STC-Phila. Metro Chapter

Society for Technical Communication

Volunteer for the STCPMC Treasurer Position Today!

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Volunteer opportunities are everywhere. Great volunteer opportunities are a little harder to find, no?

The Philadelphia Chapter of STC urgently needs a Treasurer. Our acting Treasurer has given it her all and more (and we are so grateful), but, alas, it is time to pass the mantle.

This officer position is low-effort, high-impact. Yes, you read that right. The role involves keeping up with our PayPal account, the chapter checking account and a couple of spreadsheets. You also need to have an eye for numbers, but, well, rocket science this ain’t.

The rewards are many, but in a nut shell, you get to work with a small, but vibrant and growing chapter whose members and other officers see to it that our events and programs represent the best of the Philly tech comm community. If you’ve been thinking about getting more involved with the chapter, could use something shiny for your resume, and have a little bit of bandwidth to spare each month, we could sure use you.

Take a look at the officer position descriptions here and reach out to us at president@stcpmc.org. You can bet we will get right back to you on next steps! 

In Memoriam: Donn R. DeBoard – 1954-2020

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Donn DeBoardOn August 25, 2020, STC Fellow and longtime member Donn DeBoard passed away. He was 66.

Donn was one of the first people I became friends with in the STC. I had just finished attending my first STC-Philadelphia Mid-Atlantic Technical Communication Conference (now known as CONDUIT) back in 2013. I was very nervous about meeting new people at the post-conference social. However, once I arrived at the restaurant, I sat down next to a quiet, reserved, yet very friendly individual. He introduced himself as Donn DeBoard and started to put me at ease and pull me out of my shell. We chit-chatted about our families–his daughter was just about to graduate from college, and he was rather proud of her accomplishments. He patiently listened to me tell him about how I had just restarted my career in tech comm, and about raising my own son. That night, a friendship with Donn DeBoard was forged.

During my short friendship with Donn, I came to learn about how passionate he was about tech comm–as much as I was. The trick was that he’d been doing it a LOT longer. I was among the proud attendees from Philadelphia who were able to see Donn receive his STC Fellow award in 2014. It was truly an honored moment for him, for sure! I had also gotten to know Donn for his work within our Philadelphia Metro chapter supporting the academic outreach program. During his tenure, he had built up incredible partnerships with local colleges and universities, but especially with Drexel, his alma mater, and was able to create a viable scholarship competition program for students. On the Society level, he was on the Nominating Committee, worked hard on the scholarship program, received the Distinguished Chapter Service Award, and presented at many local, regional, and international conferences. He was a force to be reckoned with!

The things that I remember most about Donn was his joy and willingness to help others out in the field–which is probably why he gravitated towards students and new technical communicators. As I shared the news of his passing with others from STC-PMC who had worked with him, several had said that he had helped them get a job in tech comm when they needed it most, or he was a fantastic mentor to them as they got started. He always jumped at the opportunity to serve as a mentor to many new professionals seeking guidance in this field. He was always curious, always open to learning new things in this ever-changing field, and adapt with the times.

For me personally, he was a different kind of mentor. As I ascended the ranks of the chapter leadership, Donn was always available to lend an ear and give advice. His wisdom influenced many decisions on chapter leadership. He was dedicated to protecting the chapter that he’d helped to build and maintain over the years.  After dealing with some health issues, Donn came back after a sabbatical from the Philadelphia chapter council to help with our chapter rebuilding, and ran for the new role of Secretary/Treasurer this year. We were so happy to have him back in the fold as we just kicked off our program year. Alas, he was unable to see the changes going forward with his passing.

All those I’ve talked to since passing along the news of his death have said the same thing. Donn was one of the nicest people you’d ever meet–a truly kind, good, soft-spoken person, who was easily amused by the silliest jokes from those around him, and someone who contributed so much to the STC. He was always wanting to help and support those around him, and took every opportunity he could to do so.  He was passionate about his activities with the STC, as it made up a prominent part of who he was. Even his obituary prominently highlighted his activities and accomplishments with the STC.

https://www.maugergivnish.com/obituary/donn-deboard

Donn was a member of the STC for almost 35 years, and his exuberance for the STC was with him right up until the end. The STC will certainly miss this bright light, but not more than those of us in his own Philadelphia Metro Chapter who will miss him the most.

–Danielle M. Villegas, STC-PMC Immediate Past President

Donn in action:

Council 2016
Donn as a member of the STC-PMC 2016 Council
Council 2012
Donn in the STC-PMC 2012 Council

 

Donn participating at CONDUIT.
Donn presenting at CONDUIT (He also presented often at STC Summit, too).
Donn representing STC-PMC at a local event.
Donn attending an Introverted Leadership workshop at CONDUIT.
Donn at CONDUIT, always socializing.
Donn at an STC-PMC Holiday Party.
Donn receiving recognition as one of the STC-PMC’s first recipients of our award for 30th anniversaries with the STC.
Donn getting recognition at an STC-PMC Year-End Banquet and Awards event.
Donn when he received his Associate Fellow at the 2011 STC Summit.
Donn when he received Fellow at the 2014 STC Summit.

 

Meet The New STC-PMC 2020-2021 Council

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We are pleased to announce that we have a new STC-PMC council. We were not only able to bring on new officers, but we also have some new faces that will be part of our council going forward.  Between our new President, new Treasurer/Secretary, and our new Director-Volunteers, we are confident that our chapter is going to take off in a positive direction with our new leadership and operational model.

Our Officers:

President:

Jen Heller Meservey
Jen Meservey

Treasurer/Secretary:

Donn DeBoard
Donn DeBoard

Immediate Past President:

Danielle M. Villegas
Danielle

We’d also like to introduce you to our new team of volunteers for this year (as of this writing):

Directors:

Jamie Sanecki
image of Jamie Sanecki

Jamie Sanecki is a staff writer at the University of Pennsylvania and a freelance editor specializing in academic writing. She served as Vice President as STC-PMC from 2019-2020 and worked as a technical writer at Comcast after earning a Ph.D. in art history and working in academia. When she’s not busy with professional activities, you’re likely to find her on a trapeze, in a kayak, or at a museum.

Lyrae Johnson
Lyrae Johnson
Lyrae Johnson is a 20+ year IT professional who recently realized she has been a technical writer for almost as long.  Her career has included stints in project management, application development, production support, and vendor governance in both private and public sector organizations.  Heeding an inner voice calling for ‘Lyrae 2.0’ and feeling shifting winds in the labor market, she enrolled in Drexel University’s MSc Communication program in pursuit of the Technical Communications major.  Armed with shiny new skills in structured authoring, web design and usability testing; she is wading – sans floaties – into the tech comm community.  Lyrae, a proud Bostonian living in Wilmington DE, is a French-speaker and travel geek.

Lori Meyer
Lori Meyer
Lori Meyer is a technical communicator in Northern California, where she develops and edits cybersecurity software documentation. During her years as an STC member, she has served many STC communities in a variety of roles, including chapter president, SIG co-manager, secretary, treasurer, webmaster, employment manager, communications manager, and conference co-chair. She is the new president of the Rochester Chapter and current membership manager of the Instructional Design and Learning SIG, and also volunteers for the Washington DC-Baltimore and Florida chapters. Lori has received Distinguished Community Service awards from five STC communities, President’s Awards from three chapters, and the Spotlight Award from the Florida chapter. In 2015, Lori was honored as an STC Fellow. Lori has been a member of the Philadelphia Metro chapter for more than five years, and is looking forward to serving the chapter.

Angelina Simms
Angelina Simms
Angelina Simms believes in the importance of giving back and helping others. In addition to her Information Systems studies at Immaculata University, she assists families and caregivers in finding community resources for their loved ones with disabilities. She also has a deep interest in how technology intersects with education and healthcare to help empower people. When Angelina is not at her day job in digital healthcare or trying to keep up with her son’s assistive technology devices, she is often reading, learning about cybersecurity leadership through her mentor-led networking cohort, connecting family and friends, and spending as much time as she can outdoors.

Maureen Scallatino
Maureen Scallatino
Maureen came to the STC-PMC last year and served as Publicity Chair. Her 30 years of marketing, and five years of social media and web experience enable the chapter to promote its events, services and news across multiple online channels. Her design background enriches our monthly newsletter with colorful layouts and interesting content. Currently, Maureen is a freelance social media strategist and web content writer.

If you would like to volunteer this year, contact president@stcpmc.org.

Meet the Candidates – 2020 STC-PMC Leadership Election

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2020 has presented us with a lot of challenges this year, and yet we continue to push through them! This includes our reorganization of our chapter leadership structure and operational model.

The current president, Danielle Villegas, automatically assumes the position of immediate past-president. After several weeks of keeping the nominations open, we are proud to introduce our candidates for officer election. We are fortunate that all our candidates are veterans of our STC-PMC councils from the past, and have stepped up to take the chapter through our next steps!  Here are the candidates:

President:

Jen Heller Meservey

Jen MeserveyJen Heller Meservey has been a professional technical writer for eight years. She started out freelancing and more recently has been working as an independent contractor for a variety of companies. Her main focus is end user software documentation, but she is also interested in chat bot writing and conversation design. She has a master’s in Technical Communication from Northeastern University and a Bachelor’s in Communication from Southern New Hampshire University. Jen was the STC-PMC secretary and membership chair from 2018 to 2019. She was also on the Board of Directors and served as the secretary for the Circadian Sleep Disorders Network, a nonprofit organization that works to raise awareness of circadian rhythm sleep disorders, from 2017 until earlier this year. Currently, Jen is building online knowledge bases for two software fintech companies while returning to Northeastern to earn a graduate certificate in usability online.

Lori Corbett

Lori CorbettLori Corbett has been a technical communicator for more than 30 years, during which time, STC has played a pivotal role. Having lived in several east coast states, Lori has been active member in four local chapters and during the years when she worked as an independent contractor was also active with the Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG. After moving to the Philadelphia suburbs in 2002, she quickly found the Philadelphia Metro chapter and started volunteering in many capacities, including newsletter and our local annual conferences. After serving as chapter president, 2007-2009, Lori was awarded the STC honor of Associate Fellow, and was the conference support manager when the STC Summit was held in Philadelphia and was elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the 2010-2012 term. Last year, when the elected secretary for our chapter could not fulfill those duties, as the election runner-up, Lori was asked to fill in, which she happily did. Having served at the chapter level in most positions, Lori has said that she sees serving as president for the coming year as an opportunity to help chapter members find their strengths and learn the best things they can do to begin the path of building our chapter back up.

Treasurer/Secretary

Donn DeBoard

Donn DeBoardDonn DeBoard is an experienced technical content developer in the software and financial services industries. He has over 30 years of continuous learning in the evolving art and science of technical communications.  He is an STC Fellow who has been recognized for creating award-winning customer- centered content. Donn is also a long-time member of the STC-PMC chapter.  Donn is an experienced speaker and has presented on a variety of topics on technical communications and user experience. He is a Technical Writer III at Vertex, Inc, a provider of integrated tax technology solutions for corporations world-wide that is based in King of Prussia, PA. Donn is extremely curious and asks way too many questions.

Chapter elections will start on Wednesday, July 8th, 2020, and will end at noon on Friday, July 17th.  Only STC-PMC members who were registered members as of July 1 will be allowed to vote. Those members will be sent an email with voting instructions.  Please be sure to vote! It will only take moments to do, and it’s critical to the continuation of our chapter.  If you are a chapter member and you don’t receive your election email, please contact president@stcpmc.org.

As the Directors are volunteers and do not need to be elected in, the new Directors will be announced along with the winners of the election on July 18th.

Good luck to our candidates, and we appreciate all who have stepped up to help the chapter!

Cocktails & Coffee – Virtual Social Event

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images of a latte being poured, and a cocktail being pouredSeveral STC chapters around the world wanted to get together for a virtual social. Since we will be in different time zones, hence the social will be “Cocktails and Coffee”, depending on where you are in the world.

If you’d like to connect with other STC members around the world while sipping on your beverage of choice, here’s the Zoom information:

Date and Time: Jul 2, 2020 @15:00 UTC (That’s 11:00 AM in Philadelphia)
Link to register on Zoom: https://bit.ly/202007-cocktails-and-coffee

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