Our instructors and techs are the real deal
PubCom's instructors are seasoned pros who continue to work in the industry in addition to conducting classes.
They teach from real world experience…every class is filled with practical how-tos, tips, tricks, and on-the-job examples. You will learn from the masters!
Bevi Chagnon, ADS MBA AIGA
PubCom's founding partner heads up the training and consulting teams.
Bevi Chagnon is half designer, half geek, and 100 percent teacher. She's a prolific writer on design, web, desktop publishing, accessibility, technology, digital media, and cross-media publishing. Look for her work in your class handouts and custom workbooks, as well as online in various forums, tech lists, industry websites, and her blog, The Electronic Page.
Her 35+ years in the industry has made her accomplished in many design disciplines (magazine art director, graphic designer, web developer, digital media developer, photographer, and architect) while pioneering and mastering many of today's computer technologies.
If it involves communication in any format — traditional and digital, MS Office to Adobe Creative Suite — she's a guru.
Today, Bevi is a technologist and information architect for government, academic, and enterprise communications…print, digital, electronic, web, PDF, Sec. 508, accessibility, EPUB, and whatever new technologies Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and Samsung will create in the future.
Experience: Standards
Bevi is a frequent contributor to several forums on accessibility. She is a long-standing ACP (Adobe Community Professional) on Adobe's forums. Look for her blue striped avatar, which is the hexagram for "breakthrough."
In terms of accessibility, Bevi points out in her classes that she was born into a family with disabilities and has been personally and professionally affiliated with the communities for many decades.
So Bevi understands how our documents need to be used by people with many disabilities: blindness, low vision, upperbody motor disabilities, cognitive, hearing, neurological…she has worked with people with all of the disabilities covered by accessibility guidelines.
Long before Section 508 was put into law in 1998, she worked with a small group of web-standards pioneers who developed many of our HTML/CSS concepts in use today. Eventually, these were carried into the first iterations of the WCAG accessibility guidelines.
Today, she focuses on document accessibility and PDF/UA, but still "lurks" in many WCAG forums and occassionally chimes in.
Experience: Software
For the past 30 years, she has been a highly-regarded advisor and beta tester to major software companies, and has had a part in developing much of the digital media and publishing software on your computer; so she understands how these software tools work—and how we can maximize those tools for efficient, creative, cross-media publishing.
She also holds various certifications from Adobe and other software programs. She is an expert for MS Office and Adobe Creative Suite applications, and she is a member of AIGA (the American Institute of Graphic Designers).
Bevi's firm, PubCom, is a member organization of the PDF Association.
And she is a member of the IAAP (International Association of Accessibility Professionals) and was part of the committee that created the Accessibility Document Specialist (ADS) certificate program. She herself is a certified ADS.
Experience: Government
Bevi is a very familiar face to government publishers; she has taught for the US GPO's Institute (IFPEP) since the early 1990s, created curriculum ranging from the earliest desktop publishing software to today's latest technologies for publishing.
Through both GPO and PubCom, she has worked directly with countless government agencies and their publications for over 3 decades. She works not only with federal agencies, but also state, local, and foreign governments.
Bevi is considered one of the country's top consultants on government publishing. She covers all forms of publislhing, from public-facing "glamour" publications and Word-based reports to database-driven reference tomes and content that is cross-published in various technologies.
Experience: Teaching
In addition to heading up PubCom's stable of instructors, Bevi is a trained educator and has been an adjunct faculty member at George Washington University's publication specialist program, Howard Community College, Prince Georges Community College, and Montgomery College in the Washington DC-metropolitan area. She also developed curriculums for digital media and design for these and other colleges.
Today, she is PubCom's senior instructor for accessible documents, and is a frequent speaker at publishing industry conferences and accessibility seminars around the world. She is a Certified Technical Trainer (CTT).
Topics she teaches: accessibility (Sec. 508, AODA), cross-media / digital media technologies, XML, publishing management, management of accessibility throughout enterprises, desktop publishing, Acrobat, MS Office, Adobe Creative Suite, photography, digital image correction, graphic design, web design, printing technologies, marketing, and product development.
Education
MBA — The Johns Hopkins University
BA — Environmental Science, Syracuse University
BS — Environmental Design (Architecture), State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
CTT — Certified Technical Trainer
Graduate-level coursework in education and technologies
ADS — Accessibility Document Specialist
Still a designer at heart
Bevi maintains her private design and art studio through PubCom as well as during her personal time. Spare time endeavors: photography, gardening, architecture, found sculpture, and not cooking (her burnt-cheese sandwiches are legendary!).
Karen McCall, M.Ed.
Karen McCall, M.Ed. has been working in the field of accessible document design since 1999. She began her career in website accessibility and auditing and moved to accessible Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents in 2004. Karen is:
- A Canadian delegate to the ISO 14289 or PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) committee and has been for a number of years.
- A Canadian delegate to the ISO 32000 PDF committee.
- A Microsoft MVP for Word (Most Valued Professional) since 2009.
- A Microsoft Accessibility MVP since 2017 when this category of MVP was established.
Karen has written several books on the topic of accessible document design for Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents as well as smaller publications with specific techniques for working with Office applications if you are using adaptive technology and/or the keyboard.
Karen is the president of Karlen Communications.
Ruth E. Thaler-Carter
Award-winning editor
Ruth E. “I can write about anything!”® Thaler-Carter has been a fulltime freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and desktop publisher for more than 35 years.
She edits and proofreads for a law firm with offices around the country; university public policy institution in retirement security; magazines in statistics, gardening, the bridal industry, and more; a national PR firm that works with law firms; self-publishing authors; and organizational and individual clients in the arts, diversity, associations, higher education, business, architecture, women’s issues, and other fields.
Thaler-Carter is the author/publisher of “Get Paid to Write! Getting Started as a Freelance Writer”; author of the original “Freelancing 101: Launching Your Editorial Business” booklet for the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) and co-author of the current edition; co-author of the current edition of the EFA’s “Resumés for Freelancers” booklet; and owner of the An American Editor blog, Communication Central, and the A Flair for Writing publishing business.
Known as the “Queen of Networking,” Thaler-Carter is VP-communications of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) St. Louis chapter, resource coordinator of the Freelance Community of the Society of Professional Journalists, newsletter editor emerita of the EFA, Networking member of the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors Board of Experts, a member of Association Media & Publishing’s Freelance Connection, coordinator of the American Society of Business Publication Editors’ freelance group, and immediate past recording and corresponding secretary of the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists, among other association involvement.
Thaler-Carter has presented in-person and online sessions about editing and proofreading to the National Writers Union, ACES: The Society for Editing, Writers and Books, the EFA, Society of Professional Journalists, International Association of Business Communicators, Society for Technical Communication, Cat Writers’ Association, Editors Canada, and the UK’s Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, among other organizations.
She received the Philip M. Stern Award from Washington Independent Writers for service to freelancers and a Big Pencil Award from Writers and Books for her contributions to the Rochester, NY, literary community, and was inducted into her high school alumni hall of fame in 2022 for her communications career and networking among classmates. She created Communication Central’s Be a Better Freelancer® conference in 2006 and has hosted it every year since except 2022.
Tomm Sibert, MOS
Senior Accessibility Technician.
Tomm Sibert is PubCom's go-to technician for accessible Word, PowerPoint, and PDF files. With more than 25 years experience in the accessibility industry, he's solved just about any kind of accessibility problem with a digital file.
At PubCom, he creates accessible templates for our clients, tests and validates files for compliance, and coaches our clients to use better techniques in their source files. Clients love working with Tomm!
Tomm also is a gifted technical writer and creates how-to guides for our clients.
Education
BA — The Florida State University
MBA coursework — The Florida State University
MOS
— Microsoft Office Specialist certification
