What Our Graduates are Doing

Partially updated November 20, 2007

John Brewer landed a technical writing job at Cybex, now Avocent, in December of 1995 while still working on his bachelor's degree in English with a cognate in technical writing.  In November 1997, he was promoted to Technical Publications Supervisor.    He now coordinates publications in Ireland and Malaysia as well as the other locations in the United States, and gets to travel some. In June 2000, Cybex merged with its major competitor Apex to form Avocent, so he has already survived a merger.  As always, he writes, "It still beats unloading trucks and selling housewares."  

After graduating in 1997, Brooke Boen (BA English) turned her volunteer work for the English Department into a full-time job. While still a student, Brooke designed the English Department's first Website. That led to a job as a Documentation Specialist in the Technical Marketing Department at NetSpace, which designs custom software.  Then in spring 2000 she  left NetSpace/Bentley to accept a job with ASRI, co-located at NASA (MSFC).  Her position is webmaster, and she also manages the Web Editor position. She develops and maintains these media-related news sites for Marshall Newsroom, Chandra News, Science Operations News, and Space Launch Initiative News .  While at UAH, Brooke took Technical Writing and Technical Editing as electives in her English major.  She writes, " I know for certain that my tech writing background is what ultimately landed me this job. I know this because after I was hired, my manager told me that my tech writing experience gave me the edge over other Web candidates. The position requires dealing with a large team of writers around the country, and it also requires attention to detail. The folks who hired me felt that a technical writing background was highly desirable."

Nicole Hunt Canter (BA in History) completed the Graduate Certificate in Technical Communication in spring 1998 and the MA in English (with TESOL Certificate) in the spring of 1999.  After completing her core courses in technical communication, she landed a job as a technical writer in the Information Technology department of a Huntsville software company, ADTRAN, where she produced the Information Technology department newsletter, Bits & PCs (both online and paper copy), and developed training documentation and Internet-based training for ADTRAN employees.  In summer 1999, she moved to Dallas, TX and took a job as a Documentation Specialist at ObjectSpace, Inc.  In June 2000, she wrote that Dallas is a wonderful place for advancing in technical communication. She had just moved to Tech Pubs at  Vitria Technologies office in Dallas (they are based in Sunnyvale, CA).  They make BusinessWare, "the leading and most comprehensive ebusiness platform for automating cross-enterprise business processes."  It is basically a business to business tool for automating services over the internet. Tech Pubs is a group of writers that works with Engineering to create product documentation (including manuals, release notes, etc.) for end-users and for the company.  She advises other writers, "don't feel bad about changing jobs after a year or less. If the company you work for doesn't appreciate you, someone else will. Our parents' generation didn't job hop, but it is common place today. This is an employee's market."

Thom Chumley (BA English with Technical Writing Cognate, then Graduate Certificate in Technical Communication,  1995), joined Sun Microsystems, Inc., in Mountain View, CA, as a Technical Writer. In 1998, Thom moved from California to Sun's Colorado office. His latest promotion makes him program manager for Sun's first online service site, SunSolve (http://sunsolve.sun.com). The job requires him to wear many, many different hats. He writes, " I get to be technical writer, technical editor, trainer, event coordinator, buyer, cheerleader, slave driver, troublemaker, and counselor. " He encourages others to apply for jobs with Sun at the Sun employment page, where they accept ASCII resumes and even provide a resume builder, which is a forms-based web page for creating a resume. He anticipates they will be hiring in spring 2002 in his group, currently called Global eServices Engineering.

Shanna Gunn (BA English with Technical Writing cognate, 2000) landed the very first technical writing job she applied for, before even graduating with the cognate in technical writing. In spring 1999 she went to work writing software documentation for Book Systems in Huntsville, and then moved to Intergraph Corporation in spring 2000. At Intergraph she was the lead and only technical writer for one of Intergraph's most comprehensive and sophisticated software products. She works directly with developers and certifiers to create new documentation and keep current documentation up to date. She has held several jobs since leaving Intergraph.

Carolyn Life (BA English with Technical Writing cognate, 1993) worked as a Senior Technical Writer at Intergraph from 1993 to 2005, when she retired. She contributes feature articles regularly to The Valley Family, a local news magazine.  She has had some freelance articles she published picked up by a Disney Online Services-sponsored website.  

After an extended absence from the academic and professional world, Susie McIntosh (BA in English) returned to school and earned a Graduate Certificate in Technical Communication in 1996 . Because she had no computer experience, not even word processing, she started the program with the undergraduate technical writing course, where she wrote a public relations handbook for her children's school. Overcoming some technophobic tendencies, she first worked at a local computer company writing computer documentation and creating help files, one being in HTML. After serving a stint as the circulation manager for MicroStation Manager magazine, a publication of Bentley Systems Inc., Susie moved into a technical writing position at VMIC. Here she wrote computer documentation and Help files using FrameMaker and RoboHELP.  Her latest position is with the marketing department at SIRSI (now SirsiDynix), the library software company used by both UAH and the Huntsville Public Library. While writing a wide variety of marketing pieces for the company, she had a chance to add Quark Xpress to her set of skills.

Pam Minor (BA, English with Technical Writing Cognate, 1999) went straight from her Adtran internship to a technical writing job with Message Media.  Pam credits the FrameMaker experience she got on her internship for helping her get two job offers before graduation.  In July 2003, she wrote describing her work history since graduating:  "The experience I gained with various software such as FrameMaker, RoboHelp, and everything in the Adobe Publishing package (Acrobat, PhotoShop, etc.) was particularly important. It seemed to be the type of experience employers were mostly seeking. I accepted a job at MessageMedia as a technical writer and was responsible for writing and maintaining software manuals, Help files, and an internal newsletter. After working there for one year, I received a lay off. Three weeks later, I started working at Z/I Imaging (now a company of Intergraph). Here, I'm responsible for documenting hardware and software products that are used in imaging solutions, such as photogrammetric scanners, aerial cameras, workstations, and image-processing software."

Jennifer Pinkley (BA, History with Technical Writing Cognate, 1992) went straight from her Intergraph internship to a job at Intergraph, which she describes as an excellent training ground. After four years as a technical writer writing reference guides, training documents, and online help, she moved to Adtran where she learned how to use Framemaker and RoboHelp. A few years later, she went to a small company called Aegis Research. They hadn’t had a technical writer before, so she got to start from scratch, designing all of their printed documentation as well as online help. She also got to work on their web page and marketing literature, work she enjoyed a great deal. She then returned to Intergraph to work on an Air Force contract, working in the training department, where she wrote all the manuals and help files, and also learned how to design computer-based training, lesson plans, etc. When that contract ended (amid the bad economy), she moved to two different jobs at PESA Switching Systems (a hardware company that designs routing equipment in the broadcast industry) and then to MESA Solutions. In spring 2004, she went back to Adtran as a senior technical writer. She writes, “I've moved around a good bit, but it's been very beneficial since I've had the opportunity to learn so many different tools and work in so many different environments. I've also done freelance contract work, some freelance non-fiction writing, and I'm currently learning how to write effective grant proposals.”

For over 15 years, Daryl Owens (BA in English with Technical Writing cognate, 1986) has been writing technical documentation in every  business sector from government/defense to computer software and telecommunications. He has written to many styles and formats for both  hard copy and paperless products. At ELMCO, Incorporated in Huntsville, Alabama, Daryl is writing on-line documentation for the digitized  Army's Portable Flight Planning Software (PFPS-Army). This product allows Army aviators to electronically receive mission situation data  from the Brigade/Battalion Headquarters and plan Company-level details using their unit-based personal computer. The Company can then electronically transmit or share their data with other Companies as well as with Brigade/Battalion Headquarters.

Jennifer Whitman Rankin (BA in English with Technical Writing cognate, 1995, Graduate Certificate in Technical Communication, 1998) did her undergraduate internship with Erika Jenke-Huber in Intergraph's Marcom, and is now Senior MIS Analyst in the IT department Intergraph Public Safety. She handles the design and maintenance for the internal and external web sites for the company.  At home, she says she's keeping busy with four-year-old twins! (current 2003)

 Mark See (MA in English with Technical Communication Certificate, 1996) started as a writer in the Marketing Support division of WorldCom in Jackson, Mississippi, and from 1999 to 2003 was International Private Lines Product Manager (MIPL).  He moved from writing "product launches"  to managing the marketing department's information on the company intranet in support of WorldCom's direct sales force and operations, to managing a  $650 M per year revenue stream.  That writing involved reporting month-to-month revenue performance, establishing revenue driving promotions, developing revenue growth plans, and budget plans. After WorldCom's downfall, he held several intermediate jobs until in October 2006, he became Proposal Manager for Akima Corporation in Charlotte, NC.

In 1992, Sandy Spencer decided to make a career transition from practicing small animal medicine to technical writing/editing. Her career needed to become more portable so that she could follow her husband (an aerospace engineer) around the country. After completeing a Graduate Certificate in Technical Communications in 1993, she became a medical editor for Educational Reviews in Birmingham. Her main tasks are split between content verification and style editing of monthly continuing education materials in various medical specialties. After working for 2 years in the company's main office, Sandy and her job have survived recent moves to New Jersey and California. In 2004, she was  telecommuting from her home office in Silicon Valley, using Fed Ex and the Internet to transport files between Birmingham and home. Sandy emphasizes that working from a home office offers great flexibility for personal schedules and requires a high degree of discipline to meet deadlines and to continue professional growth. Sandy currently uses the flexibility to volunteer as a nature interpreter and educational writer for Ano Nuevo State Park, where elephant seals migrate annually for their breeding and birthing season.