Born with Congenital Cataracts, Chris Millsap has been visually impaired all his life. With his vision corrected to 20/80 and his condition stable, Chris graduated from the University of West Florida with a degree in Computer Information Systems. After graduation he secured employment with the biggest name in computing – Microsoft. 

For seven years, Chris lived in Seattle, Washington and wrote code for testing Microsoft applications. It was there that he was introduced to ZoomText 8. With a fairly normal field of vision, Chris’s problem was getting images big enough to see them on the computer screen. 

Running ZoomText at 2x or 3x, Chris was able to complete his tasks with a higher degree of accuracy. However, Chris often found that 2x was not quite enough magnification and 3x was sometimes too much. So Chris was thrilled when Ai Squared added 2.5x in ZoomText 9.0. But his real joy with ZoomText 9.0 comes from xFont.  Explaining why he’s enamored with xFont, Chris says, “I spend hours and hours working on computer code, and the clarity of xFont is much easier on my eyes.  It’s far better than other magnifiers which are so blocky.” 

While ZoomText made it easy to see his computer, Chris found smaller electronics, such as the PDA he won in a Microsoft employee contest, difficult to operate. In order to take advantage of his free hardware, Chris developed his own magnification software. The program he calls “I-Magnify” quickly made the rounds of sight impaired Microsoft employees. When co-workers asked for specific functionality, Chris added features to the program, all the while hoping Microsoft would take his creation to market. 

When it became clear that Microsoft was not going to get behind I-Magnify, Chris began to look for other opportunities. He sent his resume along with a Microsoft newsletter article about his PDA magnifier to Ai Squared. Chris’s letter was well-received at Ai Squared. A low vision computer programmer who had written magnification software would be a great addition to the Ai Squared team. And so, in January 2006, Chris moved from a west coast city of 6 million to a New England town of 4,000 to work at Ai Squared.

Chris’s duties in the Ai Squared development department are similar to his Microsoft job description. But living in Vermont is totally different from living in Washington State. The four-bedroom home he rents on one of Manchester’s most picturesque streets costs less per month than his two-bedroom Seattle apartment. Having lived in Vermont during three of its four seasons Chris is looking forward to experiencing autumn in the Green Mountain State. One thing that made an immediate impression on him was the fact that Vermonters often see sunshine in the winter! 

Chris encourages fellow ZoomText users who want to work on products that really help people, to visit the Ai Squared web site, where you can read about current job openings and submit your resume – http://www.aisquared.com/AboutUs/careers/index.cfm. Chris, who does not drive a car, says “Living in Manchester Vermont is comfortable; the people are friendly, it’s easy to get around and I can get anything I need right here in town.”

Ai Squared is a company that values teamwork, commitment, drive and excellence.  Who better to provide those qualities than someone who benefits daily from our products? We’re glad to have Chris on our team and we may have a place for you.  Consider being employed by the biggest name in low-vision software – Ai Squared - and living in the quintessential New England town.