Chicagoland business owner directs new MacCormac College program

CHICAGO and MERRILLVILLE, Ind. - A business owner whose firm provides real-time captioning, translation and court reporting services has been named director of a new certificate program offered at MacCormac College in downtown Chicago.

Kathy Cortopassi, president of Voice to Print Captioning LLC, will direct the certificate program in Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) providing and Closed Captioning. Classes will begin in the spring 2013 semester.

Cortopassi, a 1984 alumna of MacCormac College, said students in the program could use their skills in a variety of settings.

"CART providers work with the deaf and hard of hearing in many different settings, including corporate, educational, legal and medical. They often work in education settings such as a university or high school, assisting a person with hearing loss to progress through school," she said. "Broadcast captioners use the same technology as court reporters to create the text that viewers see on the television screen. They may caption live sporting events, news or other television programming."

Cortopassi said students must meet several prerequisites before enrolling in the program.

"They must be able to type at 225 words per minute as evidenced by recent testing, or they must have obtained their Registered Professional Reporter certification administered by the National Court Reporting Association or Certified Shorthand Reporters certification in Illinois," she said.

Cortopassi, whose company is a tenant in the Purdue Research Park of Northwest Indiana, said her goal in directing the CART providing and Closed Captioning program at MacCormac College is to prepare students for the workplace.

"Because CART and Captioning providers are the 'ears' for people with hearing loss, we have to ensure that our customers have equal access to exactly what is spoken, which means captioners and CART providers must achieve the highest levels of accuracy," she said. "As director of this MacCormac College program, I will help court reporters improve their accuracy and introduce them to deaf culture, sign language, causes of hearing loss and disability laws."

The new certificate program at MacCormac College is funded by a $295,850 grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

About Voice to Print Captioning LLC

Before opening Voice to Print Captioning, Kathy Cortopassi owned C&S Reporting, a court reporting agency with offices in Chicago and Hammond. Voice to Print works with people in Indiana and throughout the world to provide service to its clients. Voice to Print is an Ethics First company.

About Purdue Research Park

The Purdue Research Park has the largest university-affiliated business incubation complex in the country. The park has four sites in the state of Indiana located in West Lafayette, Indianapolis, Merrillville and New Albany. The nearly 200 companies located in the park network employ about 4,000 people.

Purdue Research Park contact:

Steve Martin, 765-588-3342, sgmartin@prf.org

Source:

Kathy Cortopassi, 866-523-5359, kathycort@voicetoprint.onmicrosoft.com