Richard Dortch started Valley
Braille Service in 1999, but his experience with the dotted
language for the sight impaired began much earlier. In the
early 1990's he learned to read and write braille in an
effort to correspond with a blind friend.
"The deeper I got into it the
more I liked it and the more I found I was good at it. It
just blossomed from there," Dortch said.
The Henderson, NV resident never
considered braille a business opportunity until he began
work translating books as a Clark County School District
contractor. From there he went out on his own, beginning
with just one customer.
"And I've never looked
back," he said.
Now Dortch works on textbook
translations for a number of clients including New York
Public Schools, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the
Metrolina Association for the Blind which serves schools in
North Carolina.
One of his most well known customers
is Ray Charles. Dortch translates music or even personal
correspondence for the musician. Valley Braille Service
employees worked as consultants on the new Ray Charles voice
activated braille slot machines under development at Bally's
in association with Gamemakers, Inc.
Dortch feels that braille is a
versatile medium.
"If you can put it in print, we
can put it in braille," he said.
Dortch is skilled in two rare
varieties of translation that are hard to come by - braille
for math and music.
"We get music braille from
Valley Braille. That's even trickier than normal
braille," said Robert Kraus, the testing coordinator
for UNLV's disability resource center. "They have a
very fast turn around. A lot of times we get things back
within four weeks."
"Music is a very intricate
braille and he's certified with that," Clark County
School District specialist Andy Macklberg said of Dortch.
"He's terrific. Whenever we need something done, the
turnaround time is much quicker than we expect. If we didn't
have our own Braillists we would recommend that the district
contract everything through him. He does an excellent
job."
Dortch estimates that only 400
people in the nation are certified in Nemeth Braille, the
variety used for advanced mathematics. Less than 70 in the
country are certified to translate braille for music.
Since fingers are necessary to read
and play, sight impaired musicians must memorize the music
before they can play the piece. Dortch has translated music
for a local cellist from her middle school years to college.
"I must have translated 6,000
pages of music just for her since she was in the sixth
grade," he said.
The Braillist had to make up a
symbol for an advanced musical move when the standard code
didn't provide one. Years later when he ran across the same
move he called the musician and asked if she remembered that
symbol he had used. Not only did she recall the symbol, she
knew the piece it had been in down to the correct measure.
"She's just amazing,"
Dortch said.
Braille translation is time
consuming and it doesn't come cheap. It can take more than a
month to translate even a basic textbook.
"I can do 2,000 to 2,500
braille pages a month," he said.
Since it takes more than three pages
to convey the information on even one text page, the average
textbook must be converted into volumes. A single book can
tower waist high when all the volumes are stacked together.
While charts and graphs must be
embossed by hand, each text page is scanned into a computer
program, rearranged and then translated into braille. After
the conversion is complete, a certified translator must
check every word for accuracy. Once the edit is done, the
final dots are printed out on a braille printer and then the
original printout is put through a thermaform machine that
makes raised dot copies of the original.
Even small translations can run $500
to $2,000 per book. Music must be hand typed on a special
machine and much of the math translation is done by hand, so
books in these subjects can range from $2,000 to $20,000
each.
Although Dortch can read braille
faster than most people can read text, that doesn't mean
that he can read in the dark.
"I don't know any sighted
person who can read it by touch," Dortch said.
Ginger Mikkelsen,
Staff Writer
Sunrise View
