Welcome back, STC Houston members and friends! We’re all set for another great program season and looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday, September 8 at the American Red Cross (2700 Southwest Fwy.)

The old saying, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime,” might be apropos for this month’s program from STC Houston’s Noel Atzmiller.

Teaching technical writing to engineers can be a challenge, and yet can help improve business communications greatly. When faced with such a task, hearing some “lesson learned” from other technical communicators who have met this challenge can be helpful.

Noel Atzmiller, Manager of Technical Publications at Baker Hughes, has led more than 30 technical writing teaching sessions to engineers. From these experiences, he has gathered several lessons learned that would be useful to other technical communicators who face this challenge.

Noel’s fast-paced presentation explains these lessons learned and provides many candid comments on “what works.”

Come join us for our usual networking from 5:30 p.m. to 6, followed by chapter announcements and Noel’s program. (More details or purchase the program package for the season here. It’s about time to reconnect and catch up with STC friends!

Noel-2014Noel Atzmiller has a technical communication career that spans 32 years and includes work in several industries including natural gas transmission, petroleum refining, computer hardware, network software, and oil field tool assembly and maintenance. He has authored four articles on the origin and early development of key oilfield technologies for publication in an industry magazine.

In 2011, Noel was awarded the Best of Show at the STC Summit for a document that chronicled the 75-year history of Baker Atlas, a former division of Baker Hughes.

Noel is currently the Manager of Technical Publications at Baker Hughes, where he assists authors with their technical abstracts and papers by overseeing a network application that circulates the documents for review. He also leads technical writing training for Baker Hughes staff at international and continental US offices.

Noel has been a Houston resident since 1977, when he and his family moved from Phoenix, Arizona. He and his wife have been married 43 years, and they have two daughters and three grandchildren.