Karen Putz is a Sales Manager and National VCO Manager for ZVRS. She is married to Joe Putz and has three deaf and hard of hearing children.

Karen grew up hard of hearing and at the age of nineteen, she became deaf from a fall while barefoot water skiing. Shortly after becoming deaf, she transferred to Northern Illinois University, immersed herself in learning American Sign Language and graduated with a B.S. and M.A. in Counseling. While on campus, she advocated for ordering access at the local Dominoes restaurant and convinced the telephone company to install flashing lights in the dorms.

Karen is a writer for the Chicago Moms Blog and has contributed to Disaboom, Parenting Squad and the Hands & Voices Communicator. She also blogs at A Deaf Mom Shares Her World and Deaf and Hard of Hearing People at Work. Twenty five years after becoming deaf, Karen found herself back on the water in the spring of 2010 as she took up barefoot water skiing again.

Being an equal communication access advocate, Melissa Rich is married for 17 years to a musician at heart and mother of four children, ages 17, 14, 13 and 8. Melissa graduated Magna Cum Laude from Baker College. Moreover, she worked with a fellow deaf patron and National Association of the Deaf’s lawyer, Michael Stein, and Chicago’s own deaf lawyer, Howard Rosenblum, on Deaf/HH access issues at Lollapalooza, an annual musical festival in Chicago. As a result, Lollapalooza (C3 Presents) now has designated areas with qualified ASL interpreters in the appropriate proximity, along with Deaf volunteers who are able to communicate in ASL.

You will be lucky to catch Erica Hossler at your first glimpse if you can. She is always on the go, just like her mother who set an example to be an avid activist in Deaf Community.

Hailing from Indiana, her hearing family discovered the core to her life: ASL. Thanks to Indiana School for the Deaf, her family grew the passion in advocating for Bilingualism. During Erica’s Gallaudet University years, she was involved with Student Body Government & Protest. Because she loves people, she received her B.A. degree in Communication Studies & Sociology in 2007.
When Erica first got a job at Deaf News Network, her job was to create a new avenue of media: visually oriented TV shows for the Deaf community. At the same time, there was a new organization, Deaf Youth USA, targeting for 18-30 years old. Both of them inspired her by discovering the missing links in Deaf world: leadership and media.

Born and raised in the City of Chicago to Mexican immigrants- Irma and Jose Lopez. Laura Lopez is the 4th child of their 5 children. From the day Laura was born she has been called “Lala”. Lala attended and graduated from Gallaudet University in 2004 with a double BA in Spanish and Family and Child Studies. Lala has worked in the education field for several years in Vermont before deciding to go back to school in Chicago , IL . She attended and graduated from DePaul University in 2009 with a M.Ed in Educational Leadership. Currently, Lala is working at Vermont Center of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. developing their new early childhood center- Little Arrows Early Childhood Center as the Director of the program.