Biography

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Andrew J. “Andy” Imparato began work in February of 2020 as the CEO of Disability Rights California (DRC) after a high-impact 26-year career in Washington, DC in disability advocacy and policy. DRC is a $49 million legal services agency with more than 320 staff and 24 offices that serve Californians with all types of disabilities across the age spectrum. Since joining DRC, Imparato has led advocacy efforts to protect the California disability community from health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; helped shape Governor Newsom’s Master Plan for Aging as part of his Administration’s Stakeholder Advisory Committee and Implementing the Master Plan for Aging in California Together Advisory Committee; and worked to position California as a national leader is disability policy, equity and outcomes. From February until October of 2021, he served as an appointee of President Biden as one of 12 public members of a federal COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force that made recommendations to the President and his COVID-response team on how to advance health equity during the ongoing pandemic and during preparations for the next pandemic. In the last three years, Imparato has helped DRC fight for self-determination for unhoused people with mental health disabilities in the context of Governor Newsom’s carceral CARE Court legislation and other initiatives. While in DC, Imparato served as the Disability Policy Director for Chairman Tom Harkin on the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; as President and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities; as Executive Director of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities; as General Counsel and Director of Policy at the National Council on Disability, and as an attorney advisor to Commissioner Paul Steven Miller at the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He was a key leader in the coalition that came together to support the ADA Amendments Act in 2008 and helped negotiate the disability provisions in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act of 2014.