GRAND RAPIDS -- When Jackie Boomstra tried out as a receptionist for a company now known as VanerumStelter, she soothed a cranky customer on the phone, role-played by an interviewer, and won the job on the spot.

Never mind she has been blind since birth.

Jackie Boomstra, of Grand Rapids, holds her dog, Bailey, at VanerumStelter, where she works as a receptionist. Boomstra says her blindness was not an issue when she was hired in 2005.

"She blew us away," owner Jim Stelter remembers of Boomstra's interview four years ago. Her deft handling of an irate customer impressed him, especially because Boomstra was new to the school furniture business.