Senior Spotlight

By Rachel Houghton

Meet Jodie Gilmore

Jodie Gilmore earned a B.S. in Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. After that, Jodie moved to Boston, MA to attend Northeastern University, where she received a Masters in Technical and Professional Writing.

Jodie’s first job was with SAS Institute, Inc. in Cary, NC as a Technical Writer II. She worked at SAS for five years, and then moved to northern Florida where she decided to start her own business. She continued to write for SAS on a contract basis, and did some freelance journalism and marketing writing. Three years later, she moved back to the Pacific Northwest.

“The nice thing about being a telecommuting technical writer is that it really doesn't matter a whole lot where you live. Just one thing—my major deadlines have always seemed to fall right around the time I’m making a move, which makes for interesting time management!!”

Jodie is particularly proud of her first project at SAS. Because of her fairly technical background, she was given a project that no one else wanted—being the lone writer on a manual for a compiler that “talked” five languages (C, Pascal, Fortran, PL1, and Cobol). Not only was the manual very technical, but the product developer had a reputation for being difficult to deal with. Happily, Jodie and the developer worked well together, and he often requested her on later compiler projects.

Throughout her 15 years as a technical writer, Jodie has demonstrated an ability to come up to speed quickly on technical topics and a talent for working with “stereotypical” engineers.

“For example, one time Intel sent me a tape cassette and a PowerPoint presentation and said ‘Here, write an article on reducing skew on PCBs.’ At the time, I didn't even know for sure that PCB stood for Printed Circuit Board. I certainly didn’t know what skew was. But I learned, and the article, with very few technical changes from the engineers, appeared in Printed Circuit Design. (Unfortunately, my name didn’t appear on the article, as I was a ghostwriter. Oh well—can’t have both fortune AND fame!)”

More recently, Jodie has branched out into Web development. She started from scratch—knew only a rudimentary bit of HTML, hadn’t seen JavaScript, didn't know anything about search engine optimization…and in about three months developed a commercial Web site for a client in Vancouver that not only is in the top three rankings on Google for his selected search phrases, but also won an Award of Excellence in the last Willamette Valley Online Communications Competition.

Jodie enjoys challenges and doing something different every week. It is the projects that have an “edge,” the times when she’s not totally sure she can deliver, that keep her coming back for more.

Jodie has been a participant in the mentor program from its inception, and has enjoyed that very much. Before coming to this area, she was a charter member in the Northern Gulf Coast chapter of STC, and served a brief term as president of that chapter. She also helped with membership, PR, and the newsletter. Before that, Jodie belonged to the Carolina chapter where she served as a pubs competition judge and as registrar for a regional seminar.

Jodie believes membership in the STC has been a vital part of her career.

“Not only does it "look good on the resume, but it provides solid, tangible, measurable benefits: timely information (listservs, publications, conferences), a network of supportive colleagues, and opportunities for volunteer activities that stretch me beyond my comfort zone and allow me to return something to the technical communication community.”

Jodie served as the Registrar for the Region 7 conference in 2001. She also was a charter member of the STC Special Needs Committee, which metamorphosed in 2002 into the Special Needs SIG. This SIG is devoted to professional development and advocacy for STC members with disabilities; their web site is http://www.stcsig.org/sn/index.shtml). She has given papers at several regional PCOC conferences in Region 3, and has had articles published in regional newsletters, Intercom, and Technical Communications.

Rachel Houghton is a contract technical writer at Hollywood Entertainment in Wilsonville, OR, with a focus in Framemaker, Acrobat and Windows online help. She can be reached at stc@rhoughton.com.