Dee Albritton Fast Forward, the computer school, moved to its current location at the corner of Devine and Millwood three years ago. Before that, for the previous seven years, Fast Forward had a room at Hand Middle School.

During the first 10 years Fast Forward has won the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce’s Pillar Award for both technology in education and community service, the Richland County School District One Superintendent’s Award and its Chairman’s Award, and the David W. Robinson Catalyst Award from the Central Carolina Community Foundation.

The young students at Fast Forward and their families have received 85 individual awards and four family awards, all part of the Presidential Service Awards. Also, Fast Forward has been recognized as a United Way Community Builder.

The executive director of Fast Forward is Dee Albritton, who has received the Antonia Stone Innovation Initiative Award from CTCNet, the ET3 Tec Champion Award for Outstanding Technology Leadership from the Education Technology Think Tank, and the Church Women United’s Human Rights Award.

Dee Albritton was born in Biendershaim, Germany, near Frankfurt. She was adopted as an infant by an American military family. Her adoptive father was an Army pilot in both helicopters and airplanes. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

She has a brother in Irmo and a sister at Lake Murray. After retirement, her father moved the family to Florida, where Albritton graduated from Sarasota High School.

Her interest in theater began in high school, particularly because the Ringling Bros. art and theater schools were nearby. Ringling had dismantled the Asolo Theater in Italy and rebuilt it in Sarasota. Albritton narrowed her theater skills to set design and construction.

She enrolled in the theater program at the University of Florida, and she transferred to graduate from the University of South Florida with her degree in theater and her minor in English.

Soon after college graduation, Albritton came to Columbia to visit her mother, who was from the Columbia area. While in town, Albritton talked with Jimmy Quick at Workshop Theater, where she landed a job putting together stage sets. While working in theater, Albritton worked several years for law firms. One was Boyd Knowlton Tate & Finlay, the office of Columbia’s former mayor. Another was with Patton Adams, Columbia’s mayor after Finlay.

Between the theater and law offices, Albritton mastered communications and personal computer technology, that she took with her to form her own consulting firm in 1981, about the time IBM came out with its first PC.

She had a contract with IBM to install computers while she also taught computer technology at the state’s technical colleges.

Albritton’s daughter, Brenna Bernardin, was born during this era. She is a junior anthropology major at USC. She has been an employee at Earthfare on Devine Street since she was a junior in high school.

In 1999, Albritton rewrote a grant in an appeal to the U. S. Dept. of Education on a short notice of two weeks. She won a $730,000 three–year grant to start Fast Forward, but she had to operate under the United Way’s umbrella as a legal structure. In 2005, Fast Forward went out on its own.

When Fast Forward started its summer camps for school children, there were only about 20 summer camps in greater Columbia. Now there are 200. Fast Forward, then, dropped the summer camp program in favor of after–school education on a Monday–Thursday schedule, leaving Friday available for special programs such as “Fun Friday at Fast Forward.” Other time opportunities are targeted, such as winter breaks and Saturdays.

Three years ago, Albrittion found plenty of technology job offerings in South Carolina, but the jobs were being filled with trained people from out of state. Through the Creating Futures Foundation, Albritton scored scholarships for veterans and dislocated workers who could gain technology currency online, which was ideal for veterans with recent disabilities.

Fast Forward can claim a current 35 veterans in the program. Besides educating the school children and adults at the Babcock Center, over the past three years, Fast Forward has helped over 300 people get back to work.

More information on Fast Forward is on its Web site, www.fastforward.com, and veterans should also go to vetvenue.org.