Q: Lisa, I’m so excited to have Veritext Reporters get to know a true trailblazer in the captioning industry!

A: Thanks, Jan.  I guess there really were a few trails that got blazed over my many decades in the profession. 

Q: Forty-five years in the biz… and still going strong!   That’s impressive!  So then if my math serves me, you started reporting school at age 10?

A: Okay, let’s go with that.  

Q: Lisa, tell us about how you got your start…and let’s start at the very beginning.

A: That’s always a good place to start.  I graduated from court reporting school back in, um, 1976… Yikes!  It was my grandmother who introduced me to court reporting.  I was actually on track to become a teacher, but in her words, she said, “you’ll never make enough money.”  So instead I enrolled in court reporting at Minnesota School of Business in downtown Minneapolis.

Upon graduation, I moved to Florida where I was a freelance reporter as well as a deputy official in Sarasota County, moving to Fort Myers to freelance in 1982.  NCRA’s National Convention was in Minneapolis in 1988, and that’s where I met the owner of Southwest Reporters.  He had just landed a contract to caption the news for KARE-11 in the Twin Cities and he offered me the opportunity to join his team, which I accepted, resulting in my move back to Minnesota. 

Q: So if we use a swimming pool analogy, your foray into captioning was more like cannonballing into the deep end than wading in at the shallow end?

A: It kind of was a sink or swim proposition, for sure.  But when I was approached with an opportunity to move back to Minnesota, which is where my family is, to do something completely different, how could I say no?  I was very excited!  I love new challenges.

Q: We often refer to realtiming as “writing naked” because you put your writing out there raw for all to see. That can be challenging enough in a room with a handful of attorneys, but we’re talking about realtiming for hundreds of thousands of people as a TV captioner.    How did you prepare for this new job?

A: I started practicing every day, all day, to the news.   It took several weeks to totally revamp my writing and ramp up my dictionary to write for television newscasts–and this was back before there were any books, theories or classes on live captioning, mind you.  

Q: So you were basically self-taught?

A: Essentially.   When we started our contract with KARE-11 in September of 1988, there were only seven other television stations in the country providing live captioning, so it was pretty new. 

Q: How long did you work exclusively in the television captioning arena?

A: Up until 1990 when KARE-11 discontinued live captioning and went to scripted captioning.  Can I say that I don’t miss doing local news all that much?  It was a pretty grueling two years.  I captioned sometimes four newscasts daily, including weekends of course; plus, our contract required us to be on call 24/7/365 to caption breaking news stories and weather advisories as they occurred.   But, like anything else, once you do it for a while you get used to it.  And it was always interesting.

As luck would have it though, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed on July 26^th, 1990, which catapulted both CART and captioning into America’s awareness.  Working for KARE-11 opened many doors, and I started getting calls to provide both CART and captioning services, and that’s when I decided to try striking out on my own.  Fast forward to 1992 and the NCRA Convention in Chicago, and that’s where you and I struck up a conversation about going into business together.   As they say, the rest is pretty much history.  It took about a year to put it all together, and we were fortunate to add the perfect third partner in our mutual friend, Jayne Seward, and in 1993 we opened our doors in Downtown Minneapolis as Ballman, Richardson and Seward.   Then, in order to expand the reach and breadth of our services, we merged with two other leading local reporting agencies, and on January 1, 1998 we opened Paradigm Reporting & Captioning, which is now the Minneapolis office of Veritext.

Q: It’s been quite the journey!  Lisa, you were an early adopter to technology and one of the first reporters to embrace realtime and run with it.  The concept of “writing naked,” as some describe realtiming, is sort of terrifying still today to many a reporter, let alone 23 years ago, let alone doing so in front of gazillions of people several times a day.   In fact, I can’t think of too many assignments more intimidating than writing for live television.   Tell us what your very first day on the air was like.

A: My very first time on the air was captioning the six o’clock news on KARE-11, which is the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul.  Let’s be clear–I was freaking out!  It didn’t help that they had a TV crew in our office filming me and then did a live shot showing off the captioning.  Talk about a great time to practice breathing!  But, yeah, I was freaking out on the inside.   

To add icing to that cake; KARE-11 was holding a party in one of their studios with ALL OF THEIR SPONSORS!  Carlson Companies was their biggest sponsor, and once the newscast was over, Curt Carlson, the founder, asked to meet me.  Yikes!  After chatting for a bit, he asked if I’d be interested in coming to work for him, as I “obviously know how to type.”   I think you know what my answer was, but it was flattering nonetheless.  All I can say is it was a night to remember.  And, luckily, I had only a few untrans that night.  Whew!

Q: Today, a routine assignment for you (well, pre-COVID and hopefully soon) might be captioning for one of our Minnesota sports teams live inside the arena in front of tens of thousands of fans, or captioning in an auditorium filled to capacity.   Do you still get nervous before these assignments, or have you tamed that beast?

A: I wish I could say I have tamed that beast after all these years, but for me, there’s always an element of nerves when any job starts, which is amplified when we’re onsite, especially for big events and when people can see me.  And if I know someone in particular is watching, I’m a nervous Nellie!  Like, for instance, when I know YOU are attending, say, a Minnesota Wild game that I’m captioning.

Q: LOL.  I’ve always thought that’s so funny!  Like, how can little ol’ me make you nervous when your captions are being read by throngs of people?

A: I don’t know, but it’s the truth!  Maybe it started as a result of a consumer who would call and leave a voicemail after some newscasts to laugh at my mistakes.   I think she meant well, but it wasn’t always funny.  However, she did help me learn to laugh at myself, which is definitely needed in this job!

Q: Laughing beats crying!  That’s actually great advice for all of us.  So, Lisa, given the huge challenges you’ve obviously faced over the years, can you identify the assignment that takes the cake for Most Challenging?

A: Oh, man, Jan, there are several tied for that position!  One that comes to mind:  We were the first to caption the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s television marathon that was always held over Labor Day weekend.  We did the first six hours and then the last six hours, and people were constantly in and out of the truck to watch us write.  Captioning was still new then, so everybody wanted to see it.  Try keeping up with the likes of Jerry Lewis, or Billy Crystal and Robin Williams during one of their schticks, with people staring at you while writing for a television audience of millions.

Q: I. Can’t. Even…

A: Ahhh, here’s another good one:  Captioning the Paul Wellstone Memorial with, um, four hours notice.  I had to beg to borrow an encoder, go fetch it, bring it to the location of the memorial service, get it all set up…then write for almost six hours.  The only prep I got was a tentative rundown.  It was all over the news the next day.  One local columnist actually wrote specifically about me saying, “the captioning was telling the crowd when to cheer and laugh!”  I only wish I was that good!  Thankfully, some folks in the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community came to my defense and set the columnist straight, explaining that it is part of my job to write what is going on for those who can’t hear what’s going on, which includes standard parentheticals such as [applause]. 

Oh, there’s one more assignment that’s worth a mention that I captioned along with one of our colleagues, Angie Sundell:   “The 2000-Year-Old Man” with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner!  HOLY BUCKETS!  It was total ad lib, and they were all over the place!  After they were done and had taken their bows, they ended up right behind us backstage.  But I can’t remember anything they said, as I was still a pile of nerves… and a little sweat.

Q: Wow. #respect!   Lisa, I know that over the years you’ve worked with some very illustrious clients.  Can you shine some light on some of the folks you’ve encountered through your work as a captioner?

A:  Well, captioning the Minnesota Legislature for several decades has opened lots of doors.  For example, I’ve had the privilege of captioning for the last three Minnesota governors—Tim Pawlenty, Mark Dayton and Tim Walz.  In fact, Governor Walz was one of our biggest clients this past year, as we captioned all of his COVID updates live over FaceBook.  I’ve captioned Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.  I captioned Barack Obama in St. Paul the night he was awarded the nomination for President.  I’ve captioned the Dalai Lama, Gloria Steinem, Dan Rather, Jay Leno.  Already mentioned Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner.   Captioning provides a lot of great opportunities to meet cool people.    

Q: I’m guessing you may have generated some interest in captioning here, Lisa, so tell us what characteristics are important in a great CART/Captioner.

A: That’s a good question.  You’re making me think, Jan.  Being a good writer is pretty important, obviously, but we have a joke that writing is the easy part of captioning.  One needs to not be afraid of technology, as that’s such a huge part of the job these days.  Among other qualities would be being well-read, flexible, and having the right compassion for the assignment, meaning keeping in mind that someone is relying on your captions to allow them to participate to their fullest.

Q: I know you love your job and you always have.   Tell us what you love most about being both a CART-Captioner and a media Captioner.

A: Whether providing captions for lots of people, or providing CART-captioning one-on-one, I love knowing I’m helping people experience what’s going on in the classroom, in the community, in the news, in the world.  One quick story… I’d been captioning for five or six years, on a pro-bono basis, for this Saturday meeting for what is now the local chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America.  This was one of those Saturdays where I did not want to get up and go, and so I was, well, a bit crabby.  That day, there were two women who were first-timers at the meeting, and I had a brief chance to meet them before the meeting started.  They were very shy and stood in the back of the room the whole meeting.  As I was packing up, they came up to me, with tears in their eyes, and thanked me for being there as they’d never seen CART before and had never been in a meeting where they could participate.  Yep, I’ve got tears as I type this.  They went on to become some of the most active members that chapter has ever seen.  Sometimes, payment doesn’t come in money.  And that’s why I love what I do.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who would like to give captioning a try?

A: Take all the captioning classes you can.   Even if you’re a great writer, there is a lot more to CART and captioning than the writing.  Learn about the Deaf, deaf, deafblind, and hard-of-hearing communities so you get a feel for their respective cultures.  Read books, newspapers –anything possible to get a good foundation for what’s happening in the world.  And practice.  You knew that was coming, right?

Q: Lisa, you’re wonderful. Thank you for your time today, and thank you for the important work you and our CART/Captioning division does, which is so vital to our community.   I’m proud to have you on this team and to have been working side-by-side for over a quarter of a century.

A: Thanks, Jan, for giving me this opportunity to share my story.  Being a CART-Captioner / Captioner is truly what I was meant to do in this world.  And thanks, too, for approaching me at the NCRA convention where we started this awesome journey together almost 30 years ago!