President Barack Obama Nominates Pamela Young-Holmes for the National Council on Disability
On Friday, June 25, 2010, President Barack Obama announced the nomination of Pamela Young-Holmes, former member on the Board of Directors at Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc., (TDI) and recipient of the H. Latham Breunig Humanitarian Award and other honors from TDI, to serve on the National Council on Disability (NCD).
Young-Holmes is director of consumer and regulatory affairs and director of CapTel® customer service for Ultratec, Inc, a communications technology company that designs equipment to make telephone access more reliable for deaf and hard of hearing people. Working at Ultratec since 1987, she has worked extensively on issues related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and has become a recognized expert on communication access related matters pertaining to this Act.
"Pam Holmes brings a human touch to policy development. TDI and its constituents have benefited greatly from her expertise on the TDI Board and on the U.S. Access Board," said Claude Stout, executive director of TDI. Stout adds, "We look forward to working with her at NCD as communication access is now becoming more recognized as a valid civil right for people with disabilities in America and in the virtual world online."
President William Jefferson Clinton appointed Ms. Holmes to the U.S. Access Board twice in 1994 and 1997. During her tenure on the Access Board, Ms. Holmes played a lead role in the Board's development of accessibility guidelines for telecommunications equipment and Federal Electronic and Information Technology, and became Chair of the Board in 2001. She currently serves as a member of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission Universal Service Fund Council. Ms. Holmes has a MS in Deaf Education from the University of Tennessee and a BA in English from Gallaudet University.
Ms. Holmes previously served on the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees from 2002 to 2007. Prior to Ultratec, she worked at the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf and served as a consultant for public-school mainstream programs for deaf and hard of hearing students for four Wisconsin public school systems. She was also a teacher for the deaf & hard of hearing students at mainstream programs in Madison, Wisconsin.
Upon confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Ms. Holmes will join other deaf and hard of hearing notables serving at NCD (www.ncd.gov), an independent federal agency making recommendations to the President and Congress on issues affecting 54 million Americans with disabilities. They include Robert R. Davila, Ph.D. retired President of Gallaudet University and recipient of TDI's I. Lee Brody Lifetime Achievement Award; Marilyn Howe, director of public policy at the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council and former President of the Association of Late-Deafened Adults (ALDA); and Heather Whitestone McCallum, the first woman with a disability to be crowned Miss America in 1995.
In addition to Ms. Pamela Holmes' nomination during the same week, President Obama also appointed Gallaudet's head baseball coach, Curtis Pride, retired major league baseball player to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. Dr. Khadijat 'Kubby' Rashid, Chair of the Department of Business at Gallaudet University was tapped as the first deaf person to be named a White House Fellow.
More information on the recent Presidential appointees can be found at:
Pamela Young-Holmes -
http://aaweb.gallaudet.edu/News/Obama_plans_nominate_YoungHolmes.html
Curtis Pride - http://aaweb.gallaudet.edu/x42387.xml
Kubby Rashid - http://aaweb.gallaudet.edu/x42345.xml
