After 5 years of teaching exercise to those with autism and related disabilities, David Geslak starts Exercise Connection (EC). 2009
Chicago entrepreneur, Jay Goltz, reads about the EC mission in Crain’s Chicago Business. Recognizing both the need and opportunity to support those with autism, Jay volunteers to help. 2011
Visual Exercise System (VES) is created to better help physical education teachers and parents teach exercise using evidence-based practices. VES is now distributed worldwide by Gopher Sport. 2012
Nike invites David to attend an Aspen Institute roundtable discussion to share his experiences about teaching exercise to people with autism. 2013
David creates ExerciseBuddy, the first and only app-based visual exercise system for the iPad. 2014
Jay is also the lead small business blogger for the New York Times and writes about David’s experience job coaching a client, showcasing the struggles and missed opportunities of successfully hiring and training a neurodiverse workforce. 2015
Hart Schaffner Marx CEO, Doug Williams, reads NYT article and is inspired to make his company autism-ready. Williams hires EC to build an employment program to hire those with autism. 2015
The National Center on Health, Physical Activity, and Disability (NCHPAD) asks David to create an autism exercise video series. It now has over 300,000 views. 2015
David partners with ACSM to create the fitness industry’s first and only accredited Autism Exercise Specialist Certificate. 2016
Exercise Connection trademarks their employment division— Autism Workforce (AW). 2017
New York City Public Schools pilot ExerciseBuddy (EB) district-wide. The strategic plan will put EB in the hands of 50,000 students. 2018
Oliver Wyman, one of the world’s largest management consulting firms, contracts with AW to help them hire those with autism. 2018
Leading neurodiversity employment researcher, Rob Austin, publishes the first case study on the Autism Workforce model. 2018
ExerciseBuddy wins a Chicago Innovation Award. 2018
Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center partners with AW to leverage the strengths of a neurodiverse workforce helping their clients reduce employee turnover and improve productivity. 2019
