Team

Patricia Prozzi serves as the President of VITAC Corporation.  Prior to her arrival at VITAC, Prozzi was the founder of ProVision Management Partners, a consulting firm that provides high level strategic, marketing and operating consulting as well as interim executive management.  Before starting her own company, Prozzi was President of DQE Communications, a provider of dark fiber and other related telecommunications services.

She also spent seven years at AT&T Wireless, where she was Regional President/General Manager.  Prozzi led the Pittsburgh-based company to record growth and played a role in the transition from McCaw Communications to AT&T Wireless. She served on the senior teams of technology pioneers Craig McCaw and Jim Barksdale.

From 1978 – 1990, Prozzi held consulting and product management positions with Marketing Corporation of America, H.J. Heinz and Bristol Meyers.

Prozzi has an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh.

She has served on several community and corporate boards.

James Ballard joined VITAC in 2001.  With over 20 years of experience in both the television and information-technology industries, Ballard has held sales and marketing roles at ESPN, Fox Sports, SmartRoute Systems (Westwood One) and LumaPath.  Ballard is a former Marine who served in the Sudan and Switzerland and is a graduate of the University of Connecticut.  As Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing he leads sales initiatives from VITAC’s North Hollywood, California, office.

For more than 18 years, Chuck Karlovits has been involved in finance, administration and production management at VITAC. Before VITAC, he served as Office Manager for Block Court Reporting.  He now serves as Senior Vice President of Realtime Operations at VITAC.  Since he started in realtime-production management, Karlovits has successfully led the department through major industry changes. Karlovits holds a Masters in Management Information Systems, a Masters in Business Administration from Duquesne University and a BS in Business Administration from the University of Dayton.

Since 1997, Doug Karlovits has been closely involved in many aspects of VITAC’s business.  His clear understanding of client needs and his ability to grow with the captioning industry has made him a valuable team player.  Karlovits is known as VITAC’s “Number-One Problem Solver” assuming responsibility in administration as well as captioning production.  Karlovits currently serves as Senior Vice President of Prerecorded Operations .   Karlovits holds a BS from West Virginia University.

Timothy Taylor, Vice President of Engineering and Facility Operations, has over 29 years of experience in the captioning industry and has managed VITAC’s technical operations since 1998. Prior to VITAC, Taylor was the co-owner of two technology-based companies in the captioning and consumer-electronics industries, receiving a patent for his work.  He also contributed to the development of the first realtime captioning system.  Taylor spent eight years at PBS, where he led the development of their VBI data transmission and reception systems.  His extensive experience has enabled VITAC to develop new technologies that reduce the cost and increase the quality of our captioning services.  Taylor is a graduate of Pittsburgh Technical Institute and received PTI’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2002.

Dwight Wagner, VITAC's Chief Systems and Technology Officer, has professionally managed computer systems and development efforts for over sixteen years and has been with VITAC since 1995.  Wagner started as a computer Systems Analyst and was responsible for programming and network administration.  His involvement with standards committees such as SMPTE and CEA has allowed VITAC to stay in front of the technical wave in areas such as DVD and Blu-ray Disc subtitling, HDTV and Internet captioning. Wagner and the Systems Development team strive to strengthen VITAC's technical leadership position within the industry.  As a Pittsburgh native, Wagner graduated from Westminster College with a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics.

Bob Beyer joined VITAC in 1990 to develop and manage offline captioning in Pittsburgh. In 1992, he opened VITAC’s Washington, DC, office, serving as Operations Manager, and then, in Arlington, VA, as General Manager.  Beyer oversees captioners in the Arlington office and maintains close relationships with area post-production facilities.    Prior to joining VITAC, Beyer was a senior editor for the National Captioning Institute. Beyer is a graduate of the University of Maryland.

Joining VITAC in March 1994 as a production coordinator, Franco Bonacchi was VITAC’s first sports coordinator, responsible for maintaining constantly changing schedules and ensuring the captioning of all sports programming.  Since then, he has been promoted to Assistant Manager of Client Services.  Working with Debbie Hammond, Bonacchi oversees scheduling, monitoring and billing for each program, and maintains daily contact with clients.  Bonacchi is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a BA in English Writing.

Amy Bowlen (FAPR, RDR, CBC, CRR) is VITAC's Manager of Realtime Captioning Training.  Bowlen has been with VITAC for over 19 years and originally served as one of VITAC’s first realtime captioners.  Her captioning, leadership, and teaching skills have made her an invaluable part of VITAC, and she currently trains new and existing realtime captioners and oversees realtime captioning quality control.  In addition to her training duties at VITAC, Bowlen has presented numerous seminars and workshops on realtime writing and closed captioning, including Realtime Captioning Boot Camp seminars in conjunction with Stark State College.

Darryn Cleary began working at VITAC in 1991 as a Production Coordinator of live captioning.  He was promoted to supervisor of live operations at VITAC’s headquarters prior to moving into sales in 1995.  His vast experience in captioning production gives him the unique perspective to help meet each of his client’s needs.  As Vice President, Sales, Cleary now manages the growth of business to the broadcast and cable networks, syndicators, producers and post houses based on the East Coast.  He holds a BA in Communications, with a minor in Business, from Robert Morris College.

Dan Garbark joined the VITAC team in 1998 and spent his first eight years with the company as a senior offline captioner.  In 2006, he was promoted to Sales Assistant.  Garbark is responsible for client relations, sales and administration for existing Eastern US customers, including television producers, DVD authoring companies and cable networks.  He holds an MA in corporate communications and a BA in Journalism, both from Duquesne University.  Garbark works in VITAC's Canonsburg Headquarters.

Debbie Hammond, a member of the VITAC team since 2001, is the Manager of VITAC's Client Services Department, located in our Canonsburg headquarters . Hammond's experience in the captioning industry has proven to be a great asset to our clients, as she oversees scheduling, monitoring and billing for each program and maintains daily contact with clients.  Before her promotion to manager, Hammond served as an Offline Traffic Coordinator and Assistant Manager of Client Services. Hammond graduated magna cum laude from California University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Radio and TV Communication and a minor in Theater.

Chris Kallet serves as VITAC's Manager of Offline Training.  An experienced offline captioner, Kallet joined VITAC in April 1995.  Kallet now focuses his time conducting training for new employees in offline captioning and works with all employees on enhancing their skill set and productivity.  His training includes computer and software proficiency, English grammar classes, and pop-on / roll-up captioning instruction.  Kallet holds a BA in Journalism from Duquesne University.

Yelena Makarczyk joined VITAC in 2003 as Director of Operations, Subtitling.  Ms. Makarczyk is responsible for day-to-day operations in VITAC's burgeoning subtitling department, including scheduling, traffic, client services and administration.   Presently, Ms. Makarczyk leads a group of over 300 language experts worldwide, in-house QC specialists and VITAC's West Coast Spanish captioning and subtitling operations.  Under her leadership, VITAC's Subtitling department has expanded and has gained an industry-wide reputation for consistent quality and timeliness.  Prior to joining VITAC, Ms. Makarczyk worked for 7 years in the subtitling industry.   She graduated magna cum laude from UCLA with a BA in English and World Literature

Maggie McDermott joined the VITAC sales team in 2008 as Director of Sales, West Coast. Located in VITAC's North Hollywood office, McDermott focuses on customer growth in the Los Angeles Area, providing solutions for captioning, localization and subtitling, scripting and audio description. McDermott has over 20 years of media experience, including leadership positions at MGM, Playboy TV, DirecTV, Cine Magnetics Digital and Video Labs and TransPerfect Translations. She has BA in Fine Arts from Montclair State College.

One of VITAC's first production coordinators, Mark Paluso is currently VITAC's Manager of Realtime Coordinators.   During his 20 years of experience at VITAC, Paluso has served as a production coordinator, supervised production coordinators and now manages a team of production coordinators, who are responsible for research, script preparation, setup and on-air continuity of closed captioning for over 100,000 hours of programming per year.  Paluso graduated from California University of Pennsylvania with a BS in Math and Computer Science.

A new addition to VITAC, Mark Panichella joined VITAC in 2006 as the Human Resources Manager, responsible for all facets of human resources at VITAC.  Panichella comes to VITAC with nine years of human-resource experience.  Prior to VITAC, he worked as Director of Human Resources for a government information-technologies contractor in McLean, Virginia, and a management-consulting firm in Alexandria, Virginia.  Panichella is a graduate of West Virginia University with a degree in English Education.

Dina Smith, VITAC’s Director of Offline Captioning, has been with VITAC since 1990.  Smith joined VITAC as one of the first two offline captioners and now oversees a group of over 50 offline captioners who are responsible for over 300 hours of prerecorded programming per week.  Smith holds a B.A. in Speech Pathology and Audiology with a minor in Sign Language and a M.A. in Deaf Education, both from the University of Pittsburgh.

Heather York has worked in captioning since 1992, starting out at VITAC as a production coordinator and moving to supervisor of realtime production and realtime scheduling.  She was promoted to Account Executive in 2001, and relocated from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, to VITAC's Arlington, Virginia, office in 2002, where she helps government agencies meet Section 508 accessibility standards.  She also manages accounts for local news stations, cable channels and post facilities interested in captioning, video description and foreign-language subtitles and serves as VITAC’s Marketing Manager.  York graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a BA in Journalism with a minor in Sign Language.