Need for Speed

Dee Boenau, who runs a closed captioning service with her husband, Jack Boenau, has a unique claim to fame: She's one of the fastest, and most accurate, stenographers in the world.

Dee Boenau, in fact, can type 300 words per minute with a 95% accuracy rate. That's how she's won industry awards from Florida to Pennsylvania to Paris. “I consider stenographic machines my artwork,” says Dee Boenau. “You can build upon it to create your own vision.”

A St. Petersburg native, Boenau graduated from the Pinellas Technical Education Centers. She started her stenography career in 1992, with Hillsborough County. She met Jack at a Florida Court Reporters Association meeting, and now they run Sarasota-based AmeriCaption together. The firm's specialty is providing real-time closed captions for TV news programs and other clients that require high levels of speed and accuracy. One large client is WFLA Channel 8 in Tampa.