SUMMARY

Award winning, experienced Technical Writer with over 11 years of experience seeking a position. As a polished professional, I have strong writing skills with experience in the preparation of job descriptions, work activity step-by-step instructions, online help files, training materials, and end-user software documentation. In addition to writing skills, I also possess knowledge of style manuals, cascading style sheets, professional desktop publishing, and experience with graphics software suitable for software documentation.

Each writing job that I have worked on has included working with some basic software of different brands. These software programs are the employers choice and often are not that different from each other. This includes graphics software packages that are suitable for software documentation. Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Snipping Tool, and Snapshot are three of the tools that are often used to capture the screenshots and create diagrams for publications. I also have experience with Paint Shop Pro and Adobe Photoshop.

My experience in producing documentation in hard copy (or book) format includes experience with Adobe Pagemaker 6.5 and Microsoft Word (versions 95 through 2007). Nearly all of these manuals ranged from 200 – 350, required professional desktop publishing skills, and included Tables of Contents, Indexes, and screenshots.

I have experience with the following online help development systems: Robo Help X5, Robo Help HTML, Robo Help Classic, Fore Help, Help Publisher, and Help Breeze. I have produced and published menu ready online help for professional software releases in Web Help, HTML, and Win Help formats. This includes several versions of projects for three of the modules of HEAT (Call Logging, Alert Monitor, and First Level Response), an online project for Schlage Locks, and several versions of an online project for all of the modules for Companion Project Management. Most of these projects range from 150 topics to 700 topics. They are really extensive files.

In addition, my experience includes Job Description and Work Activity documents written and published in Microsoft Word 2007. These documents often describe multiple activities that an employee is responsible for and describe the interaction between systems and job duties that it takes to accomplish a task.

I also have extensive experience in working with the following software programs: Microsoft Outlook 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat Distiller, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft FrontPage 2003, Microsoft Suite, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Project, Snipping Tool, Corel Draw, Paint Shop Pro (through version 9), FullShot, Visio, Snapshot, WinZip, and Power Archiver.

My degree in Technical Communication included a minor in Computer Information Systems with courses in programming and mark up languages. This included Basic, Pascal, C language, Web Programming, and HTML. In addition to my education in technical writing and programming languages, I have experience with the following operating systems: Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, Windows XP Professional, and Vista Enterprise. I also have experience in working on networked systems within a software environment in both Windows NT and Server 2003.

Experience

Confidential

Technical Writer III

Responsible for the preparation of Work Activity documents that describe the steps to accomplish a task in Shell Central Finance. This includes the interaction between systems (including SAP technology) and posting the material that the employee is responsible for. These documents (approx. 52 of them) were published to Livelink in Microsoft Word 2007 format and range from 15 to 75 pages.

Confidential, Houston, TX

Technical Writer

Employed on a temporary contract in the Information Systems department. The American Bureau of Shipping has developed a software project that tracks the tasks of their organization including specifications about vessels and ports of call. My duties included editing existing documentation for this product in both online and hard copy formats.

Confidential

Technical Writer

Employed on a temporary contract in the Information Systems department. The Harris County Flood Control District addresses the needs of the Houston/Harris County area for flood control. Their Information Technology Department is responsible for software to track the amount of flooding in the area as well as tracking the status of properties that have flooded and have been bought out by FEMA. My duties included various small projects about their software including a Troubleshooting Guide and a procedural manual about buying out flooded properties. This included documentation for a flood control program.

Technical Writer

Software Project: Companion Practice Management (Companion PM), versions 11.00 through 11.05 for Companion Technologies. During this time period, the software engineering group converted the software into an "internet ready" format that completed automated claims processing. At the end of version 11.05, Companion PM included 20 modules and my online help project that included 748 topics.

Companion PM is medical software that provides solutions for large and small medical practices. This includes the ability to book appointments, keep patient records, track accounts receivable, file insurance claims, report to government agencies, and collect outstanding balances in a database environment.

My duties included updating end-user documentation in hard copy format including a full edit of existing documentation in Microsoft Word. I also wrote and produced their menu ready online help in WebHelp format using RoboHelp X5.

Confidential, Colorado Springs, CO.

Technical Writer

Software Project: HEAT, versions 3.0 through version 6.0. HEAT is help desk software that operates in a database environment built to organize records of calls into a help desk.

Duties included updating and publishing end-user (hard copy) documentation using Adobe Pagemaker 6.5 for three of the modules. My duties included their premier product "Call Logging" in both hard copy and online format. The hard copy, or book, format was published in the same style as the documentation for Microsoft known as "At a Glance". I was responsible for the online help projects for this software product that connected to the help menu as well as field level help connected to each field in each screen. This job also included the conversion of their online help into HTML format using RoboHelp HTML. During this time period, our documentation group submitted our work to the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Society of Technical Communication (STC). We received the "Best of Show" award during the competition. I was responsible for the premier "Call Logging" project that earned this award. I also obtained status as a HEAT system administrator during my years there.

Confidential

Project Coordinator

Project: Year 2000 compliance at WorldCom/MCI

I worked as a Project Coordinator on a Year 2000 telecom compliance project on existing equipment for WorldCom/MCI. This compliance project included researching equipment that simply wouldn't work after the new year. This included contacting clients and overseeing a staff of project coordinators who were working on the project. My months on this project included Project Management and telecom equipment training and computer and in-house networks training.

Confidential Colorado Springs, CO.

Owner and Technical Writer

During my first years in the technical writing industry, I was able to run a small independent business that produced software documentation. I was responsible for all facets of running a small company as an independent contractor. Jobs included the preparation of training workbooks, professional desktop publishing, end-user documentation, and online help projects in the software industry. During this time period, I wrote and published a menu ready WinHelp project for Schlage Locks and also worked for FrontRange Solutions (the old Bendata).