Caption Colorado and Stenograph Launch Innovative Training Program For Captioners

(March 12, 2001) ENGLEWOOD, Colo.-- Chris L. Crosgrove, the manager of recruiting and training for Caption Colorado, America's News Service for the Deaf and Hearing-Impaired, is developing an online course to transform court reporters into closed captioners.

"From Court Reporter to Captioner" will be launched by fall 2001. Offered through Stenograph University Online (SUO), a Web-based resource center associated with the Stenograph Corporation, it is the first of its kind. SUO offers its courses through "partner schools" that use online course materials.

Crosgrove's course will cover subjects that standard real-time courses do not, such as what to do if a remote captioner has an emergency.

"To my knowledge, no captioner training courses are offered online. The ultimate goal of this course is to supply a court reporter with the skills required to be a captioner, therefore making themselves marketable and useful to captioning companies," Crosgrove said. The FCC requires the top 25 television markets to caption 100% of their broadcast day, using real-time process, by 2006.

"Captioning courses are in high demand right now, so we're thrilled to have someone as qualified as (Crosgrove) developing this course," said Sandra Natale, program manager for SUO.

Crosgrove currently works for Caption Colorado, the nation's leading provider of real-time captioning. He has over six years of local and national experience in captioning. He received an A.A.S. from the Denver Academy of Court Reporting, a B.F.A.E. from Wayne State College and his Masters from the University of Nebraska. Contact him at Caption Colorado's website www.captioncolorado.com

Stenograph University Online was founded by panel of court reporters, court reporting educators and Stenograph representatives in 2000, as a way to offer court-reporting classes online. It launched its first course in January 2001.