In 1958, Kenneth Jernigan left California and moved to Iowa to become director of Iowa's failed rehabilitation program for the blind. This state program, the Iowa Commission for the Blind (now called the Iowa Department for the Blind http://www.IDBonline.org), had been determined by a 1957 Federal Rehabilitation study to be the least effective rehabilitation agency for the blind in America. Kenneth Jernigan took the Iowa Commission for the Blind directorship specifically to offer a new and revolutionary training model as to how properly to assist and empower blind people. He intended to use the "philosophy" of the National Federation of the Blind as the foundation for all state services for the blind.