Damian’s Story
Against The Odds
I’m not supposed to be here.
At 12 years old, I was diagnosed with childhood bone cancer. Then I got it again—in my other leg. I was told the odds of that happening while still standing on my own two feet were one in a billion. I wasn’t expected to see 16.
Dozens of surgeries and knee replacements later, I learned something that would shape the rest of my life: Having access doesn’t mean you have opportunity.
I knew what it felt like to be included on paper but excluded in practice. To technically have access to a place, a program, or an experience and still find yourself observing from the sidelines.
So I decided to do something about it.
In 2006, I founded The Ability Center with a simple belief: everyBODY deserves the opportunity to play, participate, connect, and belong—together.
What started as an idea has become nearly two decades of building inclusive innovations.
We created adaptive and inclusive sports programs. Helped develop the Wisconsin Adaptive Sports Association. Launched the RampUp movement. Put adaptive equipment into public spaces. Built partnerships across government, philanthropy, business, recreation, and community organizations. Helped transform Milwaukee’s Bradford Beach into the country’s most accessible. And began turning the vision for America’s first Universal Park into a reality.
Along the way, something bigger emerged. I realized we weren’t simply building accessible places or adaptive programs. We were building Universal Community.
Universal Community is what I call the civic infrastructure of together.
It moves beyond accessibility as an accommodation and inclusion as an invitation. It asks a fundamentally different question:
“What if we designed our communities so the question of who belongs was answered before anyone arrived?”
Not a special entrance.
Not a special program.
Not a special place for “them.”
Instead reimagining spaces and places, and building universally designed community from the beginning for all abilities, all ages, all the time.
That idea has become my life’s work.
Today, after twenty years of developing, testing, learning, failing, rebuilding, partnering, and proving what’s possible, I’m working to take Universal Community from a Milwaukee-born idea to a model that can influence how communities see “disABILITY.”
My journey has taken me from hospital rooms to boardrooms, from wheelchair basketball courts to beach accessibility, from playground blueprints to multimillion-dollar community projects.
I've been fortunate to receive recognition along the way, including: Milwaukee Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 and Diversity in Business Trailblazer honors, Milwaukee Magazine’s Unity Award. the Donald Driver Driven to Achieve Award, the Wisconsin Governor’s Tourism Award for Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion, and the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Doug Jansson Leadership Award.
But awards aren't why I do this.
The work is how I honor my survivorship—and those who didn't get the opportunity I did.
Cancer changed my body. Survivorship changed my perspective. And that perspective gave me purpose.
All of us are only Temporarily Able-Bodied (TAB’s). Experiencing disability at some point in our lives—through illness, injury, aging, or simply being human—is inescapable.
Accessibility, therefore, isn't something we build for somebody else. We're building it for all of us.
That belief is also at the heart of the book I’m developing, From Pain to Purpose: A One-in-a-Billion Journey. Toward Building a World for EveryBODY—part memoir, part manifesto, and ultimately a blueprint for turning adversity into action.
I’m a survivor.
An adoptive father of three.
An adaptive athlete.
A social entrepreneur.
A builder.
And, depending on the day, a self-proclaimed bionic unicorn.
But more than anything, I'm someone who believes the seemingly impossible becomes possible when people stop waiting for change and start building it.
My goal isn't simply to make the world more accessible. It's to help build a world where everybody belongs. A world where everyBODY experiences the joys of a barrier-free opportunity to play—together.