Family Weekend Presenters
Trampes Brown
Trampes Brown is the current president of the North Dakota Association of the Blind and chairperson of the Sports & Recreation Committee. As a person with a visual impairment, Trampes understands the importance of inclusive sports and how participating in group sports can teach life skills and build confidence. He strives to be both a personal and system advocate in his personal and professional life, finding opportunities every day to educate the general public and advocate for himself and other individuals with visual impairment.
Neva Fairchild
Neva Fairchild, MS, of Flower Mound, Texas, is the National Aging & Vision Loss Specialist at the American Foundation for the Blind, where she has worked since 2008. She was employed for over 15 years by the state of Texas as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor and as an Employment Assistance Specialist. She began her career in vision rehabilitation at the Dallas Lighthouse for the Blind as a Vocational Evaluator in 1991. She served on the International Board of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired for three non-consecutive terms, beginning in 2008, before being elected as President-Elect in 2019. She has served in leadership roles in Division 2, Division 5 and Division 15, as well as serving as secretary and then President of the Texas Chapter of AER.
Imagine a World with No Limits: A Conversation with Neva Fairchild
Tara Tompai
Tara graduated from the Intervenor for Deaf-Blind Persons Program and then went on to complete the Orientation and Mobility Program. She began her career at The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) in 2002.
In her role as an orientation and mobility instructor, she worked with a wide range of both young children and seniors, teaching them how to travel safely and independently. It was there that she developed a strong passion for early intervention and this prompted me to complete an Early Childhood Education program. When her own children were young, she worked part-time as a professor at George Brown College in the Intervenor for Deaf-Blind Persons Program and at the Helen Keller Centre. It was in 2013 that she began working full-time as an Early Childhood Vision Consultant at Surrey Place. In her role at Surrey Place, she works with families who have children from birth to school age that have a diagnosis of visual impairment. Her caseload largely consists of children with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) and she expressed how vital it was to ensure good quality service to all her families. She continued her learning by taking several courses, watching webinars, and reading countless materials on the topic of CVI. She was then inspired to complete her CVI Range Endorsement from the Perkins School for the Blind. She was the first in Ontario (however not anymore) and the second in Canada to accomplish this.