About Reg

Experience

Background

Reg has long had an interest in writing, but didn’t become a Technical Writer until 2004. Prior to that, he had spent many years working in IT, initially in mainframe operations, then in programming, database administration, systems software programming and administration, technical support team leadership, and project management. His desire to document the systems and facilities that he worked on (and his colleagues’ desire to let him!) provided proof that “the lad had potential” as a Technical Writer, and his work on programming standards documentation even made it to Philips Electronics’ IT Department in the Netherlands.
Over the course of his career in IT, he has worked in the car delivery, recorded music, insurance, and oil and gas industries.

Technical Writing

As a technical writer, he has worked in the oil and gas, livestock health, and feedlot management industries, writing on topics as diverse as computer program specifications, user guides for cattle and grain purchase contracting, and Health, Safety and the Environment in the oil and gas industry.

Reg’s technical writing activities tend to be seasonal, as he also runs an event videography business which keeps him almost fully occupied from May to the middle of September. For the last several years, he has worked short term contracts and on-demand contracts, arrangements that have worked well for both him and his clients.

Reg’s technical writing experience has been almost exclusively as a “team of one”. He’s used to team work in his former IT career though, and would welcome the opportunity to be a member of a writing team.

Skills

Reg’s strengths are his ability to listen and seek clarity, his command of the written English language, his engaging writing style, and his pedantry.

His primary writing tools are the MS Office products (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Publisher, Visio). He also works a little with Photoshop.

His extensive experience in IT allows him to understand the concepts, tools, and practices peculiar to that group of professions.

He has worked with MadCap Flare (almost as popular an online Help Authoring Tool as RoboHelp) and has maintained a couple of websites for several years using hand-coded HTML.

Reg is also a professional videographer, and therefore has the skills and equipment to include video in technical documentation.

Non-work Activities

Reg has spent more time on stage than his audiences would have preferred him to, making music and performing in plays.

Reg is a member of Dewdney Players Group Theatre, a community theatre group based in Okotoks. He has acted in several productions, most notably (and weirdly) as one of Cinderella’s stepsisters (1995) and as Aladdin’s mother (2002). He also compiles most of the group’s show programs, and has been responsible for a number of script overhauls and enhancements.

Reg plays guitar in a band that performs occasionally in public (although rarely for money!)

Reg has been a Cub Scout Leader for over 20 years in Okotoks.