VisionServe Alliance 2025 Annual Award Recipients
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VisionServe Alliance Announces its 2025 Annual Award Recipients
Celebrating Industry Excellence and Innovation
VisionServe Alliance is honored to recognize exceptional leaders in the blindness and low vision field who distinguish themselves through their creativity, commitment, and dedication to improving the lives of the people with blindness and low vision.
Awards are being commemorated during the VisionServe Alliance’s Adapt and Thrive: Igniting Change in a Dynamic World 2025 Leadership Conference. April 28 – May 1, in Scottsdale, AZ.
“This year’s award recipients have made significant and lasting contributions,” said Lee Nasehi, VisionServe Alliance President, and CEO. “They set the bar for the entire field and through their insight, courage and determination, they inspire us all to reach higher, work more innovatively, and dream bigger.”
VisionServe Alliance congratulates these extraordinary Annual Award recipients:
Lifetime Achievement Awards
Selected by VisionServe Alliance’s Board of Directors in recognition of exceptional lifetime contributions in service to individuals who are blind or visually impaired:
Sharon Bensinger, Founder, VIPS
Bernadette Kappen, Executive Director, New York Institute for Special Education
Steve Pouliot, Executive Director, Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Dennis Steiner, President and CEO, VisionCorps
Lifetime Achievement Awards will be commemorated on Tuesday, April 29th during Dinner at the Musical Instrument Museum at VisionServe Alliance’s Adapt and Thrive: Igniting Change in a Dynamic World 2025 Leadership Conference.
Excellence in Leadership Award
Recognizes exemplary leadership demonstrated by an Executive Director, President, or CEO of a member organization. Award recipients are listed on a print & Braille plaque in the Hall of Fame – Leaders and Legends of the Blindness Field located at the American Printing House for the Blind, Louisville, KY.
Courtney Plotner, President & CEO, Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired South Carolina (ABVI)
Denise Jess, CEO/Executive Director, Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired
Roxann Mayros Organizational Champion Award
Recognizes a member of senior management whose cultivation of structure, systems, and best practices advances the efforts of an organization distinguishing itself in the field of blindness and low vision.
Patrick Tuttle, Senior Vice President, Operations & New Product Development, Envision Dallas
The Excellence in Leadership Award and Roxann Mayros Organizational Champion Awards will be commemorated at the Annual Awards Lunch on Wednesday, April 30th at VisionServe Alliance’s Adapt and Thrive: Igniting Change in a Dynamic World 2025 Leadership Conference.
Learn more about our Annual Awards, including past winners and register for our annual conference by March 31, 2025.
About VisionServe Alliance
VisionServe leads an alliance of 130+ member organizations that vastly improve the lives of people with blindness and low vision. VisionServe Alliance collaborates with leaders to enhance the health of the BVI field by maximizing engagement with life-changing vision rehabilitation training and services, addressing strategic issues impacting the field, cultivating leadership, enhancing management systems, sharing best practices, increased capacity-building and sustainability, informing public policy, developing groundbreaking data reports highlighting profound issues impacting people with blindness and vision loss, and more. VisionServe Alliance also leads the Aging and Vision Loss National Coalition (AVLNC), a consortium of leaders advocating for the needs of adults 65+ with blindness and low vision. Learn more at VisionServeAlliance.org.
About VisionServe Alliance Annual Awards and Leadership Conference
VisionServe Alliance bestows its Annual Awards on leaders and innovators in the BVI field. Leaders receive Annual Awards in several categories at our annual conference.
Press inquiries may be directed to SDraddy@VisionServeAlliance.org