On the Move: Optelec’s Blindness Division
Optelec USA, Inc., the North American subsidiary of The Tieman Group (The Netherlands) announced today the appointment of Mr. Mike Pedersen as Director of Corporate Development for Optelec’s growing blindness division.
Chelmsford, MA (PRWEB) May 7, 2004 -— Optelec USA, Inc., the North American
subsidiary of The Tieman Group (The Netherlands) announced today the appointment
of Mr. Mike Pedersen as Director of Corporate Development for Optelec’s growing
blindness division. This announcement, following close on the heels of hiring
Mr. Larry L. Lewis, Jr. as Vice President of the new division, makes a solid
statement regarding Optelec’s commitment to establishing itself as the leading
solution provider for persons who are blind
Pedersen is no stranger to
the blindness industry or to mainstream technologies. Blind from birth, Mike
learned braille at an early age and relied on assistive technology in a
mainstream public school, eventually graduating from Western Michigan University
with a degree in computer science. After spending some time within the blindness
industry as a technical support specialist, Mike was quickly snatched up by
Henter-Joyce for the head position of the JAWS script writing team. For the past
four years he has been an active member of the development team for mainstream
software with the Oracle Corporation. As Director of Corporate Development for
Optelec, Pedersen will provide technical grounding for the Tieman Group’s
product development, marketing and sales efforts.
“I believe that the
Tieman Group is embarking on the most interesting project this industry has
experienced in several years,” said Pedersen. “ My desire with this project is
to enable blind people to access a wide variety of mainstream technologies as
opposed to proprietary devices that are out of date the day they are
released.”
The hiring of Pedersen by Optelec is the first of a number of
strategies to effectively present to this vibrant industry a palatable and
necessary alternative to portable information management.
“Optelec is
most excited to have Mike join the Optelec team,” said Larry Lewis. “I’ve known
Mike for quite some time. He offers a stellar mix of experience developing
adaptive software as well as tremendous intuition and ingenuity managing
mainstream development efforts. His skill sets are the perfect ingredients for
Optelec to technically cement a number of commercial relationships with
mainstream as well as adaptive technology companies. The end result is that
Optelec will redefine the standards for portable information management through
increased mobility with, and connectivity to, mainstream products.”
The
Braille Voyager refreshable braille display has been Optelec’s premier blindness
product. For 2004, Optelec has announced plans to unveil a new portable product
aimed at the blind consumer.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/5/prweb123899.htm