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About Us

Kim Melson is a Prism Wordsmithing principle.

Kim is available for

  • Technical Writing, Editing and Proofreading.
  • Indexing print and e-books.
  • Project Management for Writing or Software projects.

Kim's resume can be downloaded here or viewed below.

ClosedSkills Summary
  • Technical Writing: Long-term experience writing successful proposals and design specifications, developed and conducted training and wrote user guides. Proficient in Madcap Flare, Snagit, Word, Excel, Open Office, Photoshop, Sky Indexing software, XMind, ePubChk, ePubPak, and other software packages.
  • Ideas to Products: Extensive experience conducting successful interviews then translating the client’s ideas and needs into detailed specifications. Excellent listening, verbal and written skills. Ask questions to both elicit information and confirm understanding of the information. Able to adapt to an audience, to reframe information, for the highly successful transmission of ideas.
  • Management and Project Development: Skilled manager experienced with a wide variety of projects and audiences. Customers have included government agencies, large business organizations and sole-proprietor companies in NM, CA, AZ and HI.
  • Financial: Created and managed project budgets and schedules. Performed accounting tasks; billing, accounts receivable and payables, payroll and budgeting.
  • Customer relations: Maintained long-term client relationships by providing responsive, quality support to build customer loyalty. Helped the client feel good about the project and the work.
  • IT: Specified, installed and managed LANs, intranets and web hosting services. Setup and managed local windows networks including use of Dropbox. Web Host Services: HostGator, Opensourcehost; VPS plan, eHostpros (now FastWebHost), Directnic. Extensive use of CPanel.
  • Programming: Extensive programming experience of custom database packages including local and web systems; intranets, CMSs, CRMs, and e-commerce sites. Experienced in data analysis, production of reports, graphs and graphical analysis of data.
    • Languages: PHP, HTML, Javascript, jQuery, XML, Pascal, Fortran, Basic, 8085 Assembly.
    • Packages: Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, Apache, Aamps, SQLYog, MySQL, RBase relational database, JGraph, authorize.net, Novell Netware.
    • Operating Systems: Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, DOS, CP/M.
  • Working style: Independent, self-starter, able to work well with others. Creative and tenacious problem solver. Organized, detailed and comfortable working on multiple projects in parallel. Committed to providing an exceptional product on time and on budget. Constant learner, willing to research and learn new skills.
ClosedTechnical Writing
  • Evolution Web Development, Santa Fe, NM; WIT/Microsystems, Inc.     Santa Fe, NM
    • Conducted interviews, developed and presented project proposals.
    • Developed and conducted user training for software packages, web sites and content management systems.
    • Wrote user guides for many different projects and audiences.
  • McDevitt Law Firm, P.A.     Santa Fe, NM
    • Drafted, proofread and edited documents.
    • Filed pleadings, prepared documents and notebooks for court hearings.
    • Interfaced with court staff, lawyers, clerical staff and clients, maintained office calendar.
  • Beckman Instruments     Brea, CA
    • Created and presented project proposals and reports both technical and financial.
    • Researched and created a document on CP/M operating system functionality and viability for integration into medical products.
    • Wrote departmental and inter-departmental project status memos.
    • Composed employee reviews and conducted interviews.
  • Westinghouse Hanford assigned to Los Alamos National Laboratory     Los Alamos, NM
    • Created and presented project proposals and reports both technical and financial.
    • Made presentations to DOE, LANL and Westinghouse Hanford management.
    • Presented the co-authored paper “A High-Energy Beam Transport System” by K. E. Melson, J. A. Farrell, D. J. Liska and P. Meads at the 1979 Particle Accelerator Conference (paper M-l), San Francisco, CA, March 12-14, 1979
    • Co-authored the paper “High-Energy Beam Transport in the Hanford FMIT Linear Accelerator,” IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. NS-26, No 3, pp. 3050-3051 (June 1979).
ClosedManagement and Project Development
  • Evolution Web Development, Santa Fe, NM; WIT/Microsystems, Inc.     Santa Fe, NM
    • Managed project specification and development, including change orders. Tested and installed products and trained users. Consistently delivered projects on time and on budget.
  • McDevitt Law Firm, P.A.     Santa Fe, NM
    • Managed office services including copier, phone, internet, and merchant account services. Installed, configured and managed all computers, backups and intranet.
    • Performed accounting tasks; billing, AR and AP, payroll and budgeting.
  • Beckman Instruments     Brea, CA
    • Managed a group of software engineers while developing firmware for circuit boards, developing CP/M-like operating system for Z8000-based PC in medical instruments.
    • Managed a group of employees while selecting and supporting third party software (word processing, spreadsheets, databases, utilities) standards for the company division.
ClosedSoftware Development and Customer Support
  • Evolution Web Development, Santa Fe, NM; WIT/Microsystems, Inc.     Santa Fe, NM
    • Wrote software products for a wide variety of projects and audiences on LANs, intranets and websites.
    • Custom systems included government systems such as Welfare, Food Stamps and AFDC, for county Assessor, Auditor and Property Taxes, Family/Child Support tracking, Sales and Tracking systems for real estate, Concierge system for luxury resort, Title Company sales tracking, inventory, AR, AP and GL, and horse race handicapping.
  • Beckman Instruments     Brea, CA
    • Developed software to evaluate how a medical instrument might perform based on its specifications. Concept adopted by company and used on front-end of product design and development.
    • Worked as an internal consultant or freelance programmer farmed out to different projects within the company.
ClosedWork History
  • Office Manager & Legal Assistant, McDevitt Law Firm, P.A., Santa Fe, NM   2009-present
  • Principal, Evolution Web Development, LLC, Santa Fe, NM   2002-2009
  • President/Owner, WIT/Microsystems, Inc., Santa Fe, NM   1983-2002
  • Vice-President of R&D/Co-owner, The Issaquah Group, Orange, CA   July 1984-July 1985
  • Supervisor, Scientific Applications, Beckman Instruments, Brea, CA   July 1982-July 1984
  • Senior Microprocessor Engineer, Beckman Instruments, Brea, CA   March 1982-July 1982
  • Independent Consultant, Laguna Beach, CA   October 1981–March 1982
  • Scientist, Westinghouse Hanford, Los Alamos, NM   Held Q Clearance   June 1978-October 1981
  • Research Scientist, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN   July 1974-May 1978
ClosedEducation and Training
  • Certificate in Technical Writing, University of California, Riverside, 2015
  • Embedded Indexing & Indexing of E-Books Course, University of California, Berkeley, 2014-2015
  • Indexing: Theory and Application Course, University of California, Berkeley, 2013-2014
  • Grammar Refresher, Ed2Go, 2014
  • Fundamentals of Technical Writing, Ed2Go, 2014
  • Mediation Training, Common Ground Mediation, Santa Fe, NM 2011
  • MS Physics, Purdue University, 1977, BS Physics, Purdue University, 1975
ClosedProfessional Affiliations
  • Society of Technical Communicators
  • Sigma Pi Sigma, Physics Honor Society

 

 

 

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