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  • The Safe Steps
  • Why Safe Steps
    • How & What We Do
    • Steps Explained
      • Self Esteem
      • Time Management
      • Emotional Intelligence
      • Problem Solving
      • Service to Others
    • Testimonials
  • Resources
    • News
    • Blogs
    • Podcast
    • FAQ
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  • About Us
    • Our Story
    • Team
    • Advisory Board
    • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Sign In
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  • The Safe Steps
  • Why Safe Steps
    • How & What We Do
    • Steps Explained
      • Self Esteem
      • Time Management
      • Emotional Intelligence
      • Problem Solving
      • Service to Others
    • Testimonials
  • Resources
    • News
    • Blogs
    • Podcast
    • FAQ
Safe Steps Logo 2
  • About Us
    • Our Story
    • Team
    • Advisory Board
    • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Sign In
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About us

SAFE Steps was founded in 2014 and has worked with thousands of high school students and their families to better prepare them for a future where Human Skills mastery is essential in a changing world. Additionally, we’ve discovered — and continue to discover — positive impacts our program is making in the lives of former students and families. SAFE Steps uses the latest technologies in learning management systems, micro-learning strategies, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning.

Dave Smith

Founder & Chief Executive Officer. Dave is a serial entrepreneur with two previous successful exits, but he’ll tell you without hesitation, that SAFE Steps is his most dynamic, disruptive, and meaningful venture e...

Mark Charlet

Chief Operating Officer. Mark has been working with Dave and the SAFE Steps since 2013 – first with the book, College Without Student Loans, and then assisting with the website. Having seen the positive impact the SAF...

Mark Pintar

Chief Content Officer. Mark is a communication expert and eLearning pioneer. He has created award winning content for students from Kindergarten through college, with organizations like Turner Learning, Georgia Public...

Anjani Nandan

Chief Technology Officer. Anjani Nandan is a Silicon Valley technologist with 25+ years of industry experience. He has led large technology transformations of multiple organizations and is very passionate about cuttin...

Anant Mishra

Chief Product Officer. Anant is a passionate technologist with a track record of success within many global, blue chip companies like Dell, UBS and Credit Suisse. He brings in more than 25+ years of industry experienc...

David Murray

President. “Dave’s a brilliant thinker who boldly runs into any maze of how-do-we-do-this and always emerges with a map and a planned route to success.” Dave’s worn a lot of hats over the past 30 years -- Entrepreneur...

Dave Smith
Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Dave Smith

Mark Charlet
Chief Operating Officer

Mark Charlet

Mark Pintar
Chief Content Officer

Mark Pintar

Anjani Nandan
Chief Technology Officer (Advisory)

Anjani Nandan

Anant Mishra
Chief Product Officer (Advisory)

Anant Mishra

Dave Smith

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Dave Smith

Dave is a serial entrepreneur with two previous successful exits, but he’ll tell you without hesitation, that SAFE Steps is his most dynamic, disruptive, and meaningful venture ever. Dave founded SAFE Steps in 2010 to help parents of high school students develop effective communication and decision making skills through an eLearning system. Since then, Dave and his team have successfully worked with 2,000+ families, taught them about Human Skills, reduced stress levels in students AND families, helped mitigate the costs of higher education, and documented the entire process. 

Dave’s mission is to save lives and create lifelong learning opportunities of skills essential for personal and professional success. Validation of our training programs along with new marketing efforts is propelling exponential client acquisition and expansion of operations rapidly planned for in 2021 and beyond. 

Mark Charlet

Chief Operating Officer

Mark Charlet

Mark has been working with Dave and the SAFE Steps since 2013 – first with the book, College Without Student Loans, and then assisting with the website. Having seen the positive impact the SAFE Steps has had on so many families Mark believes in Dave’s mission to help students and parents on their journey to college and beyond.

Mark has 30+ years working primarily in the sales & marketing arena in corporate America. Within that time frame he has been intimately involved in software and hardware development, product launches, content creation, project management, and training. 

Education is an important key to not only individual lives but to the future of the world. Mark is excited to play a part in bringing the SAFE Steps process to families in order to help students achieve an affordable college education, achieve lasting success, and create the possibility of a great life.  

Mark Pintar

Chief Content Officer

Mark Pintar

Mark is a communication expert and eLearning pioneer. He has created award winning content for students from Kindergarten through college, with organizations like Turner Learning, Georgia Public Broadcasting, and the Georgia GLOBE project. Additionally, he has produced marketing and corporate training videos for Fortune 500 companies like Coca-Cola and The Home Depot, and crafted television programming for networks such as ABC, E! Entertainment, The History Channel, TLC, CNN/Turner Learning, Discovery’s Planet Green, HGTV, Animal Planet and PBS.

Mark is grateful to combine his talents, experience, and passion for communication, technology, and education to provide students with the tools they need to improve their Human Skills and live a life of success on their own terms, and wishes he had The SAFE Steps when he was in high school.

Anjani Nandan

Chief Technology Officer (Advisory)

Anjani Nandan

Anjani Nandan is a Silicon Valley technologist with 25+ years of industry experience. He has led large technology transformations of multiple organizations and is very passionate about cutting edge technologies and what it can do to improve our lives. He is an evangelist to encourage usage of AI/ML technologies to not only gain competitive advantage, but also drive efficiencies leveraging these technologies.

Anjani is very passionate about changing the education model that has been part of our lives since long, the SAFE Steps platform allows him to execute on that vision, and help people right from high school and well into their successful careers by focusing on Human skills that he has seen lack of during his experience working in  the industry. He is very excited that SAFE Steps has the ability to create possibilities that can trigger massive skill enhancements with its innovative methods and content, building a good recipe for not only becoming a compelling continuing education platform but also acting as a life coach.

Anant Mishra

Chief Product Officer (Advisory)

Anant Mishra

Anant is a passionate technologist with a track record of success within many global, blue chip companies like Dell, UBS and Credit Suisse. He brings in more than 25+ years of industry experience with his quest for quality in all his deliverables coupled with a great focus on customer needs.

Anant was struck by the very idea of SAFE Steps to build human skills starting at an early age as a family event. The opportunity to be in the team and bring his expertise to architect the product and take it to the next level is his mission.


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240 NW 76th Drive, Suite "D" Gainesville, FL, 32607
(877) 257-4141

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SAFE Steps was founded in 2021 and has worked with thousands of high school students and their families to better prepare them for a future where Human Skills mastery is essential in a changing world.
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This mode enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
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    Safe Steps

    Accessibility Statement

    • thesafesteps.com
    • May 15, 2025

    Compliance status

    We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.

    To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.

    This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.

    Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.

    If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email

    Screen-reader and keyboard navigation

    Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:

    1. Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.

      These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.

    2. Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.

      Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

    Disability profiles supported in our website

    • Epilepsy Safe Mode: this profile enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
    • Visually Impaired Mode: this mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
    • Cognitive Disability Mode: this mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
    • ADHD Friendly Mode: this mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
    • Blindness Mode: this mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
    • Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

    Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments

    1. Font adjustments – users, can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more.
    2. Color adjustments – users can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds, with over seven different coloring options.
    3. Animations – person with epilepsy can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions.
    4. Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only.
    5. Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly.
    6. Cognitive disorders – we utilize a search engine that is linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.
    7. Additional functions – we provide users the option to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.

    Browser and assistive technology compatibility

    We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).

    Notes, comments, and feedback

    Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to