Robert Stack, Founder and CEO of Community Options, a leading national nonprofit supporting people with disabilities through housing and employment programs, will read from his new book, Silent No Longer: Advancing the Fight for Disability Rights. Described as “an exposé of the insidious takeover of disability supports by private equity firms and a clarion call for urgent systemic change in a broken industry that has mistreated millions,” Silent No Longer is an intimate account of Stack’s forty-year career in the disability industry and includes his personal eyewitness accounts of neglect and “a demand that we restore dignity to those most vulnerable members of our society.”

George F. Will, an award-winning columnist, praises Silent No Longer as “heroic work making real the rights of the disabled,” while John F. Crowley, President and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, says: “A great society goes beyond caring for its citizens; it recognizes and respects them for who they are, and provides them with newfound hope and opportunity. Robert Stack’s decades of heroic work to improve the lives of people with disabilities, including that of my son Patrick, deserves everlasting acclaim. But these pages will reveal what Robert has long known, that those who truly deserve our recognition and respect are those often without a voice, those we must lift up and value if we are to achieve our ideals as an honorable and just society.”

Robert Stack has been a national leader in enhancing the lives of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He is a pioneer in promoting community-based housing and workforce training, advocating against outdated institutional practices. Starting as a young civil servant in 1980, Stack led efforts to close large institutions and transition individuals to community settings, long before the ADA and Olmstead decision formalized these changes. In 1989, he founded Community Options to provide dignified living and employment opportunities for people with disabilities, which now serves over 5,000 individuals across 12 states. As president and CEO, Stack has continuously advocated for disability rights on national and international stages, addressing issues such as the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on institutionalized individuals and engaging with key government bodies to drive reform. Recently, he was appointed trustee of the Pennsylvania Advocacy and Resources for Autism and Intellectual Disability.