Nadine Oka is a Project Consultant at Draper & Associates (Draper). She is an expert at interpreting statutory requirements related to accessibility and has been advising public and private sector clients on achieving and maintaining compliance with local, state, and federal accessibility statutes for more than 10 years.

She is a results-oriented professional with a strong commitment to ensuring that the clients she serves are aware of their obligations to provide for the special needs of people with physical impairments or disabilities, and that they are doing so in a manner that is fiscally prudent, yet still compliant with both the spirit and the letter of the governing statutes.

She is a versatile team player who can step outside her area of expertise to support the broader mission of the organization and still provide the focused attention and timely, professional results that are the hallmark of her work in the accessibility arena.

EXPERIENCE

Ms. Oka has been on assignment at the Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) since June 2003. In her primary role as the AHA Section 504/ADA Coordinator, she is responsible for ensuring that AHA, its business partners, and service providers, understand and comply with all applicable federal, state, and local accessibility requirements as defined in Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS), the Federal Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG), and the Atlanta City Visit-ability Ordinance.

As the HUD approved AHA Section 504/ADA Coordinator, Ms. Oka provides guidance and oversight in all matters related to the 2007 Voluntary Compliance Agreement (VCA) between HUD and AHA. She is an essential member of the AHA Accessibility Initiative Team, and continues to prove herself as the technical expert on all matters related to accessibility and persons with disabilities.

Significant projects and accomplishments on this engagement in her area of specialty include:

• Conducting an education program to acquaint mobility impaired residents with their rights to reasonable accommodations, and matching residents' needs to appropriate accommodations.

• Compiling resident reasonable accommodations survey data into a database that facilitates planning for accessibility modifications, and reporting to regulators on the status of accessibility programs.

• Coordinating with AHA property management vendors to ensure that all units designated as fully accessible are occupied by or reserved for persons requiring reasonable accommodations.

• Developing and delivering Section 504 / Fair Housing Act training for all AHA headquarters employees and the operations staff of AHA property management vendors and Signature property business partners.

She has also made significant contributions on teams supporting strategic AHA business initiatives. These include:

• Coordinating the mapping of data elements from vendor information systems to AHA systems as part of Affordable Housing Operations reporting project

• Managing the interface between the AHA external communications vendor and internal departments implementing the AHA Moving to Work program.

On an earlier engagement with Draper, Ms. Oka served as the accessibility coordinator for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG). In that role she directed the ACOG Task Force that developed corporate policies and strategies to conform to the Americans with Disabilities Act and managed corporate compliance efforts to meet ADA Accessibility Guidelines and make the 1996 Olympic Games the most accessible Games in history. As part of her responsibilities as the accessibility coordinator, Ms. Oka developed and conducted staff training for 10,000 volunteers and the venues' management staff on accessibility, reasonable accommodations, and sensitivity for guests with disabilities.

Prior to joining the Draper team on the AHA engagement, Ms. Oka worked as a purchasing analyst, facilities manager, and travel administrator for a national restaurant chain. In that role she negotiated and managed service contracts, created a database for vendor partnerships and related cost management, developed travel-related reports for federal regulators, and coordinated corporate travel services between internal departments and vendor partners.