I became interested in captioning when I discovered the little CC button on my TV remote and started seeing the words dancing across my television screen. I was more interested in the words than the television program itself. I immediately connected with a few seasoned captioners and decided to purchase captioning software, start building my captioning dictionary and enter the captioning field. BUT... the captioning software sat in a drawer in my office for close to a year.

I had just begun to provide onsite classroom CART when tragedy hit our country, 9/11. Experienced onsite CART captioners were pulled away from their everyday assignments to provide round-the-clock emergency captioning for television news coverage. This unfortunate emergency allowed me to hone my skills as a CART Captioner as I provided more hours of onsite classroom CART.

I was very comfortable in my role when one day a call came from a captioning company stating their captioner broke her hand and would be off work for three months. Could I please caption an hour and a half show each day until she could return? My heart began to race as I explained to the caller that I had zero captioning experience and I didn't think I was ready. BUT . . . remember that captioning software I purchased a year ago? It was still sitting in the drawer in my office. The company pled with me to take the job for three months and again told me I could quit when she returned. She never did return. I captioned their local news for one and a half years. 

I will always be grateful to a captioning colleague, Chris Hime, for her support in helping me through the first month. During the transition I thought to myself, what am I doing here? But Chris assured me that I would eventually become comfortable with captioning, and I did. This opened up opportunities to work with other captioning companies, which I thoroughly enjoyed. So you’d think I would be happy being comfortable?! 

Then Chris told me she was working with Jeanette Christian and she asked if she could pass my name to her. I thought, why not? I had no idea that Jeanette would drag me into the 21st Century with all her technology.

I was so comfortable using the older modems and outdated technology but now Jeanette is talking about Skype, GoogleTalk, Google Hangout, Blackboard, Adobe, WebEx -- and now what’s this 1CapApp? What’s this voiceover IP stuff, bridges and platforms? What is remote CART? 

What!?!?! You want me to remote CART for a medical student? Hum, maybe that would be all right since 95% of my depos were medical malpractice. What!?!?! Now Jeanette wants me to CART for professionals during their teleconference meetings and maybe voice for them, too -- and in Europe, Asia? Wow!! I really like where this is going.  

I was often afraid whenever Jeanette would force me out of my comfort zone, but she is patient and has a great support system in place that I actually find myself saying, "I CAN DO THIS!" And, plus, the awesome 1CapApp platform Jeanette is a co-founder of is truly magic. I am excited every day when I sign into the platform.

So I say THANK YOU, Jeanette Christian, for your faith in my ability to grow in this profession and for your patience in teaching an old dog new tricks!

Sincerely,

Rita Lupercio

Rita can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.