The following candidates are running for office of the Society for Technical Communication, Houston chapter:
For President: Erika Frensley
Erika Frensley has been involved with STC Houston for over two decades. She has worked as Competitions Manager, Banquet Manager, Competitions Judge, Satellite Director, and Webmaster. For the past two years she has been Chapter President.
For Vice President: Lara Tellis
Lara Tellis is a technical writer working for Emerson in Houston. She grew up in Charleston, West Virginia and got her BA in French from the College of Wooster and her MA in Professional (Technical) Communication from Clemson University. Lara has been an active member of the Society for Technical Communication since 2009. She has served as secretary for the Technical Editing Special Interest Group, and her roles in the Houston chapter have included secretary, vice president, and treasurer. Lara is looking forward to volunteering with STC Houston for another year.
For Secretary: Trena Erdelt
Trena Erdelt is a Technical Writer at Fiserv. She began her career in technical communications in 1997. Trena was previously active in the Houston STC community, including serving for two years on the Admin Council. Next year, Trena hopes to resume contributing to the STC Houston community as the Secretary.
For Treasurer: Jennifer Shumate
Jennifer Shumate is a lone technical writer for the OneSync® software suite, a drilling engineering software package for planning and monitoring wells. Jennifer is deeply passionate about using technical communication to improve the user experience. She has ten years of experience in the technical communication field, and she’s spent the last seven years pushing MadCap Flare to its limits. Before joining Weatherford, she worked at Shell Trading and Borland Software. She earned a B.A. in English from Texas State University, and she was a judge for the 2016 STC Regional Competition for the Houston-NYC region. She was also a speaker at the 2018 STC Summit. She is a senior member of STC and belongs to the User Experience SIG.
For Director: Noel Atzmiller
Noel Atzmiller has a 35-year technical communication career that includes work in petroleum refining, computer hardware, network OS, and oil/gas equipment manufacturing. Noel is currently the Manager of Technical Publications at Baker Hughes, a GE Company (BHGE), where he assists staff in the production of technical papers for oil/gas conferences. Noel provides many services including document editing, training for writing conference abstracts and papers, and user support for a corporate document management system. He has led more than 55 technical writing training sessions in the last 5 years to BHGE staff in eight countries. Noel recently lead an education session at the 2018 STC Summit. He has served as a Director and a Treasurer for the STC Houston Chapter.
For Director: Katherine Kim
Katherine Kim began her career by writing curriculum for middle and high school students, and then transitioned to technical writing for energy companies. She has worked on key documentation for about a dozen clients in the oil and gas industry. Her focus is now on capturing work processes within companies and editing articles for publication in scientific journals. Katherine was named the STC Houston Person of the Year for 2014-2015 and has served as a Director of the Houston chapter for three years.
For Director: Kimberly Mankiewicz
Kim is currently Technical Writer III for the Ruiz Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at the McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). She holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics from MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston and a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Marquette University (Milwaukee, WI). She currently serves as also serves as Director for the Society for Technical Communication Houston Chapter, as well as Councilor, Membership and Communications for the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences, Assistant Program Chair and Social Media Coordinator for the American Medical Writers Association Southwest Chapter, and Chair, Social Media and Website for the Association for Women in Science Gulf Coast Houston Chapter. Kim is a certified Editor in the Life Sciences (ELS) and an expert in communicating science to various audiences through lay and technical venues.
