AMOS SALES, Ed.D., CRC, NCC

Amos P. Sales, Ed. D., CRC, NCC, is a Professor and Head of Rehabilitation in the Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation and School Psychology of the University of Arizona, where he also has served as Head of the Rehabilitation Center, Head of the Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation and School Psychology and Assistant Dean of the College of Education. While on faculty leave in 1976 and 1977, he served as Director of Program and the Acting Executive Director of the National Rehabilitation Association in Washington, D.C. He additionally, has served as a Rehabilitation Counselor Educator and Program Director at Kansas State Teachers College, now Emporia State University. As a licensed psychologist, he has maintained a private practice providing consultation such as a three-year-contract with the Arizona Rehabilitation Services Administration District II as a Psychological Consultant and with the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University as a trainer in addiction prevention with selected populations.

Dr. Sales' career goal, to which he has devoted his academic, research, program development, and service efforts over the past forty years, has been the improvement of rehabilitation counseling services to individuals with disabilities. His academic appointments have all included administrative responsibilities. Since receipt of his Doctorate degree in 1971, he, through successful competition, has received yearly funding under grants and contracts to administer research, model service delivery, and personnel preparation programs. He has been awarded over 50 grants and/or contracts totaling just over $24 million in areas of interest such as pre-service and in-service Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) training, culturally relevant Native American curricula, substance abuse prevention and treatment programs, paraprofessional training, and empowerment in rehabilitation education and service delivery.

Related to these activities, he has authored over 50 final grant reports, over 80 referred articles, chapters and/or monographs, 3 texts as editor and 2 as author in the area of substance abuse presentation and/or treatment and his most recent text published in 2007 pulling together life-long learning, Rehabilitation Counseling: An Empowerment Perspective. Dr. Sales enjoys presenting well and his work has also been shared in over 200 local, national and international professional conferences.

Dr. Sales' professional recognitions include being a recipient of over 40 citations and awards. He is unique in having received the highest awards provided by the National Rehabilitation Association at the State, regional, and national levels. These include Arizona Rehabilitation Association Sara Folsum Award, 1986, Pacific Region National Rehabilitation Association's President Award, 1987, and the National Rehabilitation Association's W.F. Faulkes Award, 1978 along with national certifications of appreciation for significant professional contributions from NRA and NRCA, from 1979 and 1996. Other professional national recognitions include the National Council on Rehabilitation Education Distinguished Career Award in 1998, the National Rehabilitation Services Administration RSA 2000 Commissioners Award for outstanding achievement and distinction in training, the American Counseling Association Berdie Memorial Research Award in 2002, the National Council on Rehabilitation Education Presidents Award for contributions to the association in 2005, and the Rehabilitation Counselor and Educator Association 2009 Living Legend Meritorious Award. Dr. Sales is the Past-President of the National Rehabilitation Association and the National Council on Rehabilitation.

Dr. Sales professional accomplishments have been shaped by a life history of personal and professional events reflecting at best an eclectic accident theory of vocational choice defined by his networking and being positioned to take advantage of opportunities others provided. Having grown up in a small, southeast Arizona mining town, Bisbee, Arizona, Amos plans to be a miner like his dad were thwarted because of vision problems. Amos followed his high school sweetheart, Cathy, off to college, married Cathy and near completion of hiss undergraduate degree stumbled upon the existence of and funding to attend a Masters degree in Rehabilitation Counseling at the University of Arizona. Again, with full support of Cathy, Amos chose to pursue the masters degree and met the first of numerous leaders in Rehabilitation who served as mentors during his academic and professional development. (link to mentors list)

Through all the support and success that he has had, Amos continues beyond daily commitments to pursue the goal of improving rehabilitation counseling services to individuals with disabilities. This last year while actively involved as Head of Rehabilitation, directing two long-term RC training grants, one state Az-RSA IGA training grant, and a CRP Training grant, teaching a full load , carrying university, local and national service responsibilities, meeting yearly presentation and publishing commitments , he has collaborated in to developing a University of Arizona College of Education Center on Disability guided by the Disability Studies which will include disability resource services , a new research unit and a new department of Rehabilitation and Disability Studies. While not funded this year because of state tax revenue problems, the Center on Disability and Disability Studies curriculum will be approved this coming year in anticipation of funding next year.

Amos' hobbies include shooting pool and related weekly symposium activities, creative poker, betting on cribbage, occasional golf, and the search for and final purchase of his own mountain in Virginia. His leisure interests continue to be related to enjoying the company of family and friends. He and his wife Cathy travel yearly to unique U.S. or international vacation sites with Tom and Diane Mullis, friends from KSTC days. They travel more each year to Manhattan where two granddaughters live and to Denver where one granddaughter lives, all granddaughters are under the age of 3. He, more than Cathy, continues to enjoy traveling to and meeting with friends at Rehabilitation professional conferences. Both enjoy a long-standing dinner club group with monthly dinners at different members homes where Amos is known to bring his own flask to ensure CC and 7up is available.