Dad's boss pays for intensive therapy

Matthew Gal uses his arms to increase his upper body strength during therapy [Photo by Photo provided by Euro-Peds]

Piotr Gal had no idea that Edward, a new fellow worker at his commercial window washing job, was actually the company president, Henrik Slipsager.

Gal, who lives in Bridgeview, also had no idea that his 7-year-old son, Matthew, who has cerebral palsy, would be touched by Slipsager's deep-pocketed generosity.

Posing as a Dutch immigrant seeking a full-time job, Slipsager learned several positions from his own workers at ABM, a maintenance services company with locations throughout the country. The workers did not know Slipsager's true identity. He did this for an episode of the popular CBS TV show "Undercover Boss," which allows CEOs to pretend they are merely workers to see their company from the ground up.

Gal, who's from Poland, struck up an easy relationship with Slipsager, a fellow immigrant, on the first day of "training" him to clean high-rise windows in downtown Chicago.

"I've got three kids and been married 13 years already," Gal told Slipsager as they set up a safety cable on the roof of the high rise.

"Good for you," replied Slipsager, who was visibly scared as the shaky scaffolding climbed the side of the high rise.

"My life is kind of hard. My son is 7 years old and he has cerebral palsy. He's not walking, not talking. That's the hardest thing," Gal told him. "He gets therapy for a month… in Europe. Poland. The ticket is $1,700… too much."

Gal, an ABM window washer supervisor of 14 years, revealed his dream to take his son to a specialized intensive therapy program in Pontiac, Mich. The program, inspired by a program in Poland, is called Euro-Peds and it's based at Doctors' Hospital of Michigan, where children with cerebral palsy are given personalized therapy to learn new skills.

The only catch was that Gal's health insurance would not cover the cost of the program, so he considered moving back to Poland.

"It would break my heart for a guy like Piotr to leave this company to help his son," Slipsager told TV viewers during the show's airing months later.

By the show's end, the truth came out when Gal was summoned to the company's New York City headquarters for an "evaluation" of Edward's work.

There, Slipsager revealed his secret to Gal and informed him that ABM would fund two intensive-therapy Euro-Peds sessions for Matthew. That included all travel and hotel expenses for each two-week period, in addition to the $6,000 for the program.

Gal's son Matthew arrived at the Euro-Peds program for his first two-week session on Jan. 31. He participated in specialized "suit therapy," working with specially-trained therapists 20 hours a week to learn to walk independently.

"Matthew can walk, but he gets tired easily and he doesn't have the balance or confidence to walk independently," Gal says. "I would like to see him become more stable and strong."

It is typical for Euro-Peds' young patients to return for intensive therapy a couple times a year, especially during growth spurts. The goal is to give children time over a two- to three-week period to learn new skills and gain enough strength to carry out those skills in a real-life setting, according to spokeswoman Anne Mancour.

"In Matthew's case, he has more weakness and balance issues and he will benefit from regular therapy and occasional bouts of intensive therapy to bump him up to his next functional skill level," Mancour says.

Matthew's second two-week session ended July 22 and, according to his lead therapist, he did wonderfully.

"He worked hard and was a pleasure to treat, always smiling," says Mel McGinnis, a senior intensive pediatric physical therapist.

The therapy's goals focused on skills that involved strength, balance and function, including tall kneeling, static standing balance, ascending and descending stairs and beginning to take independent steps, she says.

"Through his 40 hours of intense strengthening and repetition of these tasks, he improved all of them," McGinnis says. "But perhaps the most exciting of all his gains was the increase in his independent stepping."

This was such a significant improvement that his parents noticed immediate changes at the Michigan hotel as well. There, Matthew would walk into a room, stop to look around, and then turn and walk into another room, they say.

Gal could only echo what he initially told Slipsager through tears that day in his boss' New York City office: "Thank you, thank you very much.

ABM Industries' Undercover Boss, Henrik Slipsager, Revisits 9/11

By Lisa Johnson Mandell, Posted Dec 3rd 2010 @ 4:04PM

There are not many adults in the United States who can't recall exactly where they were when the planes flew into the World Trade Center on 9/11. President and CEO of ABM Industries Henrik Slipsager, this week's Undercover Boss, was in San Francisco, desperately trying to contact his family at home in New York. Two of the workers who participated with him in an 'Undercover Boss' segment were at Ground Zero.

Talking to them about their experiences on that fateful day was the hardest part of Slipsager's 'Undercover Boss' experience. "No matter who you are, it's in your system," he said. "It's digging deep, and it hurts. The most difficult part was not being able to reveal my identity and ask them the questions I really wanted to ask."

A total of 17 ABM employees died on 9/11. Hundreds worked at the World Trade Center when the towers fell, but many were on different shifts.

Recovery time

The employees who were there were given time to recover from the experience, and when they were ready, ABM found them work in other buildings. Slipsager worked with a freight elevator operator who had been with ABM for 26 years, and was cleaning outside the World Trade Center when the planes hit. He said he was grateful for how they were treated by ABM during such a difficult and emotional time.

Maria, another employee with whom Slipsager worked on janitorial duties, lost her 27-year-old nephew on 9/11. He was a foreman for ABM and was working on the 96th floor of one of the towers. Although Slipsager was not great at cleaning the toilets and glass walls under her supervision, he found great dignity and commitment in the way his employees performed their housekeeping duties.

"My goal for being an Undercover Boss, although I'm quite shy, was to show how proud and focused our employees are, and what a good job they're doing," he said. "I believe we accomplished that."

So what, exactly is ABM?

ABM may not be a household name, but chances are you've been in a building that's been serviced by them. ABM stands for American Building Maintenance, which was founded more than 100 years ago and has over 90,000 employees. It's one of the nation's largest facilities services contractors, offering janitorial, engineering, parking and security services for thousands of clients. Slipsager, a Danish immigrant, has been President and CEO since the year 2000.

His cover was that he was an immigrant from Holland or the Czech Republic (let's face it, few Americans can identify a Danish accent) competing with another, younger candidate for a job in the United States. His disguise left a lasting impression: He had "virgin" hair that had never been dyed before, and when he tried to wash the color out, it remained orange for months.

Slipsager's first job for the 'Undercover Boss' episode was at the Tampa airport, working as shuttle operator for Ampco System Parking, a division of ABM. He was too slow at helping people with their luggage, and too fast driving. When he cursed his own ineptitude, that was the final straw for Kenny, the driver who was training him. Slipsager was promptly relieved of his duties. "It was brutal," he said. "But Kenny is such a good kid."

The most dangerous job to date

Next up was the most dangerous job an Undercover Boss has had to do yet. Slipsager worked with a commercial window washing supervisor, a Polish immigrant from Krakow, who required him to attach scaffold cables to the top of a building and wear a harness to go up many floors to clean windows. This was one of Slipsager's worst nightmares, since he's afraid of heights. "If you look closely, you'll see my left hand squeezing the scaffold -- it was cramping I was holding on so tight," he said. When the supervisor told him they had to go higher, Slipsager said he'd had enough and ended that assignment right then and there.

Slipsager is sure that when people see how brave, dedicated and proud ABM workers are, they will have a newfound respect and appreciation of the janitors, cleaners and other service workers that make their lives more comfortable on a daily basis. "People's perception changes when they see these people have interesting lives and names," he said. "'Undercover Boss' gave me the opportunity to show this."

AOL Jobs Asks
Undercover Boss Henrik Slipsager
5 Quick Questions

1. What was your first job? Summer landscaping at age 14.
2. What inspires you? Anything to do with tomorrow.
3. What is the most important trait needed to succeed? Pride in what you do.
4. What is your biggest challenge? Balancing home life with work.
5. What is the best career advice you ever received? Take it! (offered by a colleague when Slipsager had just settled with his family back in Denmark, and he was offered the ABM job, which would require a move back to New York.)

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2010/12/03/abm-industries-undercover-boss-henrik-slipsager-revisits-9-11/