[Athen] Carl Browv, Dick Banks, and Allan Macurdy

[Dann Berkowitz]

The access technology community suffered both a professional and a personal loss last week with the passing of Carl Brown , Director of the High Tech Center Training Unit of the California Community College System. 

Carl’s wife, Martha Kanter, has arranged for a memorial service on the De Anza College campus in the Flint Center at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 4. Martha has asked that, rather than flowers, individuals who wish to do so make a donation to a scholarship that will be set up in Carl’s name. Information on how to contribute should be available soon. 

This marks the second time this year our professional community has lost a leader and champion for serving the educational and interpersonal technology related needs of students with disabilities. Earlier this year Dick Banks of EASI [Eqwual Access to Software and Information] passed away after a brief fight with cancer. 

It has been said that a profession, like a country, comes into its own with the passing of its founding fathers. That may be true - or it may be bunk - but eiter way it speaks to the youth of our movement and the void that will be left by the passing of these founding fathers. 

The passing of Carl and Dick begets a remembrance of another icon in the field of education and disability services, that of my former boss, friend and mentor Allan Macurdy of the Boston University Office of Disability Services. Though not an icon in the access technology field (he considered computers a necessary evil of our modern age), Allan was an importnt figure in my development as a professional in many aspects of serving the needs of postsecondary students both with and without disabilities. He is sorely missed. 

As the poet Virgil (70 BC - 19 BC) wrote: 
“Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on earth to do. With such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.” 
. 

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Posted By Dann Berkowitz to Access Technologists Higher Education Network at 11/24/2008 09:05:00 PM
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