[NFBSATX] Fwd: [tech-vi Announce List] 'Revolutionary': Remembering John Boyer, a pioneer for the deaf and blind in computer science

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Subject: [tech-vi Announce List] 'Revolutionary': Remembering John
Boyer, a pioneer for the deaf and blind in computer science

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'Revolutionary': Remembering John Boyer, a pioneer for the deaf and
blind in computer science

  <https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/madison.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/97/697fc247-4936-5ad1-b01a-bc3bc0888358/63cf0ba0ce804.image.jpg?resize=703%2C500>

Where the likes of Louis Braille and Abraham Nemeth made it possible
for the blind to read and perform mathematics, John Boyer took it a
step further.

Boyer, a Madison resident who was pivotal in the development of STEM
reading material for the blind, died on Jan. 17 from a bout of
pneumonia. He was 86.

Born in rural Minnesota without the ability to see, Boyer eventually
lost his hearing from infection as a boy. From the 1960s onward, Boyer
excelled as a computer programmer, a pioneer in a field then barely
understood by the general public let alone widely accessible to the
blind. Through Boyer’s work, people who had lost their sight had
greater access to science, technology, engineering and math
literature.

Boyer’s work as a programmer “enabled thousands upon thousands of
blind people to advance in mathematics fields and get jobs in those
fields, which was not possible before,” said Marcia Carlson, his
longtime friend.

People are also reading…

“He foresaw very, very early that the use of computers was a way for
people with disabilities, who are vastly underrepresented in the job
force, to be able to work,” Carlson said.

After learning Braille in his youth, Boyer grew frustrated by the lack
of quality scientific reading material.

“This lack was to motivate me many years later to do something about
it,” Boyer wrote in a short autobiography on his company’s website.

“I also established a lab in the basement and had dreams of becoming
another Edison,” he said.

Photos of the late John Boyer are shown at his former workstation at
his apartment in Madison.

JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

Navigating an industry often driven by profit, Boyer insisted that his
software be open-source and available to all, said Jack Schroeder, his
former office manager and caretaker.

“He was determined that that would be his life’s work ... and it’s
been adopted by nearly all the world’s national blind libraries,”
Schroeder said.

In the ’80s and ’90s, Boyer managed a nonprofit, Computers to Help
People Inc., to help publish scientific books in Braille and to train
those with disabilities to work with computers.

Yet the early 2000s arguably saw Boyer’s greatest impact. Partnering
with an international team, Boyer helped design Braille translation
software that allowed the printing of high-quality graphics in
Braille. Then, his company AbilitiesSoft Inc. produced software that
allowed the blind to read web pages via a Braille display.

By the mid-2010s, Boyer was developing the initial version of
BrailleBlaster, a Braille transcription program that allows users to
create and edit documents while interfacing with high-quality graphics
and text.

“The way you can accomplish things as a blind and deaf person and to
get around in life is amazing when you have the technology and
wherewithal to push yourself to do it,” said Sara Sandberg, Boyer’s
niece.

A communication device that's about 70 years old that translates
letters into Braille and once used by John Boyer is displayed in the
apartment of the late researcher and software developer on Friday.

JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL

‘Religious reawakening’

Like others who have left a lasting impact on the country, Boyer’s
drive to bring the information age to the blind earned him official
recognition, with
<https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/champions/stem-equality-for-americans-with-disabilities/john-boyer>
former President Barack Obama honoring him in 2012.

Beyond the successes of his life, Boyer persisted despite tragic personal loss.

While working at UW-Parkside, Boyer married his wife Hazel, adopting
her son from a previous marriage.

But only a few years into the marriage, Hazel developed Lou Gehrig’s
disease and died in 1977. Her son, Bob, later developed the disease as
well and died in 2001.

The loss of his wife drove Boyer into a “religious reawakening,” he
recounted in his brief autobiography. By the 1990s, he pursued
becoming a deacon in the Catholic Church only to be rejected for his
disabilities. He eventually launched an online ministry, writing about
faith and politics through the final years of his life.

Sandberg remembers her uncle as “revolutionary” and awe-inspiring,
especially to those who got to communicate with him either through
writing letters in his hand or typing messages back and forth with him
with computers and a Braille printer.

Others knew Boyer, who was more than 6 feet tall, from his walks with
his seeing-eye dog, though those became less frequent after the dog’s
death and as his balance grew worse.

While people in the U.S. who are both deaf and blind number in the
tens of thousands, Boyer knew he had to use his intellect and drive to
help them and that it might not be done by anyone else, Schroeder
said.

Even in the last days of his life, Boyer continued to receive
questions about his work over email.

“I had this presumption that he was needy and incomplete without us, a
sighted person,” Schroeder said. “I realized that’s on me, that’s not
on him. He taught me very much in that regard.”

Photos: Olson’s Flowers in Mount Horeb

Judy Olson-Sutton, right, sister of Bill Olson, the founder of Olson’s
Flowers who died in November 2020, talks with customer Terry Dahm at
the shop in Mount Horeb. The Olson family is trying to sell the
business that was started in the root cellar of a log cabin east of
Barneveld.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Heidi Wittwer, who has been an employee at Olson’s Flowers for 43
years, puts together a floral arrangement of tulips and baby's breath
for a customer at the shop in Mount Horeb. Wittwer, 65, plans to
retire.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Judy Olson-Sutton, right, and Heidi Wittwer, who has worked at Olson's
Flowers since 1979, talk about the business funded by Olson-Sutton's
brother, Bill. He died in 2020 but started the business in 1954.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

A photo of Bill Olson, owner of Olson’s Flowers who passed away in
November 2020, and his wife, Muriel, from a 1995 Business Excellence
Award from Madison Magazine, hangs in the office at the shop in Mount
Horeb.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Judy Olson-Sutton takes a photo off the wall of the office at Olson's
Flowers that shows Bill and his wife, Muriel. The business is located
inside a house that is likely more than 100 years old in downtown
Mount Horeb.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Customer Terry Dahm leaves Olson’s Flowers in Mount Horeb.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Bill Olson, who died in 2020, is seen here in a 2015 photo putting
together his last floral arrangement. Olson founded his business in
1954.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

This photograph shows the log home east of Barneveld where Bill Olson
started Olson's Flowers in 1954. The business began in the root cellar
underneath the house, later moved to Barneveld and then, in the early
1960s, to Mount Horeb.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Olson’s Flowers in Mount Horeb was one of the first businesses in
Mount Horeb to establish itself in a home on East Main Street. The
business moved from Barneveld in 1962.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Heidi Wittwer, who has been an employee at Olson’s Flowers for 43
years, packages a tulip arrangement for customer Terry Dahm.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Fenton Art Glass fills the front room at Olson’s Flowers in Mount Horeb.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Judy Olson-Sutton walks into Olson’s Christmas House, located next
door to Olson's Flowers.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Judy Olson-Sutton, sister of the late Bill Olson, walks through
Olson’s Christmas House, located next to the flower shop. The
Christmas store opened in 1979.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

Judy Olson-Sutton walks through a room at Olson's Christmas House
filled with Christmas villages. The business and the neighboring
flower shop are for sale.

AMBER ARNOLD, STATE JOURNAL

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     David Goldfield

Assistive Technology Specialist

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