Bill Tipton's Comeback at HP

Summary:
Two years after he started working for Hewlett-Packard (HP), Bill Tipton became completely blind due to a life-threatening illness. He successfully returned to work and is now a project manager for HP.

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Bill Tipton was born in Galesburg, Illinois, but moved to California very early in his life.

He has been happily married to Kathy for 19 years this June. They have four cats and live in San Jose, California.

Bill has worked with Hewlett-Packard (HP) since 1997 after working 13 years as an application programmer and system administrator at Western Micro Technology. He started at HP as a mission critical customer support engineer, supporting HP/UX networking.

In 1999, Bill suddenly became completely blind due to a life-threatening illness. After much training (including assistive technologies, how to incorporate some of these technologies into work situations, orientation and mobility, Braille and using a variety of applications with screen readers), he was successful at returning to work at HP and has held a variety of positions in the company since then: He worked as a Global Library and Information Services (GLIS) information research assistant, tools integration specialist and now works as a project manager.

Bill is also involved with other HP activities. As a member of the Technology Solutions Group Americas (TSGA) diversity advisory council at HP, he helps with interviews for internal and external publications supporting HP and the value of accessibility in the tools HP employees use). He also helps with diversity-related events that HP sponsors and is the leader of the Disability Network & Resource Group at HP.

Bill is very much involved with helping others in his community and around the world. He is on the board of directors at Sensory Access Foundation , the Silicon Valley Council of the Blind , and on the business advisory committee at the Sensory Access Foundation. Bill is also a volunteer mentor at the Vista Center.

He hosts a blog (a web log) called, "Disability Dialogue With Bill," to help disabled people from all around the world. Hundreds have come to read his messages, and a few have posted comments.

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