Bernard Aschwanden
Bernard Aschwanden is a recognized publishing technologies expert. He is an Adobe Certified Expert, a Certified Technical Trainer, and the author of numerous articles on xml-based publishing and single sourcing. He is the founder and President of Publishing Smarter. Bernard is a past president of the Society for Technical Communication.
Phylise Banner
Phylise Banner is a learning experience designer with over 25 years of vision, action, and leadership experience in transformational teaching and learning approaches within academia and industry. A pioneer in online learning, she regularly seeks out and embraces opportunities to experiment with emerging pedagogies and technologies in order to best serve learners, and to create vibrant and engaged communities of practice. She is a Certified Learning Environment Architect, Adobe Education Leader, STC Fellow, performance storyteller, avid angler, and aviatrix. She is also the proud owner of a 1967 Amphicar. Phylise has recently become Director of Education for STC.
Wendy Barnhart
Wendy Barnhart is the Director of Diversity and Inclusion — soon to be Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) — for the PMI Rochester Chapter. She is an STC Senior Member and former President of the STC Rochester Chapter. Having worked as a technical communicator and project manager in both diverse and not-so-diverse organizations and teams, Wendy is passionate about DEI and social justice. As her day job, Wendy is a Senior Project Manager for a cloud-based software company that uses both Agile and Kanban methodologies.
Alisa Bonsignore
Alisa Bonsignore clarifies complex ideas from her office in the San Francisco Bay Area. She helps clients place each project into a broader content strategy for a seamless omnichannel customer experience. Her experience spans several industries over more than two decades. Alisa has long specialized in healthcare and network security, and is increasingly involved with sustainability communications — helping organizations tell their sustainability stories in a way that benefits both people and the planet. She holds a professional certificate in Sustainability Strategy from Arizona State University. She is a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops, and is serving her second term on the board of directors for the Society for Technical Communication.
Chuck Campbell
Chuck works at the New York Power Authority as a Manager of Instructional Technology Solutions. He has created and delivered numerous technical presentations over the past 25 years to small and large clients, including the U.S. Navy, U.S. Postal Service, Federal Express, Cargill, U.S. Department of Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and Norwich Pharmaceuticals. He has also presented at several STC chapter conferences, including Interchange and Spectrum, and has given webinars for STC and SIGs. Chuck’s passion is learning and mastering new technologies, then teaching those technologies to others. He is always looking for new ways to engage learners, including eLearning, gamification, and other training methods and technologies.
Stephani Clark
Stephani Clark is the Director of Customer Success for easyDITA, a DITA Component Content Management System based in Rochester. She works to train and assist users of easyDITA’s software. Stephani lives in Rochester, NY with her husband and four-year old son. Stephani enjoys spending time with her family, cooking, reading, traveling, and organizing anything and everything.
Velizar Demirev
Velizar Demirev is a Customer Success Manager at Jorsek Inc, makers of easyDITA. Most of the time he is supporting customers or learning about DITA. Any remaining time is focused on growing the startup ecosystem in western New York.
Tim Esposito
Timothy Esposito is a Principal Technical Writer at Oracle Corporation where he works on logistics software. He has served in many roles for the Philadelphia Metro Chapter, including Webmaster and President. Additionally, Tim has participated in STC budget review committees and worked on the Scholarship Committee, Community Affairs Committee, Intercom Award Committee, and Summit Conference Committee. Tim has chaired STC committees including the Distinguished Chapter Service Award Committee, Community Achievement Award/Community Pacesetter Committee, and Associate Fellows Committee. He has written book reviews for Technical Communication Journal, helped plan the STC NY-PMC-Rochester-New England-Atlanta regional competition, and assisted in organizing and running the PMC Conference, CONDUIT. Tim is a fellow of STC.
Liz Fraley
Liz Fraley, Single-Sourcing Solutions, is a serial entrepreneur. She’s founded two companies, sits on the boards of three non-profits, and is constantly coming up with new ways to share knowledge in the technical communications and content industries. She has worked in high-tech and government sectors, at companies of all different sizes (from startups to huge enterprises). She advocates approaches that directly improve organizational efficiency, productivity, and interoperability. For years, Liz has worked with clients guiding them through the getting started process with Arbortext, enabling them to be efficient content creators. She knows her customers want to do it themselves and that they just don’t want to do it alone.
John Freiberger
John has been a technical writer for Bosch Security Systems, Inc. and Alstom Signaling, and is currently with LenelS2. He holds a BA in Secondary Education from SUNY Oswego and an MS in Information Design & Technology from SUNY Polytechnic Institute. John continues to learn about visual design, visual communication, and emerging technologies. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with family and friends, running, playing guitar, and reading.
MaryKay Grueneberg
MaryKay has been a professional technical communicator for 36 years. She is a writer and editor and has ten years of team management experience. She is a Certified Professional Technical Communicator and an STC Fellow. She believes in the importance of communication in every facet of life and enjoys helping to demystify technical things. She currently is a Senior User Assistance Developer at SAP and is a remote employee working with multiple global teams. She has presented at LavaCon, Spectrum, Leadership Days at STC Summits, and STC Chicago meetings.
Rob Hanna
Rob Hanna co-founded Precision Content in 2013 to change the way writers approach structured authoring. Having spent more than decade helping organizations move to component content management he realized that organizations need to take a step beyond technology and expert consultants. Without fostering the necessary standards and skills to work in this new media, organizations would continue to stall in their attempt to move to structured authoring. With this knowledge, he developed the Precision Content® methods, tools, and training. Today, Rob and his team of experts help their clients move to structured authoring as seamlessly as possible.
Carolyn Klinger
Carolyn Kelley Klinger is a Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC), STC Fellow, and Adobe Certified PDF Accessibility Trainer. A technical writer with a Master’s degree in Geography, Carolyn now works in the biomedical informatics field for Leidos Biomedical Research at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Carolyn has served the Washington, DC-Baltimore STC chapter in all roles and has served STC on the Nominating Committee and Community Affairs Committee. She currently co-leads the competition for the STC Alliance and manages student volunteers at the STC Summit. She speaks often to individuals, schools, and professional groups about careers in technical communication and accessibility for electronic documents.
Kelly Schrank
Kelly Schrank has been in technical and medical communication for over 20 years. Her business, Bookworm Editing Services, has two focuses: editing policies and procedures for information technology departments and formatting and editing formulary dossiers for pharmaceutical clients. She also edits proposals, marketing materials, slide decks, websites, training materials, and many other types of technical and medical documents. Schrank is an Associate Fellow of STC and the current President of the STC Rochester Chapter, Co-Manager of the Technical Editing SIG, and the Marketing and Promotions Councilor for the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS).
Judith Shenouda
Judith Shenouda is owner of Shenouda Associates Inc., a local business that researches, writes, and edits the many professional publications that streamline processes, launch products, and promote each client’s brand. She is also author and publisher of Career Success in 12 Easy Steps: A Journal; A Bisl of This, A Bisl of That: Eating Our Way; and Living Well in Froggy’s World of Plenty: Sweet Talk to Read Aloud.
Kirk St. Amant
Kirk St.Amant is a Professor and Eunice C. Williamson Endowed Chair in Technical Communication and Research Faculty Member with the Center for Biomedical Engineering and Rehabilitation Science (CBERS) at Louisiana Tech University. Kirk also serves as the Director of Tech’s Usability Studies Research Center and its Health and Medical Communication Research Center.
Gretchen Stahlman
Gretchen Stahlman is the owner of The Write Angle, Inc. Working with corporate clients, Gretchen and her team have created everything from cheat sheets to entire libraries of integrated online help, printable guides, and videos on topics ranging from pharmacy to fast food. She earned a BS in Computer Science at the dawn of the personal computer, and continually thrills at the evolution of technology and the improvements it makes in our lives.
Dale Waldt
Dale Waldt is an Information Architect consultant with 30+ years experience in XML application design in a variety of challenging legislative, regulatory and technical documentation publishing environments. Recent work includes semantic enrichment, legacy content conversion, and authoring systems design. Dale also writes and speaks frequently to technical and non-technical audience on the adoption of content technology, and is a lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the College of Media Arts and Technology.
Ben Woelk
Ben Woelk is Program Manager for the Information Security Office at the Rochester Institute of Technology and is a member and former co-chair of the EDUCAUSE Higher Education Information Security Council Awareness and Training Working Group. Ben is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC). Ben holds degrees from the University of Florida, Trinity International University, the University of Rochester, and an Advanced Certificate in Technical Information Design from RIT. His interests include helping others develop security awareness programs and providing mentoring and coaching to aspiring introverted leaders. Ben hosts the Hope for the Introvert podcast, a series of conversations with and about introverted leaders. Ben is the President of the Society for Technical Communication.
