Educaption

CART and Captioning Pioneer

When Judy Brentano’s fingers fly across her special keyboard, she sets in motion a magical chain of events.

Within less than one second, the keystrokes of this technological trailblazer are translated into words that stream across TV screens, giving weather alerts or warning of emergency situations. Or, they appear on televisions in sports bars, doctor’s offices or health clubs, helping those watching in such settings to keep up with the latest news bulletins. Or, they are read in classrooms by students who are hearing impaired.

Judy founded her pacesetting company, EduCaption, Inc .in 1991. Since then, the technology has moved forward in giant leaps. Today, Judy’s personally-trained, best-in-the-business staff numbers 23. Located across the country, these men and women are on call 24/7, to respond to captioning needs in situations ranging from emergencies to large meetings to sporting events to classroom coverage. And like Judy, all these "capioners" started their careers as court reporters.

Judy, recently talked about her early days in the field of court reporting. "I started out in Ohio," she said, "in the early 1970s." In 1972, Judy made a life-changing decision to relocate to the south. She recalled that pivotal time with a smile. "I set up interviews all the way down I 75 to Ft. Lauderdale." But Judy never made it to that last stop in Florida. Instead, she was hired on the spot when she reached Atlanta. It was a blank-slate life change. "I knew no one in Atlanta," Judy said of those early days in Georgia.

As she was busy building her court reporter career, Judy’s life was interrupted by a rogue tornado that hit Atlanta in 1974. The storm destroyed her apartment building, forcing her and others in the area to move. It was during this relocation Judy met Mike Brentano, and a deep friendship developed. Mike was on a career path to become a college history professor. But, as his interests and focus changed, he and Judy married and he joined her in the court reporting field.

By this time Judy, an enterprising businesswoman, had responded to the need for her expertise in Atlanta. She established her own freelance court reporting company. She said of that busy, start-up time, "I finally opened a little office. It was 478 square feet, and I had one employee. Eventually, Mike came on board and Brentano Reporters was born." With this high-energy entrepreneurial couple at the helm, the enterprise quickly grew to a 20-employee business, based in its own office building.

Deeply involved in their professional interests, Judy and Mike were active participants in the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA). Through this group, the Brentanos established many key business relationships. One of their most important and long-lasting friendships was with Marty Block of Washington, DC.

Marty and a partner were in the developing stages of what would become the closed-captioning revolution. As their pioneering work in the field progressed, they urged Judy and Mike to get into this new specialization on the ground floor. The year was 1986. At that point, all closed-captioning work was done post-production. In other words, the program was put together, and the captions added afterwards. Since this new technology was based on Judy’s long-time career focus, court reporting, she found the invitation to enter the field irresistible.

The early closed-captioning efforts involved an operator sending the information in shorthand from a stenotype machine to a computer, equipped with a specialized software program. The computer then translated the keystrokes to English. The resulting words were sent to the television screen. The time lapse between the captioner keying in the information and the words showing up on the screen was about 6 seconds. "By contrast," Judy said with enthusiasm, "we now work on a one second delay."

This petit business woman takes obvious pride in the fact that her EduCaption, Inc., was one the first captioning companies in the country. Among her earliest clients was the Fox TV affiliate in Atlanta. Judy reported that Fox is still with her firm after all these years. EduCaption continues to provide more than 47 hours of captioning for Fox each week.

As the technology grew, the captioning options were extended into courtrooms, other media outlets and a growing number of classrooms. The turning point in the industry, according to Judy, came with the exploding capabilities of the internet. For instance, Judy explained, in classroom situations, the professor wears a mic and the class is broadcast on the internet. The hearing-impaired student attending the lecture has a lap top computer with internet access.

As the student sees the class on his lap top, the captioning is added on the screen by one of Judy’s specially-trained staff members who is located in a remote location...anywhere from Arizona to Maine. The result is an on-site learning experience for a hard-of-hearing student that equals the quality of what once was open only to the hearing.

Later this year Judy, as well as the other pioneers in the closed-captioning field, will mark a special milestone. The Association of Late Deafened Adults is an organization formed 20 years ago. These men and women lost their hearing later in life. They do not read lips. They do not sign. For these reasons, they have relied from the beginning on captioners like Judy’s EduCaption, to provide coverage at their meetings.

The Late Deafened Adults have invited Judy and the others who were in on the ground floor, to attend an anniversary celebration. These professional captioners will give their historical perspective of how this amazing technology developed over the past two decades. There’s no way to measure the number of lives the innovation of closed-captioning has touched. But the pioneering work of Master Captioner Judy Brentano continues to have a sweeping effect on the entire field.

Through her tireless efforts to insure access to those who need this technology, her continued work in teaching the unique skills required in captioning and her dedication to improving the competence of the uniquely gifted people who undertake the work, Judy’s impact is felt across the industry. The magic Judy has performed in every aspect of this field since her early, pioneering days, is her lasting legacy to those who are moving the technology to the next level.

With reprint permission from author Joyce Schenk

Appears in “Charlotte Woman” October 2008

WHY I LOVE MY JOB: Heidi Thomas

Job: Broadcast captioner, Sandy Springs

What I do: When news happens, you can find Heidi Thomas watching television in her basement. From her windowless studio, she is one of the people who makes the media’s message accessible to people with hearing disabilities. She creates the captions that scroll along the bottom of televisions that are properly equipped and have the captioning feature turned on.

Her fingers fly over the keys of a stenograph, a machine that looks like a tiny combination typewriter and piano, accurately transcribing what’s being said nearly instantaneously. It’s the same machine court reporters use to keep verbatim transcripts of what’s being said in a courtroom.

Thomas, 51, also takes on less-visible work, doing Communication Access Real-time Translation (CART) for college students, convention participants or people at business meetings.

In those situations, she goes on-site with a person with a hearing impairment and transcribes what the professor or the presenter is saying, while her client watches the words appear on a laptop computer. She can even do the translation remotely from her studio, if the speaker is hooked up to a microphone and the client is connected with Thomas over a high-speed wireless Internet connection. The audio hookup goes through an Internet phone connection, and Thomas transcribes the lecture while listening from home. Sometimes, a client will even use a cell phone with a speaker.

“It’s pretty low-tech as tech is these days,” Thomas said.

Captioning for television is remarkably low-tech as well. The connections are usually dial-up, and the captioner writes as she listens. In fact, fancy satellite hookups don’t work. Because of the few-second delay in bouncing signals into space, the captioner gets too far behind the speaker.

“We can’t afford to have that delay,” she said.

Thomas says she enjoys her CART work most. “I enjoy listening to lectures about art history or calculus. … And they’re paying me to go to school, to watch TV.”

And she’s even worked at a wedding rehearsal dinner, where the groom was hearing impaired and his father wanted to make sure his son heard all the toasts.

What got me interested in this: “This job didn’t exist” when Thomas started as a court reporter in 1978. She went into that field because “I love words, and I love the machine,” she said, referring to the stenograph. Users are able to take verbatim transcripts with it by typing what amounts to shorthand. What looks like random letters and spaces turns into full words and phrases with the help of training and a computerized dictionary.

Thomas began captioning in the mid-80s when a local television station began using captioning and looked to court reporters to do the work.

Best part of my job: “Being able to work from home,” Thomas said, adding that she enjoys the constant learning that’s involved in her job.

Most challenging part: “Doing the research to be prepared for each new assignment,” she said. “There’s so much you have to know.” A captioner needs to be familiar with the vocabulary and the names of people who might be mentioned. “We try for 99.9-plus percent accuracy,” she said.

What people don’t know about my job: “People don’t have any idea that when they watch live TV, there’s a human being behind the machine writing down every word,” she said. A captioner has to listen, then accurately record what’s being said as it’s being said.

During the World Trade Center tragedy in 2001, she pointed out, “every minute was captioned.” Thomas was working for national media at the time, primarily NBC, and was working on the project nearly non-stop.

What keeps me going: “The gratitude and thanks I get from deaf and hard of hearing customers when I work with them on-site,” Thomas said.

Preparation needed for this job: You need training as a court reporter and in CART captioning from an approved school. It takes about three years to get a certificate. You also need flexibility to work any time important events take place, and you have to love words, she added.

Most captioners are independent contractors working from home, like Thomas. She also co-owns a captioning business, EduCaption, which employs other captioners. Most of her television business now is from a local station and religious ministries. Captioners buy their own equipment and software, but Thomas pointed out that after the initial investment, there are few ongoing expenses other than telephone charges.

Thomas is a graduate of Brown College of Court Reporting and Medical Transcription in Atlanta and received her CART training later. She has captioned news, sports and entertainment programs for the major broadcast networks, CNN, ESPN and Home Shopping Network.

- By Karl Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@ajc.com.