Education: Attended ICM School of Business in the court reporting program. Worked for eight years as a freelance reporter before becoming a real-time captioner in 1989 with VITAC Corp. at South Pointe in Canonsburg, Washington County.
Occupation: Manager of Realtime Captioners for VITAC Corp. Realtime captioning is a service provided by a court reporter who monitors newscasts or television programs and uses stenographic keystrokes to capture every word. With closed-captioning software, the strokes are translated into English sentences that are automatically encoded in the broadcast signal and sent to the viewer's screen.
Noteworthy: Bowlen was named a Fellow of the National Academy of Professional Reporters by the National Court Reporters Association. To qualify, candidates must have attained distinction that is measured by performance, creative contributions to the welfare of court reporting, service on committees and boards, teaching and receiving the NCRA's registered merit reporter or speed contest certificate.
Quote: "We originally used our court reporting skills to assist the deaf and hard of hearing through closed captioning. Now it is so well accepted that people everywhere use it. People who are learning English as a second language and those trying to improve their literacy skills watch captioned video. Restaurants, gyms and other public places use it where it's too noisy to hear the television."
