“Welcome to Holland,” a poem by Emily Perl Kingsley, describes life not going according to plan. You expect to vacation in Italy, but are surprised to land in the Netherlands. Ron Giordan, Co-Founder of Gio’s Garden Therapeutic Respite Center & PR/Media Manager of Focus on Energy, took these words to heart after learning of his son’s diagnosis with a seizure disorder. Join Lisa and Ron as they share lessons learned from raising a child with special needs, including the importance of intentionality, communication, and hope.
Ron Giordan lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife Charlotte, two teenage boys, and two cats. At 15 years old, he walked into a radio station in Phoenix, AZ and asked if he could intern for the morning show as their news writer because he wanted to be a broadcast journalist. That was 1990. Since then, he has worked as a Local TV News Producer/Executive Producer/Assistant News Director, Communication Director for the State Treasurer of Wisconsin, Content Director for a Madison Based Radio/Digital Marketing company with 38 radio stations across the Midwest and is currently the Public Relations Director for Focus on Energy in Wisconsin.
His greatest accomplishment, other than being allergic to cats yet forced by his family to live with them, is co- founding Gio’s Garden Therapeutic Respite Center for Special Needs Families 10 years ago with his wife. The one-of-a-kind nonprofit is named after their oldest son Giovanni who, despite having 100 seizures a day from birth to 8 years old, three brain surgeries and 15 other surgeries, is on the autism spectrum and nonverbal, is the light of their lives and has changed the lives of so many other families in the community.
Ron’s Something Extra: Patience
