Technical Writer/Editor deb@debraferguson.com | 713 202-1540 | LinkedIn Profile
M.A. Behavioral Sciences – Psychology
University of Houston-Clear Lake—May, 2001 (GPA 3.92 of 4.0)
B.S. Professional Writing
University of Houston-Downtown—December, 1997 (GPA 3.93 of 4.0)
B.S. Social Science (Psychology)
University of Houston-Downtown—May, 1995 (GPA 3.91 of 4.0)
GE Gas Power 2-21 to 4-21
Technical Writer/Editor (contract)
Primary responsibilities included writing/editing work on the new GE Gas Power website, including writing summaries of case histories, analyzing/summarizing content by region, mapping strategic linking for new content, and editing new content. I also revised, edited, and formatted the new style guide for future GE Gas Power projects.
Halliburton Energy Services 7-13 to 4-20
Senior Technical Writer/Editor (contract)
Primary responsibilities included working with the Halliburton Technical Paper Review Board (TPRB) and subject matter expert (SME) authors to develop and/or edit proposals/abstracts, technical papers, and presentations to support Halliburton products and marketing focus. I was also responsible for ensuring that the technical papers, proposals, and abstracts complied with the editorial standards of Halliburton and the technical professional societies to which they are submitted.
PennWell Corporation/Oil & Gas Journal 1-13 to 6-13
Technology Editor: Drilling and Production
Primary responsibilities included soliciting and editing articles submitted for publication in hard-copy editions of the Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ), as well as writing short news stories for the electronic daily OGJ updates. OGJ editors also write informal editorials on a rotating basis for the OGJ “Journally Speaking” column.
Halliburton Energy Services 7-08 to 7-12
Senior Technical Editor (independent contractor)
Primary responsibilities included working with the Halliburton TPRB and SME authors to develop and/or edit proposals/abstracts, technical papers, and presentations to support Halliburton products and marketing focus. I was also responsible for ensuring that the technical papers, presentations, and abstracts complied with the editorial standards of Halliburton and the technical professional societies to which they were submitted.
ExxonMobil 5-08 to 12-08
Technical Editor (contract)
Primary responsibilities included working with SMEs to develop proposals for exploration and production activities in the Middle East.
BGP, International 3-08 to 5-08
Senior Technical Writer (independent contractor)
Primary responsibilities included working with SMEs to revise and edit a user manual for in-house developed seismic software. The content provided by the SMEs was originally written in Chinese and, although the SMEs translated the technical content into English, it required a great deal of editing to be useable by an English-speaking audience.
Schlumberger Information Solutions 8-07 to 2-08
Senior Technical Communicator (contract)
Primary responsibilities included working with SMEs and software developers to create user documentation for Schlumberger information management software, including user guides, administrator guides, installation guides, release notes, and online Help systems.
Halliburton Energy Services 8-06 to 5-07
Senior Technical Editor/Technical Paper Review Board (TPRB) Manager
Primary responsibilities included managing and supervising the TPRB staff and working with product service line (PSL) managers to develop proposals and technical papers to support their product and marketing focus. I also worked with individual authors to develop paper proposals for submission to technical professional society conferences and publications, as well as edited the final drafts of the authors’ technical papers and presentations, and ensured compliance with both paper-based and electronic publication formats. This position also required implementing the editorial standards of both Halliburton and the technical professional societies, managing work flows and deadlines, and hiring contractors as needed.
Chevron Corp. – Information Design & Communications (IDC) 11-98 to 6-06
Technical Writer (contract)
Primary responsibilities included writing and editing internal and external communications materials for print and electronic media. These responsibilities have included international proposals, executive speeches, intranet process libraries, training materials, manuals, newsletters, brochures, Help systems for in-house software, and technical reports.
University of Houston-Downtown 1-02 to 5-06
Psychology Professor (adjunct)
Taught both lower-level and upper-level psychology courses, including Introduction to Psychology, History of Psychology, Memory & Cognition (Cognitive Psychology), and Psychology of Women.
Schlumberger GeoQuest 1-98 to 10-98
Technical Writer
Primary responsibilities included researching, writing, and editing training manuals for geophysical data management and petrophysics software courses. These responsibilities included consulting with geoscience and petrophysics SMEs to ensure technical accuracy of the training manuals, preparing graphics and flow charts, performing usability testing for manuals and exercises, editing manuals written in overseas GeoQuest offices, and creating presentations for classroom use.
Halliburton - EnerTech Engineering 6-97 to 12-97
Technical Writer (internship)
Primary responsibilities included writing and editing Help systems for WellCat 5.0 and CasingSeat programs, researching issues in products and materials, performing user simulations, maintaining templates, creating graphics, and compiling Help systems.
Award of Excellence for Drilling Information Systems for Windows (DISWin) Brochure (Chevron Petroleum Technology Corporation) presented by the Society for Technical Communication
Award of Excellence for Handbook for Male Victims of Family Violence (Houston Police Department) presented by the Society for Technical Communication
Award of Merit for WellCat 5.0 Help (Halliburton/EnerTech Engineering) presented by the Society for Technical Communication
Lower Elgin Road Bridge Project (Bastrop County, TX) 6-15 to Present
Researcher, Writer, Advocate
Researched the history of the Lower Elgin Road bridge, a Pratt through-truss bridge built in 1888, to document its historical relevance, to promote its repair from the flood damage sustained in 2015, and to support fundraising efforts to cover the repair costs. The historical research was compiled into a booklet, Lower Elgin Road Bridge on Wilbarger Creek, Bastrop County, TX: a History, and provided to County officials to provide historical justification of the needed repairs. It was also submitted to the Texas Historical Commission to provide the foundation for two historical designation applications: the National Register of Historic Places and the Recorded Texas Historic Landmark (RTHL). The Lower Elgin Road bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 10, 2017; the RTHL designation is still pending. In addition, I created a website to serve as a repository for the historical content (www.lowerelginroadbridge.com). To help stimulate public awareness, I also created a brochure to summarize the history of the bridge and its pre-repair status. I also created a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/LowerElginRoadBridge) to support and promote the repair efforts and to enable the people who are interested to follow the events leading to the repair. I share admin duties for this page.
The repair work was ultimately funded through grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Texas Department of Agriculture and completed by Beck-Reit & Sons of Austin, TX in November 2018.
Houston Police Department 1-93 to 6-97
Volunteer Crisis Counselor
This work began as an internship to partially fulfill degree requirements for my B.S. degree in Social Science (Psychology), but extended long past the internship period. Initially, this work was focused in the Family Violence Unit (FVU) of the Houston Police Department Homicide Division, but expanded to include working with the Central Division Crisis Team. The Crisis Team provided on-scene assistance to crime victims (often, but not always, to victims of family violence), assisted with witness statements and photography of injuries, and provided information to victims about what to expect after charges were filed. We also provided Trauma Resolution Therapy (TRT) to crime victims who wanted to participate in group sessions. In addition to this work, I wanted to rewrite the information packets that were usually distributed in the FVU to gender-neutral language. The FVU management, however, decided against a gender-neutral version and asked that I create a handbook specifically for male victims.
References information is available upon request.
Copyright 2020 Debra Ferguson. All rights reserved.