Advanced Captioning

Thomas has been a court reporter since 1978 and a captioner since 1989. At the national level, Thomas served for six years on the NCRA Realtime Certification Committee, which developed the Certified CART Provider (CCP) and Certified Broadcast Captioner (CBC) certifications. She was also part of the team that developed the Certified Realtime Captioner (CRC) certification. She also served as a member of the NCRA Captioning Regulation and Captioning Committees. Since 2008, she has been a member of NCRA’s Council of the Academy of Professional Reporters (CAPR), which deals with certification and education issues. Thomas has served for many years on the faculty/training staff of NCRA.

Cathy received her B.A. in Business Education from Iowa Wesleyan College and her M.A. in Education from Clarke College. Cathy currently teaches stenographic reporting at Des Moines Area Community College and works as an independent broadcast captioner.

Cathy spent 30 years working as an official court reporter for the state of Iowa before transitioning into her broadcast captioning and teaching career.

At the national level, Cathy has served as a member of the NCRA Board of Directors since 2018. Cathy has served on numerous NCRA committees and has spoken at NCRA conventions as well as student webinars.

Cathy is the recipient of the Roy Voelker Distinguished Service Award in Recognition of Outstanding Service to the Court Reporting Profession in Iowa. She is also the recipient of the Indian Hills Community College Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year Vision Award.