Experience and determination got Keaton the job he wanted!

During the Fall of 2014, Keaton Hanks was a volunteer with a new and emerging consulting group in the Pulaski area of southwestern Virginia. Around that time, Keaton began working with his job coach at The Choice Group through Community Support Services. His objective was to gain employment as the consulting group's part-time administrative assistant by working on his customer service and administrative assistance skills with his coach, Caitlin Igor. Together they worked on phone etiquette, data entry, and in-person customer interaction skills while he was volunteering at the consulting agency.

After several months of progress, Keaton was hired as the part-time administrative assistant at the consulting agency where he was volunteering! He and his job coach continued to work on reading and interpreting detailed instructions to complete data entry projects as well as advancing his already improved customer service skills.

From his workstation at the front entrance, Keaton greets customers of the agency and assists them with locating employees in the office. He is in charge of file maintenance, often organizing, checking, and shredding files as needed. Some of the data entry projects Keaton completes are updates to digital client files as well as entering payment information for them. While Keaton takes pride in all of his job duties, he says, “my favorite thing to do is run errands!” Keaton is in charge of collecting the office’s outgoing and incoming mail and speaking with local employers in the area. One reason Keaton likes working at his consulting agency is that “it’s a good Christian group.” Keaton is upbeat each day he is at work and says, “I’m happy to do whatever my bosses ask me to do during the day."

Keaton has been working with the agency for over 3 years now, has his own business card and has now earned the professional title of Specialist of First Impressions!

Keaton enjoys a wide range of interests and skills and keeps himself busy by volunteering with local nursing and rehabilitation facilities, writing local sports articles about Pulaski County High School Football and Basketball, which he posts on his personal blog, as well as packing food in backpacks for local children in the community.

Keaton and his grandmother, Faye | Source New River CC

Keaton recently became a Pastor's assistant at his church as well as co-authored a book about his life with his Grandmother entitled “Keaton’s Story: The Surprising Uniqueness of Autism.”