Candace Cable is the Director of DRLC’s Community Outreach, Resources & Education – CORE program. She has developed a diverse and intentional knowledge of community building, advocacy, and education during her 48 years as a full-time wheelchair user, due to a spinal cord injury – SCI from a car accident at the age of 21 in 1975. Candace is energized to be a part of this organization.
Following her rehabilitation at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, the Department of Rehabilitation helped her enroll at California State University Long Beach and this began her first connections with the company of disabled folk, a group she was now a part of. This disability community would help her define and expand her first career as an elite Paralympic athlete, adapted equipment innovator, grassroots program coordinator and advocate for access and equity.
Candace’s 27-year athlete career included 9 Paralympic Games, four Winter and six Summer gaining 12 X medalist, eight gold, two silver, and two bronze in three sports. She earned spots in three Summer Olympic Games exhibition events, 1984, 88 & 92 winning two bronze medals, and was the first North American woman to win an Over-All World Cup title in Nordic Skiing. She has won numerous Local, National, and International titles and is the winner of 84 marathons, including six Boston Marathon, and is a U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Famer.
During her athletic career, she realized her sports platform was the perfect automatic door opener to dismantle ableism, racism, oppression, and the negative stigmas disabled people experience daily. She began writing and speaking, during her athletic career about the urgency of implementation of what true equity, diversity, access, and inclusion means, that we leave no one behind. These messages expanded with her education curriculum materials and sessions on Understanding the Disability Experience for adults and Disability is Possibility for our youths. Candace advocates domestically and globally for our human rights and opportunities for all people when she focuses on disabled folk.
She has worked with Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, Open Doors Organization, UNICEF, U.S. State Department Speaker, and Specialist program, Drunk History television 504 episode, as the Director of Paralympic and Disability Engagement for the LA2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games Bid organization in Los Angeles, the Chrysler and Toyota Corporations. She attends and participates regularly at the United Nations meetings of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, (CRPD) and 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, (SDG).
Candace is currently the President of US International Council on Disabilities, a board member for Southern California Olympians and Paralympians Association, and a Commissioner for the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Disability Commission. Candace volunteers for organizations that create sports and lifestyle opportunities for disabled youth and adults. Candace joyfully lives and loves her birthplace Los Angeles, her family and friends, and all her communities.