The article, titled, “Deaf Techs Make Their Voices Heard,” was featured in the Oct/Nov issue of Diversity/Careers in Engineering and Information Technology. It’s actually a great article about deaf professionals succeeding in predominately hearing environments such as Intel, Hewlett Packard, and IBM.

Deaf people featured in this article are: Kathleen Croteau (HP, Palo Alto, CA), Darlene Steiner (IBM, White Plains, NY), Charlie Murphy (Boeing, St. Louis, MO), Lindsay Buchko (Intel, Hillsboro, OR), and DeafDC.com’s own Rob Rice (BayFirst Solutions, Washington, DC).

Okay, so DeafDC.com wasn’t actually focused upon in the article, but still, it’s great when websites like this get nationwide exposure. But that really isn’t the point. The point is, as we already knew, that deaf people can work anywhere they want. It’s a common myth that deaf or hard of hearing people always go into deaf-related fields (i.e. teach at NTID; be a residential counselor at Texas School for the Deaf; or work at DCARA in San Francisco).

We all know that simply isn’t true. Five bloggists here work in hearing environments; five people on our DeafDC.com committee do the same. Sure, it’s always so much more scarier. They sure have more headaches - meetings, ‘terp requests, conferences, water cooler chats, but they probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

They are the ones who lead the way towards changing the working world’s attitudes towards deaf and hard of hearing people. That is no easy task, but it’s one to be proud of.