Karen Erickson, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Allied Health Sciences, University of North Carolina. Karen Erickson is the Director of the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an associate professor in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Department of Allied Health Sciences, School of Medicine. Dr. Erickson directs several research and development efforts addressing the literacy learning and communication needs of persons with disabilities of all ages. Current research efforts involve infants and toddlers with visual impairments, school-aged students who struggle to read and write, school-aged students with complex communication needs, and children, adolescents, and young adults with multiple disabilities including deaf and blindness. Dr. Erickson's work has been published in numerous journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Erickson was the 2004 recipient of the National Down Syndrome Congress Educator Award and the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication Distinguished Literacy Lectureship Award.

Jim Fruchterman, Benetech, Founder & CEO. Prior to creating Benetech, Jim founded two successful high technology companies in the optical character recognition field — Calera Recognition Systems, which is now part of the leading firm in the industry; and RAF Technology, Inc., which routes billions of mail-pieces annually for the U.S. Postal Service. In 1989, Jim launched Benetech’s predecessor Arkenstone, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit high tech social enterprise. Arkenstone provided reading tools to over 35,000 individuals with disabilities in 60 countries in a dozen languages. Jim received degrees in Engineering and Applied Physics from Caltech.

As with all of Benetech’s initiatives, the goal of the Route 66 Literacy project is to both generate a significant social impact and to create a financially self-sustaining entity. Revenue for Route 66 will be generated through service subscriptions paid for by individual users and instructors, as well as institutional users such as schools and other organizations that serve the disabled community.

Over the long term, marketing partnerships with other providers of educational materials will play a significant role in the promotion and distribution of Route 66 Literacy.