What values, traits, and  experiences do you bring to the office?

I am a diligent and reliable worker. I am also committed to my responsibilities. Although I have not held a similar office, I believe in the value of STC and the Intermountain Chapter. I would like to help the board continue to provide a forum for ideas and networking in the local community of technical communicators.

What is the most important challenge or issue you see facing the chapter, and what possible actions or solutions do you see?

The most important issue facing the chapter is member retention due to the change in member dues. A solution to this issue is to ensure the relevance of the local chapter. The current board has planned meetings and activities with a broad range of subjects and held the meetings in multiple locations. I would like to continue this diversity and accessibility over the next year. When possible, meetings should be summarized and/or recorded to be posted on the chapter website to benefit those who are unable to attend.

What values, traits, and  experiences do you bring to the office?

I value hard work and honesty. I value commitment and dependability. I value loyalty. I try to incorporate these values in my life and in my interactions with others.

In terms of my experience, I have two specific past experiences that prepare me to be president of the Intermountain Chapter of the STC. First, for the last year I’ve been serving as Vice President of this chapter. I’ve worked with the chapter board to plan and execute meetings that we believe have helped our chapter. Second, I served for a year as the Vice President for Utah Delta Epsilon Chi, an organization of business management and marketing students. As the vice president in that organization, I helped plan state-wide conferences and competitions and actually competed at a state and national level. This broad experience planning and executing events will help me work with next year’s chapter board to brainstorm, plan, and execute a program that will be beneficial to all the technical writers in our community.

What is the most important challenge or issue you see facing the chapter, and what possible actions or solutions do you see?

I believe in STC and the value that it can provide to our local chapter. However, I also recognize that 2010 is a year where our membership has dropped more than 60% over 2009 membership.

Along with the rest of the chapter board, I attribute this dramatic decline to two decisions made at the national level: (1) raising dues, and (2) making chapter membership an additional, optional fee.

As president, I will work with former members to invite them to and include them in our chapter’s activities. I’ll try to keep all activities either free or at a very low cost for former Chapter members.

I value the community that can be had here in our local chapter, and I hope that as president, I can pull people together during this challenging time, to help us all benefit from the networking and growing opportunities that come from larger (and thus more diverse) chapter meetings.

STC Service, awards, and honors:

• STC Sr. Member
• Intermountain STC Chapter Vice President 2009-2010

Education and other (non-STC) professional affiliations, awards, and honors:

• BA, Brigham Young University in English with emphasis in Technical Writing.
• AA, Salt Lake Community College in general studies.

• I’m a volunteer with Youth for Understanding (YFU), an organization dedicated to high school foreign exchange both in training American students going overseas, and working with host families and exchange students while they are here, in country.
• I was previously a member of Utah Delta Epsilon Chi, where I won several distinguished member awards, recognition awards, and placed at the State level in several competitions.

Professional Experience

• Sr. Technical Writer, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• Technical Writing Consultant, DocGuy Training.
• Certified Trainer in MadCap Flare, DocGuy Training.
• Technical Writer, Attensity Corporation.
• Associate Technical Writer, Sungard Higher Education.
• Technical Writer & Team Leader, Missionary Training Center, BYU.
• Technical Writer & Team Leader, Brigham Young University, Office of Information Technology.

Additional Comments

I appreciate your vote of confidence as we face this difficult time as a chapter. I will work hard to make this year a great year for all technical communicators in our community.

Contact Paul

If you want to contact Paul, you can e-mail him at: paulpehrson@gmail.com, or you can call him at 801-938-8391.

Ben Minson was elected as chapter president

Congratulations to Ben Minson, our new chapter president. 21% of chapter members voted in our election this year. Approval was unanimous. Marj Hermannsen-Eldard was also approved unanimously to continue as chapter treasurer.

Thanks to all who participated. If you have feedback or questions about the election, or if you have suggestions for next year, contact the webmaster.

Other positions will be filled by appointment. If you’re interested in serving in the chapter, visit the Volunteer Opportunities page.

For those who may have missed the election, here’s Ben’s bio for reference.

What values, traits, experience do you bring to the office?

I am an active member of the chapter. I believe that STC can bring a lot of benefits and professional improvement to its members.

I attend nearly every meeting and have co-presented in a chapter professional development meeting. I served in the position of vice president in the Utah State University student chapter several years ago, where in addition to my own responsibilities, I supported the president and filled in for her when needed. As the chapter webmaster over the last few months, I have supported the existing officers and contributed my input when it was asked for.

I’m not afraid to ask for assistance when I need it, and I know that a large part of a leader’s success is involving and relying on those around him. I am volunteering as president in order to assist the chapter and its officers and to give something of tangible benefit to the members.

What is the most important challenge or issue you see facing the chapter? What possible actions or solutions do you see?

Our biggest challenge this last year has been a reduction in participation and leadership. The officers who have hung in there have done a great job in keeping things together, but unfortunately, we found ourselves without a complete set of officers. This struggle may have led to lower participation from the chapter as a whole. The second greatest challenge is one that faces many technical communicators in general—showing indispensable value to employers.

I think the solutions to these challenges consist of the same solution: Getting to know from chapter members what they want out of STC and how it can benefit them and giving them opportunities to interact and learn from each other. Spending membership dues is largely a useless gesture if there isn’t some return on investment. I want to see an effort to get feedback from our members about what they would like to see happen in the chapter and obstacles they have to meeting together. We need to make sure we’re doing all we can to make STC events productive for as many members as possible. As we involve more people and benefit from each other’s experience and ideas, the value of STC will increase dramatically and will help our members demonstrate their professional value to employers.

As president, I would like to act immediately to bring our chapter members closer together and increase STC’s benefit to them.

Tell us about your STC service, awards, and honors.

I served as vice president, USU student chapter; co-presented with Tom Johnson to the Intermountain Chapter in February 2009. Most recently I have served as the website committee manager, or webmaster, for the Intermountain Chapter.

Education, other (non-STC) professional affiliations, awards, honors

I hold a Bachelor’s degree from Utah State University in English with an emphasis in Professional and Technical Writing. I received that program’s Student of the Year award in 2005. I also received the Association for the Tutoring Profession’s Tutor of the Year award that year for the work I did in the university’s Writing Center to increase its effectiveness.

At work, I have received the “Ship-It Award” for contributing to on-time releases of products for four projects.

What’s your professional experience?

I have worked as a technical communicator for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for nearly four years. I have also worked in contract technical writing positions. Deliverables have included online help, quick reference guides, video demonstrations, online and in-person training, and user manuals. I run a blog on technical communication at http://www.gryphonmountain.net.

Adobe Systems has published an article I wrote on managing localized projects using RoboHelp 8. I participate in the online Adobe RoboHelp forums and am classified as a senior member, having posted over 500 times since September of 2005.

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photo from Flickr