» work experience

2002-Ongoing » Matrikon, Inc. (http://www.matrikon.com)
Web Developer
Edmonton, AB

Matrikon is currently employing me as a web developer in their Products division. Current duties include development of product tutorials, and responsibility over look and feel of their products.

The position looks very promising, and has great expansion potential.

2000-2002 » Merilus Inc (http://www.merilus.com)
Creative Director
Chilliwack, BC

Merilus exposed me to a much higher workload. Due to its status as a startup company, I have had to wear many hats as the creative department, from artist to technical writer. Work duties covered two major areas: Layout and composition.

Layout duties consisted of creating and maintaining the Merilus website and Intranet, print advertisements, product collateral and product documentation. My product advertisements have garnered praise from fellow employees, resellers and major advertising firms such as BBDO Needham.

In addition to my normal creative duties, I advised with the development team on several look and feel issues with the Inferno application itself, specifically co-authoring the Device Configuration Wizard with Dana Epp and Alan Bailward.

Although my focus lately has been on creating compelling product advertisements, I have retained strong control over the general tone of our external communications. Composition duties currently include creation and maintenance of product documentation, maintenance of Website copy and editing of sales copy. I have also served as Project Editor for a private publication by Merilus CEO Dana Epp, entitled "Computer Security Concepts: Managing Business Threats in a Wired Word."

Merilus is a strongly Linux-oriented company. As such, I've grown a large Linux knowledge base, including Apache setup and configuration and basic firewall knowledge. I've also gained respect for the open source community, and have extended their principles to my own web creations, offering them freely to those who want them.

2001 » Movable Type (http://movabletype.org)
Beta Team Member
Online

Shortly before its release, I joined the beta team for Movable Type. Duties included application testing and bug reporting. I still remain active with the community, regularly visiting the support forums, offering help for new end-users and making feature requests for future development.

From their website:

Movable Type is a web-based personal publishing system. It is designed to ease maintenance of regularly-updated news or journal sites, like weblogs. The Movable Type system runs on your own web server, giving you complete control over your site.

More information can be found at http://www.movabletype.org.

1999-Ongoing » nasty (http://nasty.cx)
Publisher, co-founder
Edmonton, AB, Abbotsford, BC

Co-founded nasty, an online academic journal specializing in the humanities, with Kirsten C. Uszkalo in 1999. Duties as publisher include maintenance and design of the website, as well as content management duties.

nasty has served as a playground of sorts for me. As publisher, I have complete creative control over the look and layout of the publication; as a result, I've been able to experiment and learn about different methods of presenting content.

1999-2000 » WorldGate Inc (now defunct)
Technical Writer, Webmaster
Edmonton, AB

Responsibilities included maintenance of website, creation of marketing material and online support system (viewable at http://www.worldgate.ca/support/). See Print section of the portfolio for sample of print work.

Although my stay at WorldGate was relatively brief, it helped me to develop my web authoring skills further and whetted my appetite for working in print media.

1998-1999 » NetMaster (now Merilus Inc)
Technical Writer
Chilliwack, BC

Part-time duties included maintenance of corporate website and internal/external documentation. Additional duties included interface design for web application and production of promotional material.

NetMaster was my first technical writing gig; One of my first duties there was to create user documentation for their NICS product. I convinced them to move from Corel WordPerfect to Adobe PageMaker, for more portability between online and print versions of the documentation.

1998-1999 » Internet Direct (now Look Communications).
Customer Support
Vancouver, BC

Part time duties included customer service and technical support. Spearheaded effort to provide Linux support to advanced customers.

Internet Direct gave me the ability to work through problems in a more efficient manner, but it also gave me the ability to see User Interface problems from the user-side and explain how to solve problems in an easy and efficient manner. This has been invaluable from a web-design perspective, as I've been able to identify problems before they hit production.

1992-1998 » Mediasolas Publishing (now defunct)
Designer/Developer
Abbotsford, BC

Worked on a sub-contract basis for larger firms to create websites and written material.

» education

1996-1999, 2002 » University of British Columbia
Bachelor of Arts (English)
Vancouver, BC

Studied a variety of disciplines, specializing in modern Canadian literature and Canadian history.

1994-1996 » Kwantlen College
General Arts
Surrey, BC

General arts program focusing on English literature and composition, augmented by Art History and Design courses, Psychology and European history.

1992-1993 » University College of the Fraser Valley
General Arts
Abbotsford, BC

General studies with emphasis on Computer Science, English and Economics.