99 | Keep Showing UP: NCRF Awards the Court Reporter Podcast with the Carl Sauceda Grant ft. Alex Vlahopoulos & Jill Landsman

When the membership sees who wins, it's going to spark ideas, and it's going to be an inspiration to other court reporters to do something comparable.

Keep showing up, keep giving what you got.

Keep believing in the work, even when nobody stops.

Bryn was unanimously decided on because of her podcast, and she exemplifies what the embodiment of this grant of being an ambassador for court reporting.

We'll keep giving what we've got.

We'll keep believing in the work, getting each other through it all.

We'll tell somebody we see, we'll remind them why they came, and we'll leave this place much stronger than the way we found it yesterday.

I mean, one thing that stood out to me, if I may, was Bryn was recommended by Justine Aragones from the Philippines.

So when I saw that, I thought I was like, well, I mean, clearly there's people from all over the world who are tuning into this podcast.

Okay, so today's episode is a little bit different because it's not hosted by me.

We have a guest host today because, surprise, I was in a deposition, wasn't I?

I think so.

So today's episode is hosted by my husband, Joey Seymour.

Welcome to the core reporter podcast, Joey.

Thank you.

Tell us about this episode.

What can we expect?

Well, this episode is a very special episode because Bryn and I, we just recently returned from NCRA conference, and during the conference, Bryn was awarded with the Carl Sauceda Grant.

This is a really prestigious award that has been given to court reporters over the past five, I think maybe not five, but four years at least, for their contributions to helping educate others on their career path to becoming court reporters.

So this year, Bryn was recognized with this grant.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jill Lansman and Alex Vlahupoulos, and they explained a little bit more about the Carl Soceda Grant.

So it was really fun episode.

I was very surprised and honored to have been nominated by someone that's not even in the United States for this award.

Justine, my nominator.

I can't wait to have a conversation with Justine on the podcast so that you can all meet.

So I'm really excited because I have not even gotten to listen to this episode yet.

What was the highlight of it for you?

Was it about TikTok?

Because I heard that in the highlights.

No, that.

That wasn't.

I mean, that was a cool part of it.

I remember you interviewed someone who went viral on TikTok.

Yeah, Vanessa sharing this venom machine.

I saw her at the convention and I didn't get to Say hi.

And I also saw Mark Kislingberry, and I wanted to say hi to them.

Shout out to Mark Kislingberry and Vanessa Stanton.

What were you saying about Vanessa that you talked about that?

Well, I don't remember who.

I guess it was Vanessa who showed.

She made some videos on TikTok and showed her stenum machine.

Like she just went viral by accident.

It was.

Yeah, it's just like court reporting is such a fascinating thing for a lot of people.

They've never seen the machine before.

They don't know how people can type so fast is just really fascinating for everybody.

I think what the highlight for me was, it was the fact that the Court Reporter podcast has gotten so much attention, and that's what really played a big part in you getting nominated and winning the Carl Sauceda grant.

So that was my favorite part because it just goes to show how this idea really grew into something amazing that's really affected so many different people in court reporting and how now you're.

You're seeing the fruit of your labors.

Well, I can't wait to hear more and learn more about the origin of this award and who Carl Sauceda is and what kind of a legacy he built.

So should we get right into it?

Yeah, let's get into it.

Today in the Court Reporter podcast, we're joined by Joe Landsman and Alex Vlahupalos.

Did I say it correctly?

Almost.

It's Vlahopoulos.

Okay.

I had a feeling.

I was kind of altering the vowels there, but I was like, let me.

Let me get it a shot and see what happens.

Happens.

Jill, you could start by just introducing yourself and letting listeners know what your role is with the ncrf.

Well, thank you very much, Joey, for this invitation.

We're delighted to be here today.

I was hired in 2019 to be the manager of the National Court Reporters Foundation.

I was interested in the position because I love philanthropy, I love giving back, and I had lots of experience with nonprofits in the DMV area, which is Washington, dc, Maryland and Virginia.

We believe in helping court reporters from recruitment to retirement, and we come up with excellent programs, scholarships, and grants along the way to make sure that they benefit, they become engaged, and they have opportunities for growth and learning.

So it's just been a joy to work with all these court reporters, I must say.

We're also joined by Alex.

Perhaps you could give just a brief intro about yourself as well.

Yeah, sure.

So my name is Alex Vahopoulos.

I had a work background in sort of educational, nonprofit work and also fundraising.

But more on the political side of things, and also just sort of outreach to, you know, donors and that sort of line of work.

And I was kind of getting tired a little bit of that world, and I found a job posting for a position as manager at ncrf, the National Court Reporters Foundation.

I put in an application, and Jill called me, and I've been working here for just about a year now, so.

And it's been really nice to learn more about the world of court reporting and sonography and captioning, something that I was vaguely aware about.

You know, I knew what a court reporter and a stenographer were in theory, but I've gotten to know a lot more about the practical side of the industry.

So that's been really nice.

I think a lot of us somehow fall into this industry.

Not intentionally, one way or another.

Somehow we get involved.

Right.

Same thing for me.

I mean, I kind of vaguely knew what court reporting was, and it was only through my wife, Bryn, that I was able to actually get really introduced to the world of court reporting and then attending these different events and conventions and whatnot and really see the incredible world of stenography.

It's pretty cool how we kind of all come from, like, different paths and things like that.

My background was actually in journalism, so I saw, Jill, that your background was also in journalism.

It is.

We have curious minds, and I think there's a lot of curiosity when it comes to court reporting.

So it's kind of cool how we all ended up in this industry.

So, of course, we wanted to discuss the Carl Sauce Data Grant.

And for those who may not be aware, this year Bryn was awarded with the Carl Salceda Grant for her efforts to elevate the profession by teaching others and mentoring and sharing her knowledge, especially through this platform, the Port Reporter Podcast.

I think it would only be right to discuss the origin of this grant, being that it's named after Carl Saseda.

He was the NCRA president from 1999 to 2000, and that he was just very passionate about teaching his peers and elevating other court reporters, and that he just.

He would have a big smile seeing them advance in their careers.

How did this grant.

What led to his creation?

Who.

I'm happy to explain that to you.

So in 2021, we had a little bit of movement on the trustees of the foundation, and early Langley became our chair.

And she appointed Linda McSwain to replace the trustee.

And she shared with us that her friends and colleagues in the African American court reporters decided to fund the Carl Ceseda grant.

And they were sharing that they wanted it to be launched on Monday, the Monday of Martin Luther King Day.

And it was a logical day for us to open up the grant.

Now, there was a lot of discussion back then between the trustees and Linda to determine whether this was going to be a private or a public grant.

Public meaning to our membership and forever.

That is what we ultimately decided to do, offer it to everybody.

Any court reporter or captioner who is an ambassador for this business would be a prospective nominee.

So we decided to create the grant in 2021.

It was offered in 2022 for the first time, opening on Martin Luther King Day of Service.

And we promote it with a marketing plan.

And that includes an article in the JCR tile ads for social media and advance articles on the jcr.com the very first recipient was Marguerite Rogers, who had created multiple events to promote court reporting, not the least of which was going into public schools on career days and bringing in her writer and letting all the students touch the machine and learn about it, many of which were at her own expense.

And so the backstory of this grant was to sort of reimburse the ambassadors with the expenses that they lay out to try and promote the school court reporting profession and card captioning profession.

And then the next year, we had lots of applicants, and the committee that decided on who would win picked three winners.

There was Erminia Uviedo, Stacy Drahovski, and Kimberly Xavier.

Then after that, we had Denis Vidal from New Jersey who won the award, and Chris Degrazio from Florida won it in 2025.

And then this past year, we have Brynn.

Bryn was unanimously decided on because of her podcast, and she exemplifies what the embodiment of this grant of being an ambassador for court reporting.

So we're very proud of the history of our winners and the work that they have done.

And I personally consider it one of my favorite grants because of the sharing that goes on and the outreach that is accomplished by our nominees.

And we're very proud of Bryn and the work that she has done.

And it was unanimous that she be selected.

And the nomination was very impressive, I must say.

It seems like it really embodies selflessness in this industry and really giving out to others.

And I was reading about Mary Rogers and how she won the first, you know, inaugural Carl Salceder Grant, and it seems like it aligned very well with what she was doing.

She wanted to write the I have a dream speech on her machine and then have others do it together with her and each write a different portion.

What better inaugural recipient to kick it off when it's the kickoff is Martin Luther or King Day that year.

Right?

Exactly.

So if anybody wanted that booklet, they would have to buy for $25.

And that $25 went to the Cross Aseda Grant.

And Kimberly Xavier, who is from Arlington, Texas, did a special event in Texas.

And all of the profit from the event went to the Cross SOCA grant, too.

We have several donors on our gibbsmart fundraising platform who donate just to that grant, which is called a restricted grant.

And when we were in Bellevue, Washington, at our conference, somebody came up to the booth who said she knew Carl very well and she was making a donation for his grant.

So it's very well received as a very special grant.

And so would you say that as you mentioned before, this grant was mainly created because of the fact that I think you said the Altruism grant, you have to be a court reporter for 25 years, which is a tall task.

Right.

And a lot of court reporters maybe have not reached that pinnacle yet.

Was that the main reason this was created to kind of compensate for that or not at all?

No.

Okay.

This because this was considered an ambassadorship.

Like you had to be a court reporter.

Car captioner Ambassador.

When the Altruism award is giving back, so you could give back to any nonprofit cause that you like, it doesn't have to just be court reporting.

It could be the Cancer Institute, it could be the Red Cross, it could be anything you want.

But you just have to be someone who gives back to the community.

This is industry specific.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

More specific to the court reporting industry itself and giving back to fellow court reporters.

Is there any anything that you hope that this grant will.

Any kind of impact it will make on the future of court reporting or have you seen any impact so far within the court reporting community?

I do think so.

I think there's a lot of positive energy around it.

I think there's a lot of prestige to it as well.

And I think that when the membership sees who wins, that it's going to spark ideas and it's going to be an inspiration to other court reporters to do something comparable.

And we're very grateful for that.

And that inspiration sticks to this day.

Every single one of those winners has been a strong influencer to the court reporting community.

It's not a one and done thing at all.

Why doesn't Alex.

Alex wrote the article about Brent.

Alex, why don't you reflect on what you learned as you wrote the article announcing that Bryn won.

I just was impressed by Bryn's commitment to sort of spreading the profession and the work that you and her have done in the podcast.

I was kind of just.

She had quite a few very.

I mean, extensive amount of positive recommendations written by, you know, leaders in the field and people who know her and I assume you very well.

And when I was reading about, you know, Carl Ceseda's life and the challenges he faced and what he overcame and sort of how he developed into a very positive force and a leader in the field, I thought that, you know, Bryn really matched what we were looking for with Fat Grant.

So, you know, it was a pleasure, really, to judge her and write about the work you guys have been doing.

That's awesome to hear.

A lot of listeners, they.

They share a lot of positive reviews of.

Of the podcast because Bryn likes to touch on a lot of things that court don't learn about in school and a lot of things that they run into while as freelance court reporters, you're also a business owner in a sense, right?

And you're trying to make your own business.

And it's one thing to type on the machine.

It's a whole nother thing to get ready for tax season and go through all this paperwork and whatnot.

There's a lot of responsibility that court reporters have with their careers, so Bryn tries to really address those things.

And even a lot of, like, newer court reporters, those who are just wrapping up their education, they've reached out, express their appreciation for some of the things that Bryn has discussed.

So it really is such an honor to be able to see Bryn receive this grant.

It came as a surprise to us because I don't think either of us were aware of this, being that it's recently new.

Right.

It just started a couple of years ago, and I think Bren was really surprised and honored to receive this.

So we hope going forward that hopefully it can make a even more of an impact and encourage a lot of new reporters entering the industry as well.

I mean, one thing that stood out to me, if I may, was Bryn was recommended by a woman named Justine Aragonis from the Philippines.

So when I saw that, I thought I was like, well, I mean, clearly there's people from all over the world who are, you know, tuning into this podcast.

And we.

I know Jill and I, we've had people from other countries attend our, you know, Ask Me Anything series and certain other programs that we put on.

So I just thought, you know, if her reach is already more global than Just sort of United States.

I think that's.

That shows impact right there.

Yeah, that's.

That's incredible.

I. I did not even know our reach was going to the Philippines.

So that's.

That's really encouraging to hear.

That is.

And I know you're being modest since Bren is related to you, but this is a $2,000 grant every year, and as I mentioned before, one year we gave away three of them.

But we certainly hope that your podcast will be an inspiration to others to go out and be strong ambassadors for court reporting or card captioning, because we are definitely willing to recognize and honor those people.

We do have coverage articles about the winner.

We will be always wanting other ships to rise as they learn about what Brin has done and what our previous winners have done.

I was just curious of some of the previous nominees and winners of examples of things that they've done as well.

Would you be able to share any of that?

Every single winner was profiled with coverage articles on thejcr.com and we were able to dive deep into all of their qualifications to write those articles.

But I can tell you there's been a lot of educational outreach.

Very often we will have these, quote, reporters go into schools on Career Day or host events or have nonprofits that help stenographers.

So right now, they've cast a very wide net on the activities that made them grant worthy.

So I recommend that any viewer of this podcast go to the jcr.com and put in Paul Ceseda grant, and all of those articles will be there to get the details of their winning outreach.

Okay.

For the next coming year, if somebody would like to nominate a court reporter, how might they go about doing that?

We will have advance articles telling people to get ready for that.

Nominations open on Martin Luther King Day in January, and then it closes about eight to 10 weeks later.

And we have an online application system with for the nominations through NCRA.org, but that information will be in our advance articles about it.

And basically social media tiles will be out there on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

We do.

We do announce those on those social media platforms.

We used to have Tick Tock, but we don't anymore.

I know Brynn's on TikTok, right?

She is.

She does have a big reach on TikTok as well.

The cool thing about TikTok is actually, obviously, it's a great way to reach the younger generation.

Gen z is on TikTok a lot.

But there's been some viral videos of actually court reporters on TikTok and people are just fascinated with the machine and sonography.

So it is a great way to actually do some outreach, I guess, and hopefully inspire people to get into court reporting as well.

But yeah, this is, this has been a pleasure speaking with you about the Carl Salceda Grant.

Before we kind of wrap things up, is there anything else that you'd like to mention about this grant?

Basically, I, I just simply want to point out that lots of our winners have relied on social media for part of their outreach programs.

That's a hint or a clue of what other quote reporters might consider.

And many of them do host in person events.

Some of them are mentors and some of them are.

They're just very strong influencers and advocates about the cult reporting profession.

The very last tip that I have, and I say this to every time we interact with students and our scholarship winners, there is just no end to practicing.

It's like food, clothing, water and practice on your steno machine.

Many of our strongest foundation leaders are so dedicated to practicing that they take their stent writers with them on vacation.

So I would simply say it's a skill that would go away, but as long as you keep practicing and you're keeping your eye on the prize.

And as you mentioned, Joey, a lot of freelance court reporters have an opportunity to be highly successful with their own business.

And it takes business management skills to be profitable.

So I really believe anyone can achieve that level of success.

But it doesn't happen by resting on your laurels.

It definitely takes discipline.

So we appreciate that future Cross Aseda Grant winners might be watching right now, and we hope that they are.

And we congratulate Bryn on her big accomplishment for this very special grant since it is highly selective and isn't given just by writing an essay or having good academic scores.

It's.

It's an accomplishment based grant.

And our hat goes off to every single winner.

And we appreciate the opportunity you gave us today to talk about it.

Our hat goes off to everyone who won the grant, including Bryn this year.

And it's really something to celebrate.

And like you said, I know court reporting, obviously there's a skill to it, but like you said, it takes a lot of hard work and trust me, I see Bryn working extra hours doing her scoping and proofreading and a lot goes into it, but obviously there's a reward on the other end of it.

So it is really inspiring.

So, yeah, thank you so much for joining us, Jill and Alex, for sharing more about the Carl Sauce Data grant.

And I hope the listeners who are listening, maybe you were not aware of this grant.

Now you know about it.

And you can also nominate anyone next year that you think is worthy of this grant.

And then if anyone has any questions or they want to learn more, would you say go to the same website,.

Jcr.com well, the jcr.com is our online magazine.

Our main website is ncra.org and to reach the foundation pages it is ncra.org foundation and then.

Or you could just put grants in the search bar and you'll find our Carlseda grant there as well.

We have other grants, but all of our grants will pop up on our grants page.

We are always making new offerings as well because we are growing by leaps and bounds.

We have more angel donors than ever before and that gives us a chance to give back more.

That's amazing.

Well, thank you so much for joining us and everyone.

I hope you took away a lot from this and we'll see you next time in the Court Reporter podcast.

You don't always know who's listening when you speak into the quiet you don't always see the difference when you're somewhere, somewhere in the middle of trying A student finds a little courage Someone stays another day.

A voice reminds a room of people why they chose this anyway?

Maybe we don't need to know how far the smallest kindness go.

So keep showing up, keep giving what you got Keep believing in the work Even when nobody stops to tell you that they noticed or the difference that you made Cause somewhere down the road the light you get comes back your way Keep showing up, keep showing up it's the messages after midnight it's the answer no one sees it's believing somebody when they're struggling to believe it's the hours that aren't counted and the things you freely give it's leaving something better for the ones who come up next.

You may never see see it all but every little ripple travels on so keep showing up keep giving what you got Keep believing in the word Even when nobody stops to tell you that they noticed all the difference that you made Cause somewhere down the road all the love you gave comes back your way Keep showing up, keep showing up.

This isn't about a name or something hey hanging on a wall it's knowing what you gave away Mind something after all if one voice can list another Imagine what we do when a whole profession turns around and says we believe in you.

So we'll keep showing up we'll keep giving what we've got we'll keep believing been in the work and in each other through it all we'll tell somebody we see we'll remind them why they came and we'll leave this place Much stronger Than the way we found it yesterday we'll keep showing up yeah, we'll keep showing up for the ones who came before us for the one still on their way for every voice that lives together we'll keep showing up.