Had Lukas Franck liked working with children, his 43-year career with The Seeing Eye guide dog school might never have taken off. Vision Loss Alliance of New Jersey’s newest trustee intended to use his undergraduate degree in speech pathology and audiology to work with deaf children. But after a stint in a school, “I
realized it wasn’t a good fit.”
An acquaintance of his father, the Dutch-American artist Frederick Franck, offered the younger Franck an apprenticeship at The Seeing Eye in 1978. “I loved it. I got to be outside all the time, training dogs and teaching blind people,” he said. When daily dog training caused a strain injury in his left shoulder, Franck designed an ergonomic harness handle. He holds a patent. Franck left after eight years to earn a master’s degree in orientation and mobility from Western
Michigan University. He rejoined The Seeing Eye as a certified orientation and mobility specialist.
By 1993, Franck was traveling the U.S. and Canada as a community instructor, troubleshooting for guide dogs owners, meeting applicants, and teaching classes at universities with mobility and orientation programs. He is now a senior consultant at the Morris Township-based guide dog school. Witnessing the challenges of blind people in their communities, Franck became an advocate in environmental access. For example, he worked with New Jersey traffic engineers to install
pedestrian signals in busy Morristown that use sound to notify visually impaired people when to cross an intersection. Franck belongs to the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired and chaired its environmental access committee.
“It’s been a charmed life,” the 67-year-old said. At the urging of VLANJ Board of Trustees Chairman Carl Augusto, Franck joined the nonprofit’s board over the summer. “I’m impressed by the organization’s dynamism and clear vision through the pandemic,” he said. When the coronavirus forced VLANJ to halt in-person instruction in the spring, the nonprofit quickly pivoted to virtual wellness and technology classes. It has since expanded its offerings and attracts visually impaired participants from beyond northern New Jersey.
Franck remains passionate about mobility, and believes a new model is needed to make training more accessible. Currently, a blind person’s options are to commit to a weeks-long residential program or get in-home training that, because of large caseloads, is often bare bones, he said. One of Franck’s visions is for VLANJ to team up with the New Jersey Commission for the Blind to develop an intensive weeklong mobility program. “I’d like to see if we can develop a different model of service,” he said.
Franck lives in Chester Township with his wife, Pauline, and a 4-year-old retired Seeing Eye breeder named Wynter. The couple has four adult children and two grandchildren. Franck is president of Pacem in Terris, a museum in Warwick, New York created in the 1960s by his father and stepmother. Pacem in Terris, which means peace on earth, features 70 of Frederick Franck’s sculptures on its six acres.