ACC Business & Technical Communications: Faculty

Austin Community College
Business & Technical Communication Program: Faculty

Adjunct BTCM faculty do not necessarily teach every semester. The following is a general listing of individuals who have taught in the ACC Business & Technical Communications program in the past five years. If you are interested in teaching business and technical communication courses at ACC, contact David McMurrey, department head. (Be aware that ACC's accreditation agency requires that only people with degrees in English, Rhetoric & Composition, or Technical Communication can teach in this program.)

David A. McMurrey, Ph.D., Department Chair Eleven years at IBM Corporation as editor and writer; co-author (with David Beer, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas Austin) of Guide to Writing as an Engineer (Wiley, 1997); author of Process in Technical Writing (Macmillan, 1988); author of Power Tools for Technical Communication (Harcourt, 2001); author of Writing Handbook for Engineers (Thomson Engineering, 2007); developer of online courses for ACC, TCEQ, and other organizations; trainer for Texas Department of Assistive & Rehabilitative Services, Samsung Austin Semiconductor, Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, Wayne Dresser Corporation, Texas Department of Human Services, Tivoli Systems, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Texas Bureau of Radiation Control; contract editing and writing with Dell and Tivoli. (Assumed duties as program coordinator August 2001.) (Visit his website.)

Bob Klau Bob Klau has been teaching at ACC for over twenty years, twelve of those with the Technical Communications program. Current, he also acts as Technical Communications Lab Manager in addition to teaching courses in English and Developmental Writing. He holds a B.A. from University of Wisconsin and an M.A. from University of Michigan.

Ana Mejia-Dietche Ana graduated from Yale College with a degree in English Language and Literature and later earned her law degree at the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. Ana is licensed to practice law by the State Bar of Texas (Active Status), Maryland State Bar (Inactive Status) and District of Columbia Bar (Inactive Status). Ana’s experience spans employment as an attorney for the National Institutes of Health and over six years as a program attorney with the State Bar of Texas’ Professional Development Program. She enjoyed community outreach roles for various employers including the National Treasury Employee’s Union and Congressman Lloyd Doggett. Most of her work involved some level of interaction with state and federal agencies.

Ana recently left Austin Community College’s grant development department to serve as the Director of the Health Industry Steering Committee at the Skillpoint Alliance. Her volunteer work includes service on the boards of the Women’s Advocacy Project, Lone Star Girl Scout Council and Austin Free-Net.

J. D. Williams After ten years as a newspaper reporter, page designer, and editor, J.D. Williams earned a Master of Arts in Technical Communication from Texas Tech University. His technical writing experience includes creating and teaching others how to develop online help systems. Mr. Williams has created documentation for user and technical audiences to support a variety of software applications. His experience includes the creation of dynamic web applications using XML and SQL databases. (Visit his website.)

Scott Mogull Received a Master's degree in Technical Communication from The University of Washington and a second Master's degree in Microbiology from The University of Texas at Austin. Currently employed in the biotech industry as a product manager and teaches at ACC in the Biology and Technical Communication Departments. Previous positions within the biotech industry include technical communication consultant and coordinator of global technical information. (Visit his website.)

Sharon L. Gunter Sharon has been writing software design and user documentation for the Healthcare, Telecommunications and Mortgage Industries since 1992. The most fun so far has been writing functional specifications as part of a team designing custom software. After moving to Austin in 1998, she completed her MA in English/Creative Writing at UT in 2000. In addition to teaching at ACC, Sharon is a Written Communications Instructor in LeTourneau University’s undergraduate business program.

David Cramer, Ph.D. Advisor for ETWR 2478, XML and Structured Authoring for Information Specialists, and ETWR 2473, XHTML and CSS for Information Specialists. (Visit his website.)

Diana Barkley Advisor to to the Business & Technical Communications Program. Information Specialist for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and has close to 20 years experience in state government. She has won three (and contributed to two) award-winning entries in the Austin STC Technical Publications Competition. Diana currently serves as manager of STC's Environmental, Safety, and Health (ES&H) Communication Special Interest Group. She has a Bachelor of Journalism (University of Texas-Austin), Certificate in Technical Communication (ACC), as well as National Certified Inspector/Investigator Training (Council on Licensure, Enforcement, and Regulation), and basic auditor training (Texas State Auditor's Office).

Sarah McNeely Sarah McNeely holds an MA in Technical Communication from Texas State University-San Marcos. Sarah has worked in the Austin area in the healthcare industry and as a technical writer at Dell, and currently works as an Information Architect for Attendee Management in Wimberley, where she develops and manages websites for clients including Genentech, Dell, and CUNA Mutual. As a freelance writer, she has contributed articles on technology and information management to trade magazines and has undertaken several interesting research projects, including working as a research assistant on a biography of Willie Nelson (forthcoming from Little, Brown, and Co). Sarah's scholarly and research interests include the history of technical communication, gender differences in workplace communication, and nineteenth-century instructive literature (manuals, cookbooks, conduct books, medical texts, and magazines) for women, and has presented her academic work on these topics at the Conference on College Composition and Communication and the Modern Language Association Convention.

Mindy F. Reed, MLIS, MA Holds a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Liberal Arts degree in Humanities from Southern Methodist University and Baker University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Business from Kansas State University. Owner of The Authors' Assistant, which provides, editing, proof reading and indexing services to authors and publishers. Works part-time as a reference librarian. Former-director of Procurement and Marketing for Dell Computer Corporation and Director of Corporate Re-engineering for Compaq Computer Corporation. Member of the American Society of Indexers, Women in Scholarly Publishing, the Small Press, Artists and Writers Network (SPAWN), the American Book Cooperative, and the Writers' League of Texas. Certified trainer for the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI). For the last ten years, facilitator for Writing From the Heart, a writing collective here in Austin. (Visit her website.)

Theresa Mooney After securing a doctoral degree in Modern Literature from Tulane University, Theresa Mooney has worked in educational and industrial settings for more than twenty-five years. During one decade, she routinely juggled teaching and administrative roles while serving as Loyola University New Orleans’ s Assistant Director of Writing Across the Curriculum and teaching Business Communication, Management Communication, English Composition, and Modern Literature at both Loyola and Tulane. During this time, she also drank lots of N’Awlins coffee. Joining ACC in January 2005, as Learning Labs Manager at the EVC campus, she has also taught part-time with Communications since fall 2006. Both her juggling experience and her coffee capacity now serve her well in her dual roles with ACC.

Beth Strout MA from UNT and has taught Writing, Developmental Writing, and Technical Writing at San Diego State University and National University. Beth works as a freelance writer, technical writer, and editor and, like many English-major types who try to support themselves as freelancers, has worked on a wide range of mostly unrelated projects. A regular contributor to the Utne-award-winning BrainChild magazine, Beth has written everything from advertizing copy to technical instruction manuals to travel literature for people who travel with their dogs. Several full-text versions of her essays are available online for the intrepid Google searcher. (Visit her website.)

Corrie Franco Corrie Franco completed Utah State University's Technical Writing Program and earned an MS in English in 2005. She also has a Professional Editing Certificate from The George Washington University. Corrie has worked as a contractor for Microsoft, British Petroleum, and the National Center for Educational Achievement.

David Pruett, Ph.D. Technical writer and editor for an engineering company for several years before grad school. While earning an M.A. and a Ph.D., he taught freshman composition and technical writing courses at Texas A&M for 10 years. With C. Jan Swearingen, he co-authored "Language Diversity and the Classroom: Problems and Prospects, a Bibliography" (in Language Diversity in the Classroom: From Intention to Practice, ed. Geneva Smitherman and Victor Villanueva, 2003) and co-edited Rhetoric, the Polis, and the Global Village: Selected Papers from the 1998 Thirtieth Anniversary Rhetoric Society of America Conference

Wayne M. Butler, Ph.D. Earned his Ph.D. in English Education, with an emphasis on rhetoric and technology, from U.T Austin. Has taught academic writing, computers and writing, and technical communications at The University of Texas, The University of Michigan, and Texas Tech University. Co-authored Writing the Information Superhighway (Allyn and Bacon, 1997) with William Condon. Served as a founding member, corporate manager, chief operations officer and then CEO of The Daedalus Group, Inc., an educational software firm that pioneered the use of LAN and Internet technologies to support collaborative learning and the writing process. Currently serves as College Curriculum Supervisor at the University of Texas at Austin Distance Education Center where he heads up efforts to build online distance education courses.

Roy Barkley Roy Barkley (Ph.D. in English literature, UT Austin, 1974) has taught at Lamar University, the University of Maryland European Division, UT Austin, Bowling Green State University, Eastern Michigan University, Austin Community College, and, since 2006, DeVry University. He was an editor of the Middle English Dictionary at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) for eight years, and worked as senior editor at the Texas State Historical Association for twenty years. He is the author or editor of many books, articles, and reviews. Among these are the New Handbook of Texas (six volumes, Texas State Historical Association, 1996), the Portable Handbook of Texas (2001), and the Handbook of Texas Music (2003). The New Handbook of Texas can be seen under the title Handbook of Texas Online at http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/. Barkley is currently the editor of Catholic Southwest, the journal of the Texas Catholic Historical Society.

Allison Trahan MA in English from the University of Texas Austin and an BA in German and Psychology from the University of Colorado Boulder. Member of Society of Technical Communicators and the Austin Writers’ League. Allison has worked as a freelance technical writer for Emerson, Inc. and as a trainer for Samsung Electronics. She holds an ESL certification from the Royal Society of Arts, Cambridge, England and put it to good use, traveling and living abroad for six years. She received a Fulbright stipend to teach English at the largest technical college in Europe (HTL Moedling, Austria) and taught English on the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program (Gero-cho, Japan). (Visit her website: www.allisontrahan.com.)

Laura Clymer Laura comes to us from Tivoli where she is an information developer (fancy name for technical writer). Her work involves product documentation in print and online media, using FrameMaker, XML applications such as SoftQuad's XMetaL, and Dreamweaver. Laura is our driving force to get such cutting-edge topics as XML, single sourcing, and structuring authoring into the TCM program!

Katherine Staples, Ph.D., Former Program Coordinator Founder of ACC's Technical Communications Program in 1984, Associate Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, active member of the Council of Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication and of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, winner of Jay Gould Award (STC) and the Minnie Stevens Piper Professorship, co-editor of Foundations for Teaching Technical Communication: Theory, Practice, and Program Design (Ablex, 1999), co-author Technical English (Longman, 2000), and active consultant in the areas of technical communication, adult learning, and the teaching of writing. (Dr. Staples stepped down from her coordinator role in the ACC program August 2001.)

Return to the ACC Technical Communications program homepage.

This site developed and maintained by hcexres@io.com.

David A. McMurrey, Ph.D., Department Chair	Eleven years at IBM Corporation as editor and writer; co-author (with David Beer, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas Austin) of Guide to Writing as an Engineer (Wiley, 1997); author of Process in Technical Writing (Macmillan, 1988); author of Power Tools for Technical Communication (Harcourt, 2001); author of Writing Handbook for Engineers (Thomson Engineering, 2007); developer of online courses for ACC, TCEQ, and other organizations; trainer for Texas Department of Assistive & Rehabilitative Services, Samsung Austin Semiconductor, Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, Wayne Dresser Corporation, Texas Department of Human Services, Tivoli Systems, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Texas Bureau of Radiation Control; contract editing and writing with Dell and Tivoli. (Assumed duties as program coordinator August 2001.) (Visit his website.)
Bob Klau	Bob Klau has been teaching at ACC for over twenty years, twelve of those with the Technical Communications program. Current, he also acts as Technical Communications Lab Manager in addition to teaching courses in English and Developmental Writing. He holds a B.A. from University of Wisconsin and an M.A. from University of Michigan.
Ana Mejia-Dietche	Ana graduated from Yale College with a degree in English Language and Literature and later earned her law degree at the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. Ana is licensed to practice law by the State Bar of Texas (Active Status), Maryland State Bar (Inactive Status) and District of Columbia Bar (Inactive Status). Ana’s experience spans employment as an attorney for the National Institutes of Health and over six years as a program attorney with the State Bar of Texas’ Professional Development Program. She enjoyed community outreach roles for various employers including the National Treasury Employee’s Union and Congressman Lloyd Doggett. Most of her work involved some level of interaction with state and federal agencies. Ana recently left Austin Community College’s grant development department to serve as the Director of the Health Industry Steering Committee at the Skillpoint Alliance. Her volunteer work includes service on the boards of the Women’s Advocacy Project, Lone Star Girl Scout Council and Austin Free-Net.
J. D. Williams	After ten years as a newspaper reporter, page designer, and editor, J.D. Williams earned a Master of Arts in Technical Communication from Texas Tech University. His technical writing experience includes creating and teaching others how to develop online help systems. Mr. Williams has created documentation for user and technical audiences to support a variety of software applications. His experience includes the creation of dynamic web applications using XML and SQL databases. (Visit his website.)
Scott Mogull	Received a Master's degree in Technical Communication from The University of Washington and a second Master's degree in Microbiology from The University of Texas at Austin. Currently employed in the biotech industry as a product manager and teaches at ACC in the Biology and Technical Communication Departments. Previous positions within the biotech industry include technical communication consultant and coordinator of global technical information. (Visit his website.)
Sharon L. Gunter	Sharon has been writing software design and user documentation for the Healthcare, Telecommunications and Mortgage Industries since 1992. The most fun so far has been writing functional specifications as part of a team designing custom software. After moving to Austin in 1998, she completed her MA in English/Creative Writing at UT in 2000. In addition to teaching at ACC, Sharon is a Written Communications Instructor in LeTourneau University’s undergraduate business program.
David Cramer, Ph.D.	Advisor for ETWR 2478, XML and Structured Authoring for Information Specialists, and ETWR 2473, XHTML and CSS for Information Specialists. (Visit his website.)
Diana Barkley	Advisor to to the Business & Technical Communications Program. Information Specialist for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and has close to 20 years experience in state government. She has won three (and contributed to two) award-winning entries in the Austin STC Technical Publications Competition. Diana currently serves as manager of STC's Environmental, Safety, and Health (ES&H) Communication Special Interest Group. She has a Bachelor of Journalism (University of Texas-Austin), Certificate in Technical Communication (ACC), as well as National Certified Inspector/Investigator Training (Council on Licensure, Enforcement, and Regulation), and basic auditor training (Texas State Auditor's Office).
Sarah McNeely	Sarah McNeely holds an MA in Technical Communication from Texas State University-San Marcos. Sarah has worked in the Austin area in the healthcare industry and as a technical writer at Dell, and currently works as an Information Architect for Attendee Management in Wimberley, where she develops and manages websites for clients including Genentech, Dell, and CUNA Mutual. As a freelance writer, she has contributed articles on technology and information management to trade magazines and has undertaken several interesting research projects, including working as a research assistant on a biography of Willie Nelson (forthcoming from Little, Brown, and Co). Sarah's scholarly and research interests include the history of technical communication, gender differences in workplace communication, and nineteenth-century instructive literature (manuals, cookbooks, conduct books, medical texts, and magazines) for women, and has presented her academic work on these topics at the Conference on College Composition and Communication and the Modern Language Association Convention.
Mindy F. Reed, MLIS, MA	Holds a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Liberal Arts degree in Humanities from Southern Methodist University and Baker University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Business from Kansas State University. Owner of The Authors' Assistant, which provides, editing, proof reading and indexing services to authors and publishers. Works part-time as a reference librarian. Former-director of Procurement and Marketing for Dell Computer Corporation and Director of Corporate Re-engineering for Compaq Computer Corporation. Member of the American Society of Indexers, Women in Scholarly Publishing, the Small Press, Artists and Writers Network (SPAWN), the American Book Cooperative, and the Writers' League of Texas. Certified trainer for the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI). For the last ten years, facilitator for Writing From the Heart, a writing collective here in Austin. (Visit her website.)
Theresa Mooney	After securing a doctoral degree in Modern Literature from Tulane University, Theresa Mooney has worked in educational and industrial settings for more than twenty-five years. During one decade, she routinely juggled teaching and administrative roles while serving as Loyola University New Orleans’ s Assistant Director of Writing Across the Curriculum and teaching Business Communication, Management Communication, English Composition, and Modern Literature at both Loyola and Tulane. During this time, she also drank lots of N’Awlins coffee. Joining ACC in January 2005, as Learning Labs Manager at the EVC campus, she has also taught part-time with Communications since fall 2006. Both her juggling experience and her coffee capacity now serve her well in her dual roles with ACC.
Beth Strout	MA from UNT and has taught Writing, Developmental Writing, and Technical Writing at San Diego State University and National University. Beth works as a freelance writer, technical writer, and editor and, like many English-major types who try to support themselves as freelancers, has worked on a wide range of mostly unrelated projects. A regular contributor to the Utne-award-winning BrainChild magazine, Beth has written everything from advertizing copy to technical instruction manuals to travel literature for people who travel with their dogs. Several full-text versions of her essays are available online for the intrepid Google searcher. (Visit her website.)
Corrie Franco	Corrie Franco completed Utah State University's Technical Writing Program and earned an MS in English in 2005. She also has a Professional Editing Certificate from The George Washington University. Corrie has worked as a contractor for Microsoft, British Petroleum, and the National Center for Educational Achievement.
David Pruett, Ph.D.	Technical writer and editor for an engineering company for several years before grad school. While earning an M.A. and a Ph.D., he taught freshman composition and technical writing courses at Texas A&M for 10 years. With C. Jan Swearingen, he co-authored "Language Diversity and the Classroom: Problems and Prospects, a Bibliography" (in Language Diversity in the Classroom: From Intention to Practice, ed. Geneva Smitherman and Victor Villanueva, 2003) and co-edited Rhetoric, the Polis, and the Global Village: Selected Papers from the 1998 Thirtieth Anniversary Rhetoric Society of America Conference
Wayne M. Butler, Ph.D.	Earned his Ph.D. in English Education, with an emphasis on rhetoric and technology, from U.T Austin. Has taught academic writing, computers and writing, and technical communications at The University of Texas, The University of Michigan, and Texas Tech University. Co-authored Writing the Information Superhighway (Allyn and Bacon, 1997) with William Condon. Served as a founding member, corporate manager, chief operations officer and then CEO of The Daedalus Group, Inc., an educational software firm that pioneered the use of LAN and Internet technologies to support collaborative learning and the writing process. Currently serves as College Curriculum Supervisor at the University of Texas at Austin Distance Education Center where he heads up efforts to build online distance education courses.
Roy Barkley	Roy Barkley (Ph.D. in English literature, UT Austin, 1974) has taught at Lamar University, the University of Maryland European Division, UT Austin, Bowling Green State University, Eastern Michigan University, Austin Community College, and, since 2006, DeVry University. He was an editor of the Middle English Dictionary at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) for eight years, and worked as senior editor at the Texas State Historical Association for twenty years. He is the author or editor of many books, articles, and reviews. Among these are the New Handbook of Texas (six volumes, Texas State Historical Association, 1996), the Portable Handbook of Texas (2001), and the Handbook of Texas Music (2003). The New Handbook of Texas can be seen under the title Handbook of Texas Online at http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/. Barkley is currently the editor of Catholic Southwest, the journal of the Texas Catholic Historical Society.
Allison Trahan	MA in English from the University of Texas Austin and an BA in German and Psychology from the University of Colorado Boulder. Member of Society of Technical Communicators and the Austin Writers’ League. Allison has worked as a freelance technical writer for Emerson, Inc. and as a trainer for Samsung Electronics. She holds an ESL certification from the Royal Society of Arts, Cambridge, England and put it to good use, traveling and living abroad for six years. She received a Fulbright stipend to teach English at the largest technical college in Europe (HTL Moedling, Austria) and taught English on the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program (Gero-cho, Japan). (Visit her website: www.allisontrahan.com.)
Laura Clymer	Laura comes to us from Tivoli where she is an information developer (fancy name for technical writer). Her work involves product documentation in print and online media, using FrameMaker, XML applications such as SoftQuad's XMetaL, and Dreamweaver. Laura is our driving force to get such cutting-edge topics as XML, single sourcing, and structuring authoring into the TCM program!
Katherine Staples, Ph.D., Former Program Coordinator	Founder of ACC's Technical Communications Program in 1984, Associate Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, active member of the Council of Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication and of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, winner of Jay Gould Award (STC) and the Minnie Stevens Piper Professorship, co-editor of Foundations for Teaching Technical Communication: Theory, Practice, and Program Design (Ablex, 1999), co-author Technical English (Longman, 2000), and active consultant in the areas of technical communication, adult learning, and the teaching of writing. (Dr. Staples stepped down from her coordinator role in the ACC program August 2001.)