Seattle, Washington, United States
Software Accessibility expert and Assistive Technology expert with a twenty-five year track record of defining and implementing accessible software solutions and accessibility standards. Highly effective at leading diverse global development teams delivering accessible platforms and operating systems, office suites, web browsers, and assistive technologies. Equally effective in legislative and regulatory domains, driving governmental policies and regulations on accessibility that maximize social benefits while being achievable at the lowest operational cost to industry.
- Helped deliver the new FireOS screen reader VoiceView, on our new Fire Tablets - Invented and helped deliver the VoiceView for Kindle screen reader and the Kindle Audio Adapter, making e-readers accessible to blind and visually impaired readers for the first time ever - Helped deliver the VoiceView screen reader to Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire TV Edition smart TVs, enabling blind and visually impaired folks to enjoy movies, TV shows, and other video content - Helped deliver magnification to Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire TV Edition smart TVs, enabling low vision folks to enjoy movies, TV shows, and other video content - Helped bring Audio Description to Amazon Video - Helped make Kindle Reading on PC accessible, improve Kindle Reading accessibility on Fire Tablets
Analyzed legislation and regulation affecting Oracle's businesses, and led Oracle's engagement with Congress and regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Access Board, FCC, and Mandate 376 Contributed to accessibility standards efforts, including ISO/IEC 13066 “Interoperability with assistive technology (AT)”, and authored ISO/IEC Technical Report 13066-6 Advised product teams on how to meet Oracle accessibility standards – particularly for technologies not covered by Oracle's HTML-centric text Designed the overall JavaFX accessibility approach, identified accessibility experts that Oracle then hired to implement that approach Designed and supervised the Java Mobile accessibility implementation on LWUIT Analyzed Oracle training tool workflow, and provided guidance on how to build accessibility support into the tool, and from there into all generated documentation and training materials Continued the role of AEGIS project Technical manager - begun at Sun Microsystems - managing teams through the delivery and/or update of over 10 significant open source accessibility solutions for Linux/GNOME, iOS, Android, JavaME, NetBeans, and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice
Accessibility Architect and Principal Engineer: Driving most of the technical, legislative, and standards work related to accessibility at the company (2008-2010) Wrote a 400 page grant proposal which was awarded €8.2m from European Commission, becoming the €12.6m AEGIS project (FP7-ICT224348) Led 50+ staff across 20 organizations in 15 countries delivering accessible platforms and solutions for desktop, web, and mobile environments Initiated JavaFX accessibility work, GNOME accessibility automated testing/regression project Co-chaired the OASIS Open Document Format Accessibility Subcommittee Consulted on accessibility for Java, GNOME, Solaris, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird Senior Staff Engineer: Leading teams, standards, and policy work (2001-2008) Initiated the GNOME Accessibility Project both within Sun and the open source community – defining keyboard operation, theme support, and the GNOME Accessibility API Initiated the OpenOffice.org accessibility effort, with realizations on Windows, Mac, and GNOME Led the OASIS OpenDocument Format accessibility effort, co-chaired the Accessibility SC Organized company response when OpenOffice.org was attacked by Microsoft and by disability organizations in Massachusetts and Brussels – developed Sun public policy engagement Directed corporate messaging around Accessibility - including Corporate Social Responsibility text Staff Engineer: Accessibility engineering and project leadership (1996-2001) Designed Java Accessibility API and implemented it in Java/Swing toolkit, creating a model that served as the basis for most modern accessibility APIs Developed the Java Access Bridge for Windows, got multiple Windows AT vendors to use it Developed Jini's accessibility techniques, led creation of multi-modal Service UI demonstration Helped formulate Sun's positions and contributions to the original Section 508 advisory committee
- Ran the division as a separate P&L entity, including development, support, and production - Led a team of 4 in delivering two releases of the outSPOKEN for Windows screen reader for the blind, including significant code contributions as well as project leadership - Managed contractors developing a new release of the inLARGE for Macintosh screen magnifier - Negotiated licensing deals for core screen reading technology – the GUI Access Toolkit - Negotiated sale of the business to a Dutch firm, which continued investing and releasing updates - Lead the 2 person development team creating outSPOKEN for Windows - Managed an intern developing a prototype port of outSPOKEN to Sun OS and X Windows - Developed the core, cross-platform “Off-Screen Model” for a rewrite of outSPOKEN – the world's first graphical screen reader; also developed Windows OS patching techniques
Developed AppleTalk network management software and address book conversion applications for handheld computers