Larry Goldberg, Director of the Media Access Group at WGBH
Administration and Finance
Brian Donavan is the Director of Budget and Marketing. He has 13 years of experience in hotel management including 8 years as a hotel General Manager. Brian has a Bachelors degree from Cornell University and a Masters of Business Administration from Northeastern University.
Lauren Madden is the Business Manager overseeing the administrative and financial management of the department, and holds the key responsibility of securing and administering the department's federal grants. Lauren has a bachelor's degree in English from Skidmore College and a concentration of accounting courses from Northeastern University.
Ian McDonald is the Business Manager for the Media Access Group/West, responsible for the financial management of the resources of the Los Angeles office. Ian has a bachelor's degree in technical management and is currently attending graduate school for a master's degree in business administration.
Production and Operations
Pat McDonald is the Director of Operations for the Media Access Group. He joined the Media Access Group with over 15 years experience managing the operations of a video production, duplication and DVD authoring company with offices in six states.
Ira Miller is the Production Manager for east coast Operations. He is responsible for production in the the Boston-based realtime, web captioning and video description departments. He has over 20 years experience in television production and management of television facilities. Ira holds an master's degree in education in instructional media and technology from the University of Massachusetts and has done post-graduate work in television production management at Boston University.
Linda Idoni is the Director of the Media Access Group/West in Los Angeles. She is responsible for all aspects of the west coast captioning and video description departments, and has extensive experience in network broadcast production. Linda's clients include broadcast and cable networks, television production houses and film studios.
Marketing and Communications
Lindsey Neill is a Marketing Representative whose clients include cable and PBS networks, as well as "non-broadcast" clients such as museums and cultural institutions and multimedia companies. Lindsey joined the Media Access Group in 2004 and has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts.
Annette Posell is the Manager of Corporate Development. Annette's involvement with The Media Access Group began in 1978, while participating in WGBH/Caption Center's Multi-Level Linguistic Captioning Project. In subsequent years, she became widely known in the television industry as she introduced the concept of advertiser sponsorship of captions for network television to the advertising community. Annette, who became deaf at the age of 16, holds a master's degree in special education from Columbia University.
Lori Ward is the Media Access Group's Client Services Manager. Lori's clients include cable and PBS networks, as well as "non-broadcast" clients interested in Web-based captioning and accessibility. Lori's been employed with the Media Access Group since 1991, working in both production and management to ensure quality captions across all media. Lori graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a bachelor's degree in English.
Mary Watkins is the Director of Communications and Outreach for WGBH's Media Access Group which includes the Services division (The Caption Center and Descriptive Video Service®), as well as the research and development division, the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH (NCAM). In addition to developing print and online materials and conducting workshops and presentations about WGBH's access efforts for diverse audiences, Ms. Watkins oversees the division's press relations, consumer affairs activities and acts as the Group's liaison with theater chains that install WGBH's Motion Picture Access®, or MoPix® systems. She holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Boston College.
Drew Wiechnicki is a Marketing Representative who comes to the Media Access Group from the Sponsorship Group for Public Television at WGBH. Drew specializes in sales and marketing of Web-based captioning including
Flash, Adobe Connect live captioning and foreign language captioning. Drew holds a bachelor's degree in communication from Boston College.
Research and Development
Trisha O'Connell is the Director of Research and Development, exploring areas of need in new technologies and in the convergence of technology, media, disability, and education. Ms. O'Connell works with Media Access Group staff, educators, industry leaders, and government agencies to identify opportunities and develop projects to expand and refine the application and use of media access technologies. She has worked in Media Access at WGBH since 1988, serving as director of The Caption Center prior to her leadership of the R&D project development. She holds an M.B.A. from the Simmons Graduate School of Management.
Technology and Systems Development
Brad Botkin is Director of Technology. Since 1990 Mr. Botkin has overseen the Media Access Group's development of technical solutions and software applications to enable delivery of captions and descriptive video via analog and digital television, streaming web platforms, CD- and DVD-ROM, and motion picture theaters. He also developed MAGpie (v1.0 and 2.0), a tool for website developers to create captions and descriptions for multimedia. He holds a B.S. and a M.S. from the University of Massachusetts.
Tom Apone, the Director of Systems Development, oversees in-house technical capabilities and customer support for both captioning and description. In addition, he helps develop new solutions for inaccessible environments, such as museums and arenas, by putting new technologies into practical application. He holds a bachelor's degree in communication arts from Cornell University and a master's degree in broadcast management from Stanford University.
