James Warnken, CPACC

“Hi, I am James Warnken,

In 2006, when I was 9, I was diagnosed with Stargardt's disease and have been slowly losing my vision over the last 18 years. At a young age, I learned how to adapt to the world around me by learning braille, learning how to use a cane, and advocating for myself whenever something wasn’t working. 

As I transitioned from high-school to college, I decided that I wanted to go into the marketing field, more specifically the digital marketing field. During my 5 years of college, I started my own business making clothing and used this business as a sandbox to learn website development and design, social media, paid advertising, and how to run and scale a business. As the business grew, people began to ask me how I was doing it, so I decided to help out and started doing the same things with other local businesses. By the time I graduated, I was done making apparel and was now providing digital marketing services to more than a dozen local businesses. 

Shortly after graduation, during the peak of the pandemic, I joined Apex Communications Network to help even more local businesses. I spent the next two years helping Apex, and all of our clients, grow, scale, and adapt to the highly unpredictable market that seemed like it was changing every other week. 

During these two years, I discovered the world of digital accessibility and just how inaccessible the online world was for people with disabilities. This, combined with having a disability and being under the impression that it was up to me to make things accessible for myself, really led me to making a career shift at 23 years old. 

After putting my head down and researching, networking, and learning as much as possible about digital accessibility, I decided it was time to pull back the curtain and approach things from a different way than the rest of the industry. Today, I offer a wide range of services to organizations, their teams, and the community to help create and maintain equitable online experiences for everyone. I live by the mindset of educating, guiding, and connecting. This all boils down to educating and raising awareness around accessibility, guiding through the process and standing up procedures, and connecting with other experts in the digital accessibility space who are doing things the right way. 

I personally believe that collaboration, technology, and community are the three main ingredients that will close the gap between people with disabilities and the online world.”