When Joe Bellantoni told his wife, Denise, that he might like to go back to business school to get an executive MBA, she stared at him, incredulous, and asked, “Why?”

After all, Mr Bellantoni already had a successful career as the chief financial officer of Crystal Springs Resort, a complex in northern New Jersey with six golf courses, luxury hotels and top-rated restaurants; the couple had a son in college and one in graduate school; and, thanks to Mr Bellantoni’s newfound penchant for fitness, he was running a marathon a month.

But she had a bigger concern about the prospect of her husband’s return to business school: Mr Bellantoni is blind. “It was going to be a big challenge,” says Ms Bellantoni. “Joe had never gone to school without sight.”