Dominic Brown
Profile
An accomplished writer and editor, adept at clarifying and streamlining complex technical material. An experienced, foresighted project manager, rarely caught unprepared by anything. A good listener, approachable colleague, generous contributor of original ideas. A detail-oriented document specialist with outstanding software skills. Writing Editing
Wrote advertising, advertorial and op-ed copy for
the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology.
Copy-edited 26 complex corporate practice
documents for BC Hydro (35–130 pages each)
Led a team to create the City of Vancouver’s
Green City DVD for the 2010 Winter Games—
wrote 34 fact sheets, media centre displays, etc
Edited APEGBC’s Organizational Quality
Management guidelines and handbook, distributed
to 25,000 BC engineers and geoscientists
Wrote outdoor display copy and print ad copy for
City of Vancouver environmental initiatives
Edited an expert consortium’s draft CSA standard
on hearing protection programs.
Wrote a white paper on organizational culture
and language for Sierra Systems
Copy-edited proposals etc for consulting firms in
IT and environmental engineering
Wrote restaurant reviews, company profiles, and
news articles for periodicals including Outdoor
Lifestyle, The Westender, and The Source.
Substantively edited the Regional Aquatics
Monitoring Program site describing the Athabasca
oil-sands area—the river, people, environmental
and water quality issues—and the Orange-Senqu
River Awareness Kit, describing a vast watershed
in southern Africa, with competing political,
economic, social, and environmental interests.
Wrote and edited successful newsletters for
Mensa (a national award-winner), and an insurance
broker (distributed throughout Western Canada)
Document Design Software Skills
Created a new design language for BC Hydro
(internal planning documents, work aids, & forms)
to modernize and improve 150 existing templates
Word—outstanding, with experience in
structured documents using styles, tables of
contents, indexing, mail merges, conditional text
Designed new standard templates for reports &
proposals, used by 2,000+ employees of Sierra
Systems at 15 offices across North America
Excel—expert, especially in chart design, including interactive charts and Tufte-inspired design for
better comprehension and interpretation
Designed newsletters, brochures, catalogues,
business cards and flyers for varied clients
SharePoint—skilled user, basic administrator;
experienced with other CMSs & version control.
Developed complex WordPerfect macros to
automate the production of heavily-illustrated
research reports
PowerPoint, Visio—very good
Adobe Creative Suite—fair
Dominic Brown adabgm@r.postjobfree.com
Relevant Experience
Education
1981–85 University of Manitoba—physics, English.
2002–present Contract work in environmental science, education, utilities, securities, publicity Writing and editing for print and digital distribution—mainly promotional, informational, technical, instructional, and regulatory. Desktop publishing and document processing including document conversion, single-source publication, compilation of long, complex, structured technical documents. Recent employers and freelance clients include MITT, APEG-BC, Halifax Regional Municipality, BC Hydro, ESSA Technologies, and the City of Vancouver. 2000–2002 Sierra Systems Group Inc (enterprise software) Supervising three co-workers in the Document Management Group, creating proposals & reports using MS Word, PowerPoint and Visio, and advertisements, brochures etc. using Illustrator & Photoshop. Scheduling and distributing work, negotiating deadlines, setting priorities. Serving as a design and word-processing lead hand. Editing, proofreading, and formatting complex documents. Technical writing and editing exclusively from late 2001.
1998–2000 Macdonald, Shymko, & Company Ltd (financial advisors) Newsletter writing and production, advanced word processing, (including complex mail-merges), proof-reading and copy-editing, maintenance and systematic improvement of the client database, tape transcription. 1995–1998 Seabury & Smith Ltd (insurance brokers)
Extensive copy editing and writing on proposals and documentation, newsletter production, presentations, and brochure layout.
1993–1995 Contract work in manufacturing, utilities, mining, energy Advanced word processing; help-desk user support; teaching Word, WordPerfect; copy writing and editing including promotional material, minutes, and contracts. 1992–1993 Campbell Goodell Consultants (market and public-opinion researchers) Coding complex WordPerfect macros to automate work flow, minor report writing
& copy editing, with some elementary statistical analysis of research results. Dominic Brown adabgm@r.postjobfree.com