Tony Fisch loves a challenge. Born with congenital myopia, Tony was legally blind with high partial sight. He wore inch-thick glasses from the time he was 18 months old until he went off to college when he discovered soft contact lenses. Before college, his thick glasses often subjected him to ridicule and discrimination from his classmates. He was often referred to as “the blind kid.” Sports became an outlet. At 13, he took up golf, playing every day, so that by the time he got to high school, he was good enough to make the golf team, eventually becoming captain.
Although Tony could not obtain a driver’s license because of his low vision, he bought a moped and rode it 5,000 miles around Los Angeles, stopping only after slipping on an oil spot in the street. In 1987, while recovering from his injuries, he heard a radio report about the L.A. Marathon and decided he would run in the next race. “I lost 60 pounds and finished my first marathon a year later.” Tony would go on to race in and finish 10 more marathons, including the New York and Boston marathons.
Tony attended Valley College in the San Fernando Valley, where he took a speech class with an influential teacher, learning skills that would be valuable in his future career. He was a member of the debate team, winning the California junior college championship in public speaking one year.
After two years, he transferred to UCLA, but before his first semester, he was tossing a football with friends and was hit directly in his right eye by the tip of the ball, which tore a hole in his macula. It took several surgeries before he could start at UCLA, where he received a bachelor’s degree in history before pursuing graduate studies in clinical psychology. A few years after leaving UCLA, while recovering from another eye surgery in 1987, Tony decided to visit Braille Institute.
“I thought, ‘I’m bored and I need to figure out what’s new in technology,’” Tony recalls. “Knowing Braille Institute’s rich history, I took the bus to its L.A. building and started learning how to adapt to sight loss. I learned about the latest assistive technology and joined a class on learning to live with blindness. After two months, I was leading the class.”
During that time, he joined the Braille Institute Toastmasters’ Club, which helped students improve their communications skills. A Braille Institute instructor recognized Tony’s talent and experience in public speaking and hired him to speak to civic organizations on behalf of Braille Institute. He spoke several times a month over two years. “I told my story, how I found Braille Institute, and how it inspired me and motivated me about what I could do,” Tony says. “It was great getting out, influencing people, and raising money for the organization.”
Braille Institute also applied for a grant that paid for Tony’s first personal computer, which he says he used to launch his career. After working for a friend’s public relations firm for a year, where he helped the company retain a major client, Tony launched his own firm and has never looked back.
In public relations, anyone can write a press release. But getting the attention of newspaper and magazine writers and editors is what counts, and Tony has pitched more than his share of stories that have received prominent coverage in top global business and technology publications. Tony credits his success to research skills learned from graduate school and his cultivation of writers and editors over five decades.
“If a product is coming out from one of the companies I represent, I’ll tell the writers and editors who cover the industry, and they always trust that I have something interesting for them to write about,” he says. “I’ve helped launch many technology breakthroughs.” His clients have included Microsoft, Siemens, HP, and more than 100 venture-backed startups.
Tony has never been afraid to tell clients about his visual impairment. “I say, ‘I may be near sighted, but I’m also going to work harder for you than anyone else.’ It’s about being the best version of yourself. If you’re successful, others will see you not as the person who can’t see, but as the person they want.”
Now in his early 70s, Tony says he has no interest in retiring. “I love to grow and change and develop new relationships. Nearly one-third of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are over 65. I see myself not as someone who is aging, but as someone who is getting better by staying current. I’m the kind of guy who never stops learning new tricks.”
