Richard Keeling
Volunteer & Community Partnerships
Internal Revenue Service

To talk to Richard Keeling about his life is to get the impression that his life has been one long series of serendipitous events. For over twenty-two years, Richard Keeling has been working for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In fact, what was the Social Security Administration's (SSA) loss became the IRS's gain. On the day that Keeling had an interview for a job with the SSA, the IRS had a department in the same Federal building. On suggestion, Richard submitted his application at the IRS and the rest is history. Keeling is now a part of the Stakeholder Partnerships, Education & Communication or SPEC, which serves as the outreach and education arm of the Wage & Investment division at the IRS.

However, long before his career at the IRS began, Richard became disabled in a diving accident at the age of 16. Living in upstate New York at the time, his high school was largely inaccessible for a C-5 quadriplegic. Yet, the school and Richard did the best they could before laws like the ADA had even been conceived. With the help of tutors and drivers, Richard graduated on time with the rest of his classmates. He went on to attend college at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

After several years as a tax auditor for the IRS in New York City and three years in Albany in the tax audit management division, Richard and his wife- Jeanne- transferred to Atlanta in 1993. Although both life-long New Yorkers, they longed for a warmer climate with far less snow than upstate New York. So, Richard joined the tax audit management division in Atlanta.

In 1998 due to the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act, the IRS went through some major re-organization. Fortunately for Richard the newly formed Wage & Investment division was housed in Atlanta. The Keelings stayed in Atlanta and Richard joined SPEC.

Targeting the largely underserved markets, SPEC specializes in serving low-income people, including the elderly, non-English speakers, and people with disabilities. Its approach is to combine resources and goals with other organizations for better access to lower income populations in local communities. Since July of 2001, SPEC has used a leveraged approach to taxpayer assistance. That is, it places an emphasis on partner involvement and introduces relationship management as a key element in its operations.

Organizations of all types- corporate, faith-based, non-profit, educational, financial and government- work together to form community coalitions. The advantage in this approach is that these organizations have greater access to taxpayers, higher potential for expanded resources, and own the important intangibles of taxpayers' credibility and trust.

Keeling has played an essential role in the establishment of over 60 national partnerships and has worked with communities to build 265 coalitions, representing thousands of organizations. While this does mean a great deal of traveling for Richard, he is always happy to return home to Atlanta, where he and Jeanne have a beautiful five year-old daughter, Katherine. Maybe Richard's life is not so serendipitous after all; he is living proof that life is what you make of it and Richard Keeling has certainly made a lot for himself, his family, and the disability community he represents.