For 55 years, Paraquad has worked tirelessly to promote inclusion for people with disabilities in St. Louis and around the world.
History of Paraquad and the Independent Living (IL) Movement
The story of Paraquad begins on the evening of August 9, 1959. Founder Max Starkloff was a handsome, athletic young man of just 21 attending a party with friends. On a two-lane highway near Defiance, MO, Max lost control of his late-model Austin Healy Sprite convertible. The car spun out of control and flipped. The accident left Max a quadriplegic, but not a victim. He would dedicate the rest of his life to champion accessibility and independence for people with disabilities.
It would be nearly a decade before Max’s vision would result in the creation of Paraquad. 55 years later, Paraquad remains dedicated to making independence accessible and supporting with people with disabilities as they live their lives fully.
Big ideas, real impact.
OUR HISTORY
1970
The idea for Paraquad was born when Max Starkloff began his search for services that would help him move from his nursing home.
1971
Paraquad is awarded it’s first grant Morton D. May, the local businessman behind Famous-Barr department stores. The financial support allowed for access studies and consultations to begin with area businesses.
1972
The first curb cuts are completed in St. Louis.
1975
President Gerald Ford signs the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) in November. This new legislation provides children with disabilities the right to a free and appropriate public education, ensures they are educated in the least restrictive environment possible, and guarantees families legal protections through individualized education plans (IEPs) and due process rights. We know this law as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) today.
1977
St. Louis becomes the first city in the country to have lift-equipped public buses.
1979
Paraquad officially becomes a Center for Independent Living (CIL) and is one of the first ten CILs nationwide to receive federal funding. Jim Tuscher supported Max Starkloff in the formation of Paraquad as a nonprofit and became one of the first staff members. Jim Tuscher would support Paraquad for many years and was well-regarded as a disability rights advocate. Tuscher would serve as Paraquad’s Vice President of Public Policy until his death in 2011. Tuscher’s support was instrumental in securing funding to bring 22 Centers for Independent Living to Missouri.
1980
The first ten federally funded CILs form an ad hoc group, meet in St. Louis, and form what is now the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL).
1984
The Missouri legislature codifies the state’s consumer-directed personal attendant services program into law.
1987
Paraquad’s Youth and Family Program begins with the formation of a youth group including disabled and non-disabled children, a first of its kind in St. Louis.
1988
President Ronald Reagan signs the amendment to the Fair Housing Act, prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities.
1989
Paraquad’s Career Options and Employment program begins.
1990
President George H. W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) Act into law in July. This landmark legislation prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and guarantees equal access in areas like employment, public services, transportation, and public accommodations.
1993
Public Policy becomes an official department at Paraquad.
1995
Max and the Magic Pill, a documentary chronicling Starkloff’s battle for accessible transportation, is produced by KMOV-TV and receives an Emmy Award.
1996
Missouri passes legislation permanently allowing disabled voters to cast absentee ballots.
1999
The United States Supreme Court rules in Olmstead vs. L.C. that the unjustified isolation of people with disabilities is discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities (ADA)
Act.
2000
Paraquad organizes the first Missouri Youth Leadership Forum. The program is modeled after a similar program in California (Youth Leadership Forum for Students with Disabilities).
2006
Paraquad moves to its current location on Oakland Avenue in St. Louis.
2010
Max Starkloff passes away at 73 from complications of the flu in December.
2011
Jim Tuscher passes away in March.
Paraquad dedicates The Jim Tuscher Auditorium.
2012
Paraquad hosts its inaugural Shine the Light Awards and recognized businesses and people committed to accessibility in St. Louis.
2014
Paraquad announces plans for a new Accessible Health and Wellness Center that will feature more than 40 pieces of accessible exercise equipment and serve up to 500 people annually.
2015
Paraquad launches AccessibleSTL, a partnership between Paraquad and St. Louis businesses, organizations and government entities to create a more inclusive, accessible city.
2018
Paraquad opened Bloom Café, a social enterprise restaurant that helped people with disabilities grow their independence through its unique job training program.
2020
The Stephen A. Orthwein family made a generous contribution to Paraquad’s Health and Wellness Center. This memorial gift grew the center from a solid local resource to a state-of-the-art regional destination providing transformative exercise options to promote independence and life-long wellness for people with disabilities.
Bloom Café shuttered in December as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2025
Paraquad celebrates the organization’s 55th anniversary.
Paraquad convened the St. Louis Metropolitan Alliance for Reliable Transit (S.M.A.R.T.). This coalition advocates for safe, accessible, and affordable transportation for people with disabilities.
In September, Paraquad traded in the formalities of the Shine the Light Gala for the excitement of Bulls, Broncs, and Budweiser® rodeo fundraiser.
Latosha R. Fowlkes, LCSW was appointed President and CEO of Paraquad. Fowlkes is Paraquad’s first African American CEO.
About Max Starkloff
Story by RICHARD WEISS
Max Starkloff’s world changed forever on the night of Aug. 9, 1959, when his late-model Austin Healy Sprite convertible spun out of control and flipped on a two-lane road in rural Missouri. The accident left him a quadriplegic but not a victim.
Over the course of the next 50 years, Mr. Starkloff would emerge as a relentless, uncompromising force on behalf of disabled people. His advocacy earned him international acclaim. But many say it was his personal example that may have meant even more. Mr. Starkloff spent 12 years in a nursing facility before he was able to forge the independent life that he worked passionately to provide to so many others.
Mr. Starkloff was 21 when after attending a party with friends he lost control of his car near Defiance, Mo. He was handsome, athletic and a strapping 6’5″. To that point he had been living a carefree — and by his own account later — a rather irresolute life.
Doctors told family members after the accident that young Max would probably live only a few days. Still, something even then about Mr. Starkloff’s spirit suggested he would carry on, according to a biography by St. Louisan Charles Claggett.
According to Claggett’s biography, “Max remembered seeing his uncle talking with three other doctors. He saw a wood drill and felt numbness in his head. A priest was called in to give him last rites.”
To which Mr. Starkloff responded: “I don’t need those.”
BLEAK PROSPECTS
And he was right. But the world he would enter as a quadriplegic was almost irrepressibly bleak. There were no electric wheelchairs, no touch-tone telephones, no sidewalk ramps or other public accommodations for anyone on wheels. At the time, Claggett wrote, the only public laws regarding people with disabilities were designed to discriminate, such as Chicago’s Municipal Code 36-34, which forbade anyone with a deformity “to be allowed in or on the public ways or other public places in the city.”
The only jobs available for disabled people were largely menial and paid far below what others received for performing similar tasks.
After spending 138 days in the hospital, Mr. Starkloff was returned to the home of his divorced mother, Hertha Starkloff, in University City. There she acted as his primary caregiver with the help of aides while working a full-time job in real estate.
Mr. Starkloff learned to use the phone and, for a time, began selling insurance and entertaining his legions of friends who would come to visit. But the home care proved too much for his mother, who was then 57. The responsibilities were draining her both physically and financially.
At the time, the federal government paid $30,000 a year for nursing home care, but nothing to families who wanted to keep their loved ones at home. So on Oct. 23, 1963 — four years after the accident — Hertha drove her son to St. Joseph’s Hill Infirmary in Eureka, during which Mr. Starkloff remembered, “No words were spoken.”
As Mr. Starkloff recalled for Claggett’s biography, “This was it, the end of the road. I was going where people go to die.”
But in fact, it was at St. Joseph’s Hill where Mr. Starkloff found a purpose and meaning in his life, and not incidentally his wife.
THE LIFE-ALTERING DREAM
At first, Mr. Starkloff passed the hours at St. Joseph’s by creating a rich fantasy life. “I would create a family, give each member a name and how each person looked,” he told Claggett. “Sometimes I would create baseball teams, memorizing imaginary players their batting statistics, wins and losses.”
Later, Mr. Starkloff would use his imagination to create works of art. He met a Franciscan brother who taught him how to manipulate a paint brush, using his teeth. For the next several months, Mr. Starkloff would work in the infirmary studio for six hours a day. Mr. Starkloff’s paintings were shown in exhibitions, written about in the local press and they created an income.
Even so, Mr. Starkloff chafed at his lack of independence. He remembers the bus tours that would come to St. Joseph’s Hill where he would be shown off to the visitors. A Franciscan brother would bring the tour to Mr. Starkloff’s room while he was lying down and invite them in to see his paintings.
Claggett wrote: “Tousling Max’s hair as though he was an obedient dog, Brother Patrick would exclaim, ‘Isn’t it amazing? He actually holds the brush in his teeth! Considering how he paints, I think Max is pretty good,’ he’d beam.
“Departing, several of the women would pause, look down at Max and say, ‘Isn’t it nice that you have something to occupy your time?'”
Over the years, Mr. Starkloff began to read up on and get in touch with other people with disabilities and those who were advocating on their behalf. One was Gini Laurie, who asked him point-blank, “What are you doing in a nursing home?” Laurie, who was blunt and outspoken, often would say, quadriplegics “need a pair of hands that they can direct. They do not need to be buried alive in a nursing home. They need to live their lives as they choose.”
By 1970, Mr. Starkloff had given up painting and devoted himself to what he called his “life-altering dream.”
“I dreamed of an apartment complex built for people with disabilities in which they could live and work,” he told Claggett. “It was a utopian environment for people with disabilities where they could also be entrepreneurs. And it wouldn’t just house people with disabilities. Anyone could live there.” He would later name it the Para-quad project.