted for many years.

"Remission means I don't have to take any medication," she says. "I'm still tired a lot but don't have the severe weakness and fatigue that I had."

Meanwhile, Cavitt worked at a series of positions, including a gig co-hosting her own radio talk show.

In 1993, she made the transition to television news at KFMB News 8 in San Diego, where she does morning and noon weather and traffic reports. Usually she does her reporting from inside the studio.

Because KFMB is a CBS affiliate, Cavitt took the initiative to ask if she could be considered to perform fill-in weather reporting on "CBS This Morning." She passed a tape along to the powers that be and the answer was yes. Now she's appeared several times on the national morning show.

"You don't always get what you want, but it doesn't hurt to ask," she says.

She's done some public speaking about MG but has to limit her appearances due to her schedule. She goes to bed extremely early so that she can get up by 2:30 a.m. to prepare for her morning report.

Favorite activities include spending time with her husband, Peter, who has multiple sclerosis, and her two grandchildren.

"If you want to be in the media, you can figure out a way to do it," she says. "Whatever it is you want to be, be the very best."