Acknowledgments
Hello! I’m Dr. Darlene Zangara, executive director of the Commission. We are excited that the first major phase of Interpreting Forward 2030 is complete, resulting in this website to share results with the public.
This initiative was successful because of the engagement of the Minnesota Deaf, DeafBlind and hard of hearing and Deaf and hearing interpreting communities all coming together.
Over the course of two years, we have come together multiple times with many different groups of individuals all over the state and online.
We met to uncover the barriers, identify our challenges, and develop this list of potential solutions to move forward with the work.
We appreciate everyone who has been involved!
Thank you to:
Deaf, DeafBlind and hard of hearing community members statewide
Leading community organizations who endorsed this process:
Deaf and hearing interpreters who shared input
Key stakeholders:
Interpreting referral companies
Interpreter training program faculty
Students and MERGE members
Interpreters and caption writers who worked during events to ensure accessibility for everyone in the process
Community members who participated in ASL translations for this website
Dendros consulting team
Commission staff
Commission Board
We are deeply appreciative of everyone who helped bring this website to life — including the incredible Deaf and DeafBlind ASL talent featured in the videos, ASL coaches, and DeafBlind consultants.
Special thanks to Lys Akerman-Frank of PNG for their excellent work in editing, captioning, and producing voiceovers for all website videos, ensuring full accessibility.
We are also grateful to Keenan Gao and Thomas May from Longren Insights LLC for providing data analytics and visualization services, and their dedication to building a user-friendly, accessible, and comprehensive website.
Because of your participation, we are ready to continue with this work, continuing to improve the quality and availability of signed language interpreters, with the end goal of greater communication access for Minnesota’s Deaf, DeafBlind and hard of hearing communities. We look forward to continuing the work with you all.