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Annual Report 2012: Corporate
October 1, 2011 – September 30, 2012
- Officers, Trustees, and Committees — Fiscal Year 2012
- Financial and Production Highlights
- Executive Report
Officers, Trustees, and Committees — Fiscal Year 2012
Dr. Charles Barr, Board Chairman
Corporate Trustees
- Charles Barr, M.D., Chairman
- Jane Hardy
- Judge David Holton
- Virginia T. Keeney, M.D.
- Julie S. Lee, M.D.
- W. James Lintner, Jr.
- W. Barrett Nichols
- Herbert W. Perkins III
- Tuck Tinsley III, Ed.D.
- Darrell R. Wells
- Phoebe Wood
Meet the APH Board of Trustees.
Corporate Officers
- Charles Barr, M.D., Chairman
- W. Barrett Nichols, Vice Chairman
- Darrell R. Wells, Treasurer
- Tuck Tinsley III, Ed.D., President
- William G. Beavin, Vice President of Finance and Secretary
- Robert B. Brasher, Vice President of Advisory Services and Research
- Jack N. Decker, Vice President of Production
- J. Gary Mudd, Vice President of Public Affairs
- Paul R. Zurkuhlen, Vice President of Development
Ex Officio Trustees
Ex Officio Trustees are responsible for the administration of the federal Act to Promote the Education of the Blind of 1879. The Ex Officio Trustees are the executive heads of schools for the blind, the chief state school officers of each state department of education, or the executive officers of other agencies serving the blind. If they choose, these executives may designate the Trusteeship to an appropriate professional within their organizations.
Ex Officio Trustee Advisory Committees October, 2011 – October, 2012
The name of each member is followed by his or her term expiration date.
Educational Services Advisory Committee
- Jonn Paris-Salb, Chair, California, 2011
- Patrick Clancy, Iowa, 2012
- James Olson, Colorado, 2012
- Julie Kagy, North Carolina, 2013
- Charlotte Lowry, Alabama, 2013
- Sally Giitinger, Nebraska, Alternate
Educational Products Advisory Committee
- Marty McKenzie, Chair, South Carolina, 2011
- Yvonne Ali, Missouri, 2012
- Linda Lyle, New Mexico, 2012
- Paula Mauro, Ohio, 2013
- Gerald Kitzhoffer, Pennsylvania, 2013
- Collette Bauman, Michigan, 2014
- Stephanie Bissonette, Vermont, 2014
- Todd Reeves, Pennsylvania, Alternate
Financial and Production Highlights — Fiscal Year 2012
Revenue Dollar
| Federal Quota | 71.9% |
|---|---|
| NLS and Other Federal Agencies | 12.6% |
| Non-government Contracts | 5.4% |
| Other | 10.1% |
Types of Products Sold
| Educational and Other Aids | 52% |
|---|---|
| Large Type Publications | 22% |
| Braille Publications | 15% |
| Electronic Media and Other | 11% |
APH Production Highlights
Braille Pages Produced
Large Type Pages Printed
Audio Minutes Recorded
Executive Report, Fiscal Year 2012
Tuck Tinsley III, APH President
2012 was APH’s 154th year of operation. It was a good year, but not atypical of the last few years. Our focus was on the root of APH’s mission: products for blind and visually impaired people.
Developing needed products that are not commercially available was and is what drives us in the day-to-day work at APH.
- We identify needs through task forces, advisory and ad hoc committees, surveys, and other interactions with the field.
- We also perform the necessary research and find outside sources, consultants, and others with the expertise needed to develop products to meet the identified needs.
Products
APH currently provides approximately 1,000 "make to stock" products. In 2012, we brought to market 19 new or updated product families, which generated 101 new catalog items.
During 2012, a great deal of effort focused on the following seven products:
Tactile Town is a useful, colorful, and fun kit that helps orientation & mobility professionals teach concepts related to street layouts.
- Tactile Town, a new product for orientation and mobility, was brought to market in February.
- VisioBook, APH’s first portable video magnifier, was released in May.
- Book Port DT, a replacement for APH’s popular desk top cassette player, was released in August.
- Braille Plus 18, an extraordinary notetaker with a built-in refreshable braille display, became available in September.
- SAM: Symbols and Meaning, a product for blind students with additional disabilities, was introduced in October.
- The 7th and final unit of Building on Patterns, a flagship product for teaching braille to blind children, was released in October.
- Smart Brailler, a product under development through partnership with Perkins, should be released in early 2013.
The 101 new catalog items do not include textbooks. In 2012,
- we transcribed 125 new braille textbook titles,
- provided 657 new large print textbook titles, and
- reviewed, edited, and produced 975 unique tests.
APH’s Products Catalog list hundreds of products for children and adults who are visually impaired and is organized in the Core and Expanded Core Curriculum areas.
Product-Related Resources
- Traffic continues to increase on APH’s website, which was redesigned in 2011. Total traffic was up 12% in 2012, and the number of people accessing the site using mobile phones and tablets was up about 300 percent.
- We continue to address on-line shopping, improving the search screen and identification of items not available on Quota.
- The Tactile Graphic Image Library continues to grow, with 4,300 registered users who are primarily braille transcribers and teachers of the visually impaired.
- We produced a new Products Catalog and created or updated approximately 300 product brochures in print & braille.
- We expanded APH’s social media presence during 2012:
- Over 4,600 searchable articles were posted to the "Fred's Head from APH" blog. These included articles about APH products, people, and events; as well as articles about dozens of topics of interest to blind readers. The blog averages over 30,000 page views each month.
- The number of "Likes" continues to grow for our Facebook page, more than doubling in 2012.
- We redesigned our Twitter page this year. We now have over 2,300 followers who receive short messages from APH each business day.
- The Louis Database now contains 387,000 records for accessible materials with an emphasis on textbooks and K-12 instructional content.
- The APH Repository has 7,600 electronic textbook files, including braille-ready files.
- NIMAC, the National Instructional Materials Access Center, contains 32,000 certified NIMAS file sets available for download. In the 5 years of NIMAC’s existence, there have been 14,000 unique downloads of NIMAS files for conversion to accessible formats for students who are blind or print disabled.
- The Louis Plus unified search is currently adding Bookshare as a participant (2,400 of their 50,000 files were loaded by year-end). Louis Plus provides a unified search of Louis, NIMAC, and Bookshare, with plans to add the Access Network in early 2013. Files from all those sources will be just a click away through Louis Plus!
- AMP, the Accessible Media Producers Database, now lists 255 accessible media producers that provide information about their unique skill sets including foreign language, music, NEMETH, as well as contact information.
- APH continues to work on providing access to and conservation of materials in the AFB Migel Memorial Library. The online Migel catalog currently features 1,031 fully-digitized items, available in a variety of formats, including DAISY, Kindle, EPUB, and PDF.
Product Training
In May, 2012, eleven new EOTs were joined by "seasoned" Ex Officio Trustees Marie Piquion-Leach (NC) and Jim Olson (CO) to learn what it means to be an EOT. Back row (left to right) Jim Adams (OK), Carolyn Lasater (UT), Olive Isa’ako (AS), Craig Meador (WA), Jim Olson (CO), Martin Monson (TN), John Davis (MN). Front row: Margie Ortgiesen (IA), Erika Arbogast (PA), Kim Stiles (NH), Barb Engelbrecht (WY), Hollie Murdock, (UT), Marie Piquion-Leach (NC).
In the area of product training, we
- presented seven webcast trainings;
- hosted training for 11 newly-appointed Ex Officio Trustees;
- hosted 14 students and staff from Western Michigan University and 11 from the teacher personnel preparation program at Vanderbilt;
- provided product training and demonstrations at 13 state education agencies, eight residential school programs, and six rehabilitation programs;
- participated in 125 product training presentations and exhibits at 56 different venues;
- conducted 19 National Instructional Partnership events around the country; and
- provided product loans and/or onsite training for 18 university preparation programs.
Beyond Products and Product Services
APH is fortunate to have a healthy endowment and a corporate Board that allows its use on non-product activities related to our mission.
Examples of activities supported by the endowment in 2012:
- Executive-In-Residence program
- “Meeting of the Minds” where we bring together university faculty members
- National Prison Braille Network with APH facilitating work of the 38 prison braille programs across the country
- AFB’s Migel Memorial Library
- Orientation and Mobility Archives
- Braille Authority of North America Archives
- APH’s partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
- The Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind
Data from the FY2012 Federal Quota Census
Data for 2012 regarding the Act to Promote the Education of the Blind indicate the number of legally blind students registered was 59,193, an increase of 0.4% (254) from the number registered for FY 2011. The 2012 appropriation provided $308.04 per student for educational materials, a 1.2% ($3.65) decrease from the $311.69 per capita allocation in 2011. Of the 59,193 students, 9% (5,186) were registered as braille readers, 28% (16,635) as visual readers, 8% (4,728) as auditory readers, 21% (12,283) as pre-readers, and 34% (20,361) as non-readers. Of this group, 84% (49,794) were registered by state departments of education, 8% (4,859) were registered by residential schools for the blind, 6% (3,301) were registered by rehabilitation programs, and 2% (1,239) were registered by programs for the multiply disabled.
Total sales for 2012 were $28,908,000, up 9% from 2011. Quota sales of $21,949,000 were 76% of total sales, up 12% from 2011, and up in all areas.
As a percentage of total Quota sales,
- 50% was for Educational Aids;
- 22% for Large Type;
- 18% for Electronic Products; and
- 10% for Braille
Physical inventory results for 2012 were 99.98% accurate on an inventory value of $9.5 million.
As we enter APH’s 155th year of service, we continue our steadfast commitment to APH’s mission: "To promote the independence of blind and visually impaired persons by providing special media, tools, and materials needed for education and life."
On behalf of APH’s Corporate Board and administration, we close by expressing sincere appreciation to our ex officio trustees for the valuable role they play in administering the Act, and to the employees of APH for their continuous efforts to provide appropriate materials for those we serve.
Respectfully submitted,
Charles Barr, M.D.
Chairman
Tuck Tinsley III, Ed.D.
President