by Karen Rokich

Twenty years ago, while exploring various vocations and corresponding college courses, Karen S. Harrington, discovered the Technical Writing and Editing (TWE) program at Cincinnati State Community College (formerly Cincinnati Technical College).  She was intrigued by the curriculum which consisted of a variety of communication courses (writing, editing, document design, etc.) as well as technology courses.  As one who loved reading and writing and who was also fascinated by science and technology, the TWE program seemed like a perfect fit for her.  Under the visionary and strategic guidance of Pamela Ecker, the TWE Program Coordinator at that time, she fulfilled the program’s requirements and selected electives that would prepare her for a career suited to her natural abilities and interests.
Upon receiving her degree, she became a member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC).  The Technical Communication profession has steadily evolved to keep pace with technological trends and people’s needs for collecting, retrieving and delivering  information.  Over the years, STC has been in invaluable source of guidance and support;  she has attended and enjoyed multiple STC conferences and currently serves as the Employment Lead for the Southwestern Ohio chapter.
Professionally, she is a creative individual with solid writing, editing, and project administration skills.  She has a strong technical aptitude and an ability to easily grasp new concepts.  Her work experience includes:

• Assessing client-defined information requirements and, in conjunction with project team members, prepare objectives and specifications.
• Documenting processes and designing work products and related style guides.
• Interviewing subject matter experts and researching technical concepts and issues.
• Writing and editing software manuals, online help systems, white papers and scripting language reference guides.
• Creating document templates and style sheets.
• Performing software usability analysis and recommending functional and interface design improvements.
• Gaining familiarity with structured documentation practices, web design, HTML and XML.
• Producing simple illustrations.

In 2008, she launched The Write Thing – an independent consulting business that provides communication services aimed at helping clients achieve their goals.
Personally, she is dedicated to continuous improvement through commitment to life-long learning and empowerment of others.  She is passionate about mentoring, training and inspiring others.

by Karen Rokich

Joe Martin worked for nineteen years as an industrial chemist specialized in organic mass spectrometry. Working in two Fortune 500 companies, he earned the titles of Research Specialist and Senior Chemist.  He had only one problem… he enjoyed writing about scientific work more than actually doing it,. So he returned to graduate school in the early 90s to study professional writing and editing.

by Karen Rokich

You might say that Harold Fox entered our profession by the back door. Technical communication is, after all, his third career.

After graduate school and military service, Harold began a career in academia. The family (wife Rose and son Paul) moved to Dayton when he accepted a teaching position at the University of Dayton, in what was then called the Department of Theological Studies. However, the enrollment crunch of the mid ’70s made him part of the downsized. It was then that he made his first career change.

The Fox family moved to a farm in Preble County where Harold began a vineyard enterprise. Growing grapes is not a route to quick success under the best of circumstances, and they encountered a series of setbacks. Finally the enterprise was wiped out by weather, so he began looking for a third career.

Harold’s educational background and experience indicated that training or technical writing might be possibilities. Making the most of some networking opportunities, he connected with STC and an individual who gave him a chance to try his hand at technical writing. It worked out pretty well, and there was career number three.

So, Harold says, "I suppose that the answer to the "why" of the question is that I needed to find a way of making a living. I was fortunate enough to come up with a match that worked out better than I had any right to expect."

Harold’s aptitude for writing and his B.S. and M.S. in physics proved to be good preparation for technical writing. He was not about to be thrown by technical material, and he was used to looking for answers and solving problems. Therefore, he was able to have a productive career that gave him endless opportunities to learn new things and the challenge of communicating what the reader needed to know.

Harold feels that he contributed solid work to his employers and received a great deal in return, from his many and varied work environments and especially from the wonderful people who were his colleagues. Through his involvement with STC, he made significant contributions to the professional advancement of his third career, participating fully in a chapter (ours!) that earned recognition for excellence and a reputation for developing competent and respected professional communicators.

Harold finds the old adage about receiving more than you give to be manifestly and richly true. That is so much the case that he has remained active in SWO STC even as a retired member.

by Karen Rokich

A writer’s path to technical communication is not always a straight line. Nancy Dodsworth followed a circuitous route that started at Northeastern University, a five-year co-op school in Boston. As she was putting herself through college, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Group and Public Communications, her challenge was to find a co-op job that paid well. At the time, most of the better paying jobs were computer related. Her first technical writing assignment came in the form of a co-op job at Zayre Corporation in Framingham, Massachusetts. She was hired, along with another student, to document the NCR cash register system used in their stores. They documented it by hand and then handed over the written notes to a Data Entry group to put online. That was quite an old process, but it seemed to work back then.

Having found her profession, Nancy also found purpose and motivation. Her goal is to produce documentation that provides clear, concise, easy-to-follow directions for the end user. Because she puts herself in a user’s shoes as often as possible, she knows how frustratrating it is to read poorly written materials that are hard to understand. Her job is to make the user’s job easier by communicating in a way that is easy to understand and gets to the point as quickly as possible.

Nancy is currently the Security & Risk Awareness Program Manager for Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati. She is responsible for managing the bank’s Security and Risk Awareness program. This includes:

• Developing Web-based security & risk awareness courses for employees
• Developing security and fraud-related communications for internal publications
• Developing incident related communications as needed
• Developing and maintaining internal web sites
• Participating in and organizing security & risk awareness events for employees and customers

by Karen Stille

Some things are meant to be, and incoming chapter treasurer Mindy Hoffbauer was meant to be a tech writer. Her road to techcomm was, she says "a long one with many forks. I majored in more subjects than I can remember." After spending more than a decade in school, attending several colleges, earning a certificate in secretarial science as well as an A.A. in English, and majoring in English Language and Literature at Wright State University, Mindy discovered tech writing–a match made in heaven for a woman who describes herself as "the most detail- and procedure-oriented person I know." Having found her match, Mindy proceeded to earn both a B.A. and an M.A. in English Language and Literature, as well as certifications in both professional and technical writing. She started her own business, Write Angle Consulting, Inc., while in graduate school, and recently celebrated her tenth anniversary. In those ten years, she has:

• Taught writing and computer skills for several large corporations and accounting firms.
• Written statistical software manuals and extensive help systems detailing site survey software.
• Developed Web pages for the Ohio Department of Education and Wright State University.
• Written pharmaceutical manufacturing documentation for an engineering firm.
• Written and edited corporate communications documents for a large paper company.
• Documented more procedures, processes and policies for the mortgage industry than she can count.

Mindy has worn many hats in the SWO community over the past decade. She has served as vice president, president, past president, membership coordinator, interim Webmaster, historian, Chapter Achievement Award coordinator, and a techpubs judge for competition. She was awarded the Distinguished Chapter Service Award in 2003. And she presented at the international STC conferences in Cincinnati, Orlando and Chicago. But life is more than techcomm, even for those of us who are procedure-oriented. Mindy is an avid book lover, averaging about 80 books a year, most of them audio. She is a professional cake decorator. She and her husband Greg have been married nearly 16 years, have two children (12 and 14), and are in the midst of remodeling their current home. "Besides owning and managing my own business, juggling multiple clients, and running two kids all over this quarter of the state," Mindy says, "I also volunteer at our kids’ Montessori school as the fundraising coordinator and assistant treasurer. And I serve as one of three board members for eight different charter schools in central and southwestern Ohio." Whew! Despite her busy schedule and numerous responsibilities, Mindy is "looking forward to increasing involvement in our chapter once again." She certainly deserves to be in our September Member Spotlight.