Frostburg Bicentennial: Hamilton Open-house Gives Insight to Relay System

Bicentennials often celebrate a town’s existence and its ability to stand the test of time and thrive. Members of the community honor achievements and progress made. This is when all of the people behind the scenes are able to show their success.

Hamilton Relay, a two-story brick-faced building, sits quietly over the town of Frostburg at 1 Science Park Drive. Many people in town bypass the building, often not knowing what it houses. This location is home to the Maryland Relay, a 24 hour, 7 days a week, 365 days a year relay service, which provides telephone access for those who may be deaf, hard of hearing, or have difficulty speaking.

On Friday September 14, as part of the bicentennial celebrations, the Maryland office of Hamilton Relay opened its doors for tours and outreach events. The Center Manager, D’onte Bibbins, lead a tour of the building with Simone Morrison, a Frostburg State University ’12 graduate, as an American Sign Language interpreter/translator. The tour explored the offices, the training room, and break room of both Traditional Relay Service and Captioned Telephone. Traditional Relay Service (TRS) involves 2 calling parties, one deaf or hard of hearing, one hearing person, and a Communications Assistant who types and voices either sides of the conversation. Captioned Telephone (CapTel) similarly involves a deaf or hard of hearing calling party and a Captioning Assistant who simultaneously revoices, types, and corrects a computer which displays the captioned conversation to the deaf or hard of hearing user.

The tour discussed the process of how phone calls work, including a demonstration on how the different types of phones called text telephone (TTY) and Captioned Telephones. Due to confidentiality agreement policies within the company, visitors were not allowed to go onto the relay floor where the live calls were taking place.

Ryan Beeman, a 20-year-old TRS operator and visitor on the tour, stated: “The tour was boring, at least for me, but I work here. It was interesting to think of it through someone else who doesn’t know the inner workings of the company.” Employees receive credit for attending the outreach events and taking part in deaf culture sessions. Operators are able to see what it means to be deaf; the people who often run the deaf culture sessions are deaf people from around the country.

The bicentennial celebrations for Frostburg happened to land on the same week as Operator Appreciation Week. Bibbins stated, “We normally don’t get this many visitors to the outreach events, but since most of the town is already out and about, there seem to be more people.”

Eric Smith, 12, son of the Human Resources director Tracy Smith, was mostly excited about the free brownies left over from the dessert contest. Eric Smith, with a plate of dessert on his lap said, “I’m here with my mom, but at least I get free food!”

Employees of Hamilton Relay and members of the town were able to enjoy a picnic with the “big wigs of the company” as Beeman stated. Visitors were able to ask questions about the company’s history and what exactly they’re all about. Maryland Relay not only provides access to the telephone system for deaf or hard of hearing, but it also puts the town of Frostburg on the map.