CPD Honors Former Colleague

Utah State University’s Center for Persons with Disabilities awarded the 2009 CPD Alumni of the Year award to Adrienne Akers, president and CEO of Dynamic Screening Solutions. Akers was honored for her research and dedication to helping families of children with disabilities both at the CPD and eventually as she moved into the business world.

In 1973 she started working at the new Exceptional Child Center at USU, now called the Center for Persons with Disabilities. Akers, a physical therapist, was hired for her background in motor development and began working in the center’s classrooms and doing clinical evaluations.

When she started her career at the CPD, Utah was experiencing a trend away from institutionalizing young children with disabilities. The movement to include children with disabilities into mainstream classrooms changed the CPD’s focus. The CPD began providing direct services to very young children and began including research and demonstration projects that developed curricula for educating children with disabilities.

Akers obtained her master’s in family and human development and began working as a researcher with the center’s Early Intervention and Research Institute. In 2001, she started work on the “Opening Utah’s Doors” project, funded by a grant from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, which made it easier for families to apply for government programs.

Akers and EIRI Director Richard Roberts learned about a computer program prototype conceived by two programmers from Utah County creating an online program. The program interviewed clients, collected information and put it into applications for different services, consolidating several applications into one.

EIRI purchased the prototype and took the idea on as a research project. Eventually the program, called Utah Clicks, allowed people to go through one process to apply for several programs, such as Medicaid, Head Start and Baby Watch. This project won the 2006 Innovation Award from the Council of State Governments and launched a private spin-off company, Dynamic Screening Solutions.

Akers said that even as her life expanded into the business world, her time at the CPD helped shape her career. She credits Roberts with serving as a mentor, teaching her to work effectively with families.

She said another mentor was the late Dr. Glen Casto, former associate director of CPD, who encouraged her to set goals and work toward them with confidence. He helped her accomplish things she didn’t know she could do.

“My original training as a physical therapist never prepared me for the career I was supposed to have,” she said.