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My name is Craig Keiser. I'm the former director
of the Florida Division of Blind Services.
I'm currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Blind Services
Foundation of Florida.
In 2004, I hired Denise Marshall to come to work for the Division
of Blind Services to help us with making sure that the assistive
technology - the high tech devices that we were buying for the blind -
were brought up to date with the most recent upgrades to those
pieces of equipment, that our staff as well as the staff around
the state of the community of rehabilitation providers -
- the Lighthouses - also knew how to operate the equipment so they
could demonstrate it to blind people.
Ms. Marshall traveled all over the state, visiting each of our
twelve district offices, as well the private providers
training the staff of those offices in how to use this high-tech
equipment that allows the blind to read printed materials
that were formally unavailable to them unless they could get
a sighted person to read it.
The types of equipment - like talking computers... note takers
that allow the blind to access the internet to send and receive
e-mail... to, uh, draft documents and read printed documents...
GPS systems that enable the blind to travel un-assisted
almost anywhere in the country...
Uh, the GPS will let them know where they are
and how to get to any location they want to program into it
and can tell them of all the points of interest along the way -
stores, offices, ATM's - whatever it is they're looking for.
Ms. Marshall trained the staff HOW to use that equipment
so that they in turn, when they had a client who needed that type
of equipment could show the blind client how to use that equipment
and how to make a reasoned and informed decision
about which piece of equipment worked best for whatever
they needed it... whatever work they were doing
or whatever they were trying to accomplish.
Along the way, Ms. Marshall gained a reputation
for being knowledgable and competent
in how to use that assistive technology,
and clients and individual blind people began asking for her
to train them directly.