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About Access Hound

A trio that has been working together for 20 years, the leadership team of Access Hound have worked on hundreds of projects together. From founding the UniDescription Project, running a web development company, and building hundreds of websites for companies across dozens of sectors, Access Hound was founded by brothers Brett and Joe Oppegaard and trusted partner Stewart McCullough. Brett, the university professor, with a Ph.D. in technical communication and rhetoric, providing the academic expertise on media-accessibility topics, Joe, the computer programmer, with decades of experience as a CTO, providing the programming expertise and creating novel media-accessibility tools, and Stewart, the CEO, with the big picture and logistical knowledge to run a viable company, bringing together everything into a valuable service.

Together — and with a lot of help from a broad community of supporters around the world, especially within the U.S. National Park Service and the American Council of the Blind — the Access Hound team has led media-accessibility initiatives throughout the United States and also in other countries around the world seeking to make more-inclusive media, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy.

Our mission is to co-create, with people who are blind, a more-accessible future by providing Audio Description training and production services, plus extremely useful Open Access, Open Source webtools that help users to audio describe any type of inaccessible visual media, including photographs, maps, charts, tables, brochures, wall texts, wayside signs, exhibits, etc., in a prompt and professional manner. Those descriptions also get heard and validated by representative members of the target audience before being released to the general public, keeping human sensibilities at the forefront of the production process.

Brett Oppegaard is shown in portrait, from the waist up. He is a white male, with short brown hair. He is wearing a blue collared shirt, with a lanyard around his neck, indicating conference attendance. He is standing at a podium facing an unseen crowd and gesturing with open arms. He has a computer in front of him. Stewart McCullough, left, one of the co-founders of Access Hound, stands in the Microsoft Inclusive Tech Lab facing collaborator Jeff Abrams, who is blind and accompanied by a guide dog. McCullough and Abrams are both white skinned and wearing a shorts and a t-shirt. McCullough's shirt is white, with tan shorts, and Abrams is wearing a tie-dyed shirt with black shorts. McCullough has a baseball hat in his hand, and Abrams is wearing one. Abrams also is wearing a pair of Meta Ray-Ban glasses, which have technology that helps him to gather information about the place he is in, like this lab. His dog is black and is wearing a harness with a rigid handle that Abrams is holding. In the background, there are various gadgets that were designed to make more-accessbile computing, such as adaptive joysticks and mice. Also in the background is Charles Beall, the superintendent of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, who came to the lab with the Access Hound group. Beall is wearing a collared dark-green NPS shirt, with black pants. He is white, with short brown hair, glasses, and a full beard. He is looking over the gadgets on the table.
Joe Oppegaard is shown in portrait, from the shoulders up. He is a white male with short blond hair and glasses that have a light-blue frame. He is wearing a suit jacket and a tie. There is a wooded scene blurred out behind him. Stewart McCullough is shown in portrait, from the shoulders up. He is a white male, bald, and wearing a blue winter jacket. There is a blurred winter scene behind him, showing just hints of light blues, dark blues, and grays.

A venture from the team behind UniDescription and Montana Banana

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40+

Peer-reviewed papers, posters, and presentations about accessibility.

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$1 MIL+

In federal & corporate grant support for our team.

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~ 200

National Park Service sites using UniD.

Our Leadership

Brett Oppegaard is shown in portrait, from the shoulders up. He is a white male, with short brown hair, wearing a collared Aloha shirt with blue and white floral patterns. He is standing in front of a tropical plant, with thin green leaves. He is smiling.

Dr. Brett Oppegaard

Founder | Executive Director

Joe Oppegaard is shown in portrait, from the shoulders up. He is a white male with short blond hair and glasses that have a light-blue frame. He is wearing a suit jacket and a tie. There is a wooded scene blurred out behind him.

Joe Oppegaard

Co-Founder | CTO

Stewart McCullough is shown in portrait, from the shoulders up. He is a white male, bald, and wearing a blue winter jacket. There is a blurred winter scene behind him, showing just hints of light blues, dark blues, and grays.

Stewart McCullough

Co-Founder | CEO

Want to work with us? Let’s talk

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