Steve Hamerdinger
Steve Hamerdinger is an American deaf professional and advocate for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. He served as the Director of Deaf Services for the Alabama Department of Mental Health until his retirement in March 2024. His work focuses on the mental well-being of deaf people from childhood through old age, and he has been a leading advocate for Deaf rights since the early 1980s.
He earned a BA from Temple Deaf College in 1977, studied Educational Psychology and Human Development at the University of Kansas, and earned an MA in Counseling from Gallaudet University in 1989. In 1989 he began as a child therapist at the New Mexico School for the Deaf, starting an in-school mental health program and helping establish the New Mexico Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He also served as president of the New Mexico Association of the Deaf. Before moving to Alabama in 2003, he was the Director of the Office of Deaf and Linguistic Support Services at the Missouri Department of Mental Health.
In 2009, he was chosen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to be a representative at the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership Network on Mental Health and Deaf Individuals. He also served as president of the American Deafness and Rehabilitation Association. As Alabama’s director of Deaf Services, he worked to ensure services for deaf people with mental illness, including consulting, advocacy, teaching, and continuing education. The program’s goal is to provide mental health care from counselors who know American Sign Language.
His awards include the 2021 Boyce R. Williams Award for lifetime contributions to deaf people in rehabilitation and behavioral health, the 2015 Frederick C. Schreiber Award for exemplary work in government service for deaf and hard-of-hearing populations, and the 2010 Alice Cogswell Award for contributions to the deaf community. Deaf Life magazine named him “Deaf Person of the Month” in 2008. He received the Knights of Flying Fingers award in 2016 and was elected to the National Association of the Deaf board of directors in 2018.
Hamerdinger was born in Maryland to hearing parents. He attended public schools in Prince George’s County until his junior year at Parkdale Senior High, then left school due to lack of support services. He later gained admission to Gallaudet University by testing. He currently lives in Montgomery, Alabama. Even in retirement, he still lectures, teaches, and consults on deaf mental health care, and he often uses comedy to help people cope with mental illness.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 15:04 (CET).