Annita Kay Tyberg (Kay) is retired from corporate America where she was employed as office manager, executive secretary and administrative assistant to executives for companies like Texaco Oil, Procter and Gamble, Kraft/General Foods and organizations like Educational Testing Services (ETS), Ball State University and the Boy Scouts of America. Kay taught Jr/Sr High students at the White Plains School for the Deaf for several years.
Kay was born with a severe hearing loss and mainstreamed in the public school carrying a “lunch box” sized hearing aid device in classrooms. As technology improved, her hearing aid(s) were worn behind her ears like today’s devices but in a larger version. In 2008, Kay suffered a three-day residual hearing loss and became profoundly deaf. As a result, she decided to have a cochlear implant.
Kay’s activities include being chairperson of the Pennsylvania Telecommunications Relay Service/Public Utility Commission (TRS/PUC) Advisory Board, Pennsylvania Office of Aging/Blair Senior Services and formerly Lycoming/Clinton Counties Ombudsman, board member of the Pennsylvania Statewide Center for Independent Living (PCIL) and the Center for Independent Living of South Central Pennsylvania (CILSCPA). Kay is a lifetime member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Advancement of Deaf (PSAD), a member of Association of Late Deafened Adults (ALDA), National Association of the Deaf (NAD), and other national deaf and hard of hearing organizations. Kay is a Support Service Provider (SSP) for the deafblind. In addition, Kay is a certified peer mentor through Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. She is a member of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) and president of the HLAA-Blair County Chapter in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Kay provides various hearing loss topic presentations at HLAA’s national conventions, university programs, and other organizations throughout Pennsylvania. Among her many endeavors is a certified Network Consumer Hearing Assistive Technology Trainer (N-CHATT) educating the hearing loss community and the public about assistive technology devices individuals with hearing loss can utilize. She wears many hats involving issues of diversity and disabilities in the community.
After attending Gallaudet University majoring in business administration and psychology, Kay married and began a family. Kay graduated from The Union Institute University with a degree in Management Information Systems. She also has a degree in Human Services from Pennsylvania College of Technology.
Kay’s lifelong inspiration is ensuring people with hearing loss and their families seek appropriate information and resources to make sound decisions about their hearing loss. Kay’s lifelong experiences have paved the way in educating others in the various stages of hearing loss, so others do not experience the struggles and challenges hearing loss presents in our society. It is vital to address the hearing loss when it happens not ten years later.
She resides in Altoona, Pennsylvania with her husband, Tom, a Trainer III employee for CaptionCall. Tom and Kay have four children and ten grandchildren. Kay teaches sign language in her spare time, is involved in her church, and enjoys time with her grandchildren.