Wanda Applegate

Wanda Applegate is a Director, Learning Media Development for Siemens PLM software, a leading product lifecycle management company. Wanda leads a centralized organization responsible for documentation and training development supporting six major product lines. She has been working in the software industry for 28 years, with 20 years experience managing information development. Wanda has a strong interest in leading teams to better understand customer requirements and creating user-focused shared content.

Bob Beims

Bob Beims has been charting the course for Freescale Semiconductor out of their legacy of unstructured desktop publishing toward a future of DITA-based enterprise collaboration since early 2005. In July of this year his team "went live" with a DITA-based platform for the corporation, and they're now engaged in early adoption pilot projects across their global enterprise. He also chairs the Semiconductor Information Design Subcommittee of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, helping to define interoperability standards for semiconductor device manufacturers. Prior to his information development role, he was one of the leaders of a cross-company team that consolidated over 100 web site "islands" into what is now www.freescale.com, improving customer satisfaction by over 25% in three years. Some of the other career roles he's had that have shaped his passion for effective "crucial conversations" with customers include 10 years as a field technical sales engineer and 6 years as an applications engineer; both of which were before the advent of impersonal electronic communications via email and the web. Much of his thinking is still heavily influenced by those “early years” spent in direct conversations with customers by phone, or (preferably) face-to-face. Bob graduated from Kansas Wesleyan with a degree in Physics, and Kansas State University with an electrical engineering degree. He lives in Austin, Texas with his high-school sweetheart and wife of 30+ years.

Dean Easterlund

Dean Easterlund is a Project Manager, Technical Information Services, Worldwide Ag Customer Support, Deere & Company World Headquarters in Moline, Illinois. He is responsible for editorial standards, improving authoring efficiency, and processes that help to mitigate translation cost. He has a B.S. degree in Journalism from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and has taught as an adjunct instructor at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Dean is actively involved with planning for new information delivery systems. He is leading a team looking into the optimization of information, which includes understanding customer needs and content delivery.

JoCarol Gau

JoCarol Gau is a senior manager of information development at BMC Software in Houston, TX, with more than 25 years in technical communication. During her 10 years at BMC, she has managed global teams in the US, Israel, and India, with up to 60 writers and managers. She is currently co-leading an effort to bring content management and XML authoring to BMC. She holds a degree in Journalism from the University of North Texas, and is an Associate Fellow with the Society for Technical Communication.

JoAnn Hackos

Dr. JoAnn Hackos is President of Comtech Services Inc., a content management and information-development consultancy she founded in 1978. She is Director of The Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM), a membership organization focused on best practices in content management and information development. Dr. Hackos is a founding member with IBM of the Technical Committee for DITA at OASIS and co-editor of the DITA specification. She has been a leader in content management for technical information for more than 20 years, helping organizations move to structured authoring, minimalism, and single sourcing. She introduced content management and single sourcing to the Society for Technical Communication (STC) in 1996 and has been instrumental in developing awareness worldwide of the DITA initiative. She hosts or keynotes numerous industry conferences and workshops in the field.

She has authored Information Development: Managing your Documentation Projects, Portfolio, and People (Wiley 2006), Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery (Wiley 2002), Managing Your Documentation Projects (Wiley 1994), Standards for Online Communication co-authored with Dawn Stevens (Wiley 1997), and co-authored with Ginny Redish User and Task Analysis for Interface Design (Wiley 1998). Her latest book is Introduction to DITA: The Arbortext Edition (Comtech 2007).

Bill Hackos

Bill Hackos, Jr., PhD is cofounder with JoAnn Hackos and Vice President of Comtech Services, a management consulting and information-design firm based in Denver, CO. Dr. Hackos has worked with companies in North America and Europe, helping them solve their information-management problems. He has also been heavily involved in many benchmarking projects related to information management and process improvement. He designed Comtech's estimating metrics and continues to conduct key studies into ratios of developers and writers and analysis of the return on investment of single-sourcing projects. Dr. Hackos has focused on the design of graphic user interfaces that are easy to learn and to use. With 30 years' experience in the computer industry, Dr. Hackos understands how to increase the usability of products.

Tim Harrington

Tim Harrington is a senior content developer and project lead for Juniper Networks’ Enterprise Platforms Business Group (EPBG) technical documentation team. The EPBG documentation team has successfully implemented a topic-based XML solution to deliver comprehensive documentation for Juniper’s new high-performance Ethernet switches. Tim has 25 years of experience in technical documentation for hardware and software companies, and was a first-line and second-line manager of geographically dispersed content development teams for over 8 years.

David Jones

David Jones is Project Lead, Information & Content Development, Worldwide Ag Customer Support, Deere & Company World Headquarters in Moline, Illinois. He is responsible for eight teams that are evaluating the authoring processes across the functional areas of Persuasive, Training, and Technical in an effort to enhance effectiveness and achieve higher levels of efficiency. He has a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Marycrest College, Davenport, Iowa. David has held numerous positions within John Deere over the past 29 years including the functional areas of Product Development, Branch Marketing, Branch Customer Support, Branch Training, Factory Customer Support, and Technical Information Services, which included development of Service ADVISOR™, an electronic technical information delivery system for the John Deere worldwide dealer organization.

Justine Kangas

Justine Kangas is a documentation lead at Juniper Networks and is currently documenting solutions for integrating VoIP products with routers. She has also worked on solutions, API, configuration, and reference documentation for Juniper Networks broadband access routers and Internet service activation software. Justine previously worked as a technical writer at Unisphere Networks and MX Networks and held marketing positions at Avatar Corporation. She has an AA in Business Administration from Newbury College.

Denise Kiser

Denise Kiser, Ph.D., is Director of Technical Communications and Localization at VMware, a leading provider of virtualization solutions. VMware is one of the fastest growing software companies, with over 4,500 employees at 40 offices worldwide. Denise’s team of over 75 writers and localization project managers are located in the US, Europe, and Asia. Prior to joining VMware, Denise built the Technical Publications organization at Vitria. As Director of Information Products at Sybase, Denise spearheaded Sybase’s conversion to structured documentation and electronic documentation delivery. At VMware Denise’s organization is implementing a DITA solution and enabling translation of all documentation into multiple languages. Denise has a Ph.D. in Science and Mathematics Education from the University of California at Berkeley.

Buddy Lee

Ralph (Buddy) Lee is the Senior Documentation Manager at Jack Henry and Associates. He is responsible for the creation, delivery and management of user documentation and information help systems. He has over 30 years of documentation and education development experience. He retired from the US Submarine Force in 1994. In 1999, Buddy left retirement to begin a second career at Jack Henry, a hardware and software solution provider for the financial industry. During his career he has been a technical writer, an instructor, a curriculum developer and manager.

Robert Lee

Robert Lee is an 18-year veteran of the Information Development industry. He has managed major projects for Symantec, Microsoft, and Intel. Past products include Internet Explorer 5, Windows ME, and Windows Sharepoint Services. Robert has won numerous awards including

• Best of Show and Award for Distinguished Technical Communication, STC International Online Technical Communication Competition—May 2001
• Three Awards of Distinguished Technical Communication from San Diego, Phoenix, and Puget Sound STC Chapters
• Star Award, Symantec Corporation—June 2008
• Divisional Recognition Award, Intel Computing Enhancement Group—April 1997

Catherine Lyman

Catherine Lyman is director of Information Engineering at Network Appliance, a supplier of data management and storage systems. She has 21 years in the data storage and management industry. Seventeen of those years have been managing information development and delivery teams, including software developers, DBAs, writers, editors and production teams. She earned a BSE in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University.

Barbara McGuire

Barbara McGuire is a Principal Content Project Manager at Microsoft. She joined Microsoft in 1998 as a technical editor and has been involved with content publishing ever since, as both an individual contributor and manager. Currently, she works in an organization devoted to helping Microsoft teams develop great people, processes, and tools. In this capacity she serves as a performance consultant, instructional designer, and trainer. Prior to Microsoft she taught for seven years at the University of Washington, where she earned her Ph.D. from the English department and a teaching certificate from the Education department.

Palmer Pearson

Palmer Pearson holds the position of Operations Director at Cadence Design Systems in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. In this role, Palmer is responsible for Technical Publications, as well as Program Management for the Systems & Verification business unit. His writing teams are based in Chelmsford and in San Jose, California, with additional capabilities in India. With an excess of twenty years of management experience, Palmer has led technical publication and communication departments for companies such as, Data Terminal Systems, Analog Devices, Delphax Systems (a subsidy of the Xerox Corporation) and GenRad Corporation. He holds degrees in both English and Electronic Engineering.

Laura Readdy

Laura Readdy is a Senior Courseware Developer for the Learning Media Development division of Siemens PLM Software. With 25 years experience in the information technology area, she specializes in technical courseware design and delivery. Her current focus at Siemens PLM Software is the integration of courseware and online help for the product lifecycle management market. She has been able to apply her experience working with customers to apply a task driven approach to information development. Laura has a B.S. Mathematics/Computer Science from Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA.

Jaime Roberts

Jamie Roberts is the IBM Content Board Chair, and in this capacity he helps a large and varied content-providing community implement IBM's information strategy. In his career at IBM, he has also been responsible for User Assistance architecture across a large set of IBM products, and has helped develop UA mechanisms.

Helen Shaw

Helen Shaw manages the documentation teams for broadband access routers and Internet service activation software at Juniper Networks. Her current challenges include leading her teams to create customer-focused documentation in a topic-based format and working with global product teams. Helen has also worked as a technical writer, documentation lead, and publications manager for Nortel Networks and Unisphere Networks. She has an MA in Physics from Oxford University.

Chona Shumate

Chona Shumate has been a senior technical publications manager working at Cymer, Inc., a semiconductor company in San Diego, CA for the past 12 years. Prior to that, she worked as a technical writer for 8 years in Silicon Valley. She has a background in usability testing and topic-based/single-source information design. In her most recent project, she implemented an XML/DITA/CMS integrated system for developing, publishing, and repurposing large volumes of product information for Cymer's field service personnel. She holds a masters degree in Technical Communication, and is a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee.

Colleen Smith

Colleen Smith has managed a team of information developers at Teradata Corporation for 13 years. Her team successfully implemented a CMS/DITA pilot project solution in 2007. Now they are collaborating with other Teradata organizations to expand the solution.

Suzanne Sowinska

Suzanne Sowinska has been a part of Microsoft since 1994. She manages a team chartered with driving efficiency improvements, developing people, defining business processes, and deploying and sharing the best tools for Content Publishers at Microsoft. Suzanne is the recipient of awards for Distinguished Technical Communication from the International STC in 2002 and 2003, as well as 13 other awards in technical communication from the STC Puget Sound Chapter. She has 10 years of academic teaching experience and holds a PhD from the University of Washington.

Alan Theurer

Alan Theurer has worked for Microsoft since 1996. He is currently the Senior Content Publishing Manager for Windows Embedded products. Alan is responsible for the creation and deployment of content that helps developers bring devices to market—devices such as Ford Sync, ATM machines, retail kiosks, digital picture frames, portable navigation devices, and VOIP phones. Alan has 20 years of content experience including web-based and print-based content.

Daphne Walmer

Daphne Walmer is the Director of Technical Communications for the Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management division of Medtronic. Her department is responsible for manuals and online HELP for physicians and patients. Her team developed and maintains a global content management system that integrating authoring and language translation tools. She also led the development of a website for delivering information to customers worldwide. Daphne was responsible for a 2-year European pilot of electronic manuals with the goal of changing European laws and forging guidance for medical device information. Daphne has more than 25 years of experience managing technical communications at Medtronic, Fisher-Rosemount Systems, Inc., and CPT Corporation. Daphne taught technical writing during graduate work at the University of Minnesota. A senior member of Society for Technical Communication, she has been trained to facilitate business process improvements, and in 2005 she was an individual winner of Medtronic’s Star of Excellence for Quality.

Ron Watson

Ron Watson is currently responsible for the processes and worldwide use of Product Data Lifecycle Management (PDLM), supporting tools throughout ITT. As the Director of PDLM, Ron leads strategy and plan development, implementations, and provides corporate-level support for Product Data related processes and it’s more than 20 supporting applications. During his over 25-year career at ITT, Ron has held a variety of positions ranging from a designer/engineer of electro-mechanical equipment, to support engineer, to CAD administrator and system administrator.

In 2004, Ron led a team that launched the “ITT Global Vault”, a platform that is the foundation of ITT’s Product Development System for creating, collaborating, communicating, and managing product data. In 2006, in coordination with one of ITT’s largest businesses, he helped conceptualize and develop the framework for what would become the Global Enterprise Content Management System (GECM) for the automation of product documentation worldwide. This expanded Global Vault includes world class processes supported by PTC Arbortext and Isodraw for content creation, Astoria for Component Management and Idiom World Server for Translation Memory Services. Fully integrated, this is a state-of-the-art platform is used to support a defined set of processes that enable the secure sharing of product data information across the globe.