I have over twenty years of experience as a writer, researcher, and editor. I published my first article (about a climbing trip to Dunn Peak in BC’s wild interior) while still a student in high school. I learned a lot by working with the magazine’s editor, and continued to learn on-the-job as a regular columnist for the BC Naturalist. As a graduate student in the 1990s, I learned to conduct careful research and craft it into persuasive articles of a more scholarly nature. At the same time, my instructors and colleagues noticed my strong writing skills and approached me for help editing their own papers. After many student papers, magisterial and doctoral theses, and publications in scholarly journals, I was finally free of the academy.
Or so I thought. Over the subsequent years, I authored or co-authored five books about the history of The University of British Columbia, edited student and faculty papers, taught as a sessional, and helped others with their research and writing.
Outside the academic setting, I have conducted research for museums, for legal proceedings, and for institutions conducting heritage assessments. From that research, I have written a range of reports and presented my findings publicly (including a live interview on the CBC).
In my “free time” I have written or edited content for web pages, newsletters, brochures, and internal memos. Many of these were light-hearted or amusing, written for fun as much as anything else.
BA (Philosophy), University of Victoria
MA (Adult Education), University of British Columbia
PhD (Educational Studies), University of British Columbia
Courses in technical writing, editing, and marketing
Member of the Executive, Editors BC (2014-16), a branch of Editors’ Canada
Research, Writing, Editing 
Just reading Discovery by Design and, as a 1971 Mechanical Engineering grad, I am enjoying it immensely. My father was a 1941 grad and I was fortunate to have been taught by several of his professors…Archie Peebles, Bill Richmond and Prof. McIlroy come to mind. One of my all time favorite professors was Walter Gage. Such was his influence on me, two of my colleagues and I initiated a book on him which was published in 2017. If you haven’t read it, I would be most happy to give you a copy. There are some incredible stories and pictures between the covers.
Thanks Butch, glad you found the book and enjoyed reading it. I wrote another a few years ago for the Civil Engineering Department which you can download for free from their web site under “alumni.” I know, it isn’t Mech but it updates some of the faculty-wide issues. I have indeed read the Walter Gage tribute–he has quite the legacy. I have an uncle who took one year of electrical engineering at UBC in 1938 (I think) and seventy years later still remembered Gage and their first encounter! Gage deserves a fuller biography, too, which explores his role in the life of the university. (Oh good–we have Braidwoods for 1941 and 1971 in our alumni list!)