Our Instructors

Ashli Van Dyke

Ashli was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, moving to Florida and joining the Advantage Software team in 2010. At Advantage, Ashli got her start in tech support, and she quickly netted a reputation as a go-to person for help with extraordinary Eclipse questions and for discussing ideas. Over the years she has worked intimately with the Eclipse development team and has played a key role in many version releases. She has been involved with product research, quality assurance, technical writing, and customer education. She especially loves demoing the benefits of Eclipse and showing off its latest features! Read more...

Anissa R. Nierenberger

Anissa Nierenberger, RPR, CRR, CRC, CRI, has been a captioner for 29 years. In 2000, Anissa founded Dictionary Jumpstart, a realtime dictionary-building software that has helped hundreds of reporters improve their dictionaries and allowed them to explore other areas of reporting, including captioning and CART captioning. As an author, Anissa has also published several articles as well as five books. Her latest book, Terrific Tidbits was just released in May.

Bettye Keyes

Bettye Keyes, CCR, CSR, CVR-M, RVR is the reporting industry’s first certified realtime voice writer to develop and author works related to speech-recognition-based realtime voice writing techniques and theories. She is a Certified Court Reporter and Certified Shorthand Reporter at the state level and also holds Certified Verbatim Reporter-Master and Realtime Verbatim Reporter certifications through the National Verbatim Reporters Association (NVRA). Bettye has used speech recognition from the inception of her reporting career and has written books, produced training videos, and built realtime training programs across all voice writing disciplines throughout the United States and abroad. She currently lives and works as an official court reporter in the State of Maryland as she continues to contribute her ideas and methods to cultivate the reporting profession through the advancement of realtime voice writing practices taught by educational institutions.

Jennifer L. Thompson

Jennifer "Jen" Thompson CCR, CVR-M has been in the legal industry since 1987, beginning her career as a paralegal. Known as one of the court reporting industry experts and leaders in voice recognition, she conducts private training as well as online webinars and programs. She is a certified advanced EclipseVox™ trainer and frequently speaks and presents at technology seminars and association conferences. In her 28 year career, she has served the profession as a court reporting firm owner, court reporting instructor, and freelance court reporter. She has served in numerous leadership capacities, including President of the SC Court Reporters Association and is a longstanding member of NVRA.

Jeremy Thorne

Jeremy Thorne has been the Director of Research and Development for Advantage Software since its inception in 1987. He has an abiding love for the reporting profession and an unmatched talent for writing court reporting software. Jeremy welcomes feedback from our customers, which is his most important influence in software development. When he isn’t working on Eclipse, Jeremy likes to spend his time as a volunteer coding teacher and FIRST Robotics mentor.

Julie Samford

Julie Samford is a former court reporter, licensed in Texas and Louisiana. She has worked in the reporting industry for 30 years. Julie has been doing software and technology training for Advantage Software for 20 years and is a certified advanced group trainer for Eclipse.

Keith Vincent

Keith Vincent is a freelance reporter residing in Houston, Texas. Since 1992, he's been an Eclipse user, field tester, sales representative, trainer, and seminar presenter. During that time he's produced a steady stream of tools to help you take maximum advantage of the Eclipse CAT system. These include the Efficient Editing Tutorial and more than 350 short Visualizer movies that are built into Total Eclipse. Keith has also created the Eclipse Realtime Editing Kit, the Prefixes and Suffixes Kit, and the Conflicts Kit.

Mark Kislingbury

Mark Kislingbury, CSR, FDR, CRR, FAPR launched his career as a freelance court reporter in 1983 in Houston, Texas, accumulating an impressive 41 years of experience. Pioneering realtime reporting, he clinched victory in 13 NCRA speed and realtime contests. Mark's prowess earned him a Guinness World Record in 2004 for typing 360wpm, a feat he surpassed in 2022 with 370wpm. In 2023, he set another record, transcribing a 5-minute test at 320wpm with 97.5% accuracy. As the author of four court reporting books and the founder of the Magnum Steno Club, Mark also established the Mark Kislingbury Academy of Court Reporting in 2011, boasting numerous successful graduates in an average of two years. His contributions extend to developing the Magnum Steno Theory and publishing "My System: The Road to Realtime Excellence." Mark resides in Houston, Texas, with his wife and three adult children.

Wil Wilcox

Wil Wilcox is a freelance court reporter, Eclipse user of over 20 years, representative, and trainer. During this time, he has presented many workshops and seminars on Eclipse and tech tips. His goal is to stay up to date with the latest and most advanced technology and to share this information with other court reporters so that we may all benefit and keep our profession strong.

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