	February 1998

MDTAP Goes to Washington

From January 10-14, representatives of the Tech Act Programs from fifty states and five territories converged on the Marriott Hotel in Crystal City, Arlington. MDTAP staff, advisors, and consultants met with colleagues to discuss the past, present and future of assistive technology across the United States, and throughout the world.

Don Rabush, Ph.D., Management Consultant to MDTAP, emphasizes a point, while Leslie Seid-Margolis, Staff Lawyer for the Maryland Disability Law Center, MDTAP's Protection and Advocacy provider, looks on.

The occasion was a convention supported by the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The conference was organized by the RESNA organization, an association of rehabilitation technology professionals. Under contract to NIDRR, RESNA provides technical assistance and coordination to the various Tech Act Programs, which are in many different stages of implementation, with the newest programs in existence for less than five years, and many in their ninth year of existence. In addition to Tech Act staff and advisors, there was participation by NAPAS, the National Association of Protection and Advocacy Services, United Cerebral Palsy's National Office, the Council for Citizens with Disabilities, and the newly-formed ATAP (Association of Tech Act Projects).

Ladies who lunch: Louise Bankston Calderan, Assistant Director of MDTAP and Susan Garber, Director of MDTAP's Western Maryland Project.

As part of the meeting, NIDRR sponsored a day of public hearings on Thursday, to acquire information on the utilization and importance of the Technology Related Assistance Programs in their various states.

MDTAP Director Paul Rasinski illustrates the fact that meetings need not be all work and no play, as long as haute cuisine is involved...

Although inclement weather prevented MDTAP Director Paul Rasinski from attending the hearing in person,he submitted testimony, which was accepted into the record of the day.

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