Greetings and introduction

Greetings everyone!

I just joined the WG and thought I'd introduce myself.  Looking at the list
of participants, there are many people I'm looking forward to getting to
know.

I've been involved in accessibility for over 10 years now, starting as a
software developer at Henter-Joyce, now known as Freedom Scientific.  I
developed the second-generation DOS-based screen reader JAWS.  I also
designed and developed the first version of the JAWS for Windows screen
reader.  In 1994, I went to work for Microsoft and became Program Manager
for Windows accessibility.  For five years at Microsoft, I worked on putting
accessibility features (many developed at the Trace R&D Center) into Windows
95 and Internet Explorer.  I also worked on the Microsoft Active
Accessibility technology and it's incorporation into various Microsoft
products and accessibility aids.

One of the highlights of my time at Microsoft was working with the W3C to
get various additions to the HTML and CSS recommendations to enhance
accessibility, in particular the addition of the ACCESSKEY attribute,
expansion of the TITLE attribute, the FIELDSET tag, and making
user-preferences available in CSS.  I did some early work with the original
WCAG guidelines, but worked more closely with the user agent group.

I "semi-retired" from Microsoft in late 1999 but continued to consult there,
writing a book for Microsoft Press on Active Directory and working for
various other groups.  I'm currently working on a second book on Active
Directory and do user interface and HCI consulting for a variety of clients.
My passion has always been accessibility and I promote it wherever I can.
When I heard about the first draft of the WCAG 2.0 guidelines, I was eager
to help, thanks for allowing me to!

Charles Oppermann, Copper Software
http://www.coppersoftware.com/