In a Nutshell
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Experience Across Buildings, Sectors and Borders
Over the years, my work as a technical author has taken me across a remarkably broad range of projects — from the practical realities of the plant room to the complexity of major commercial developments and skyscrapers.
I have successfully completed commissions within the commercial, industrial and educational sectors, together with projects undertaken for the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office, including work associated with projects in the Middle East.
Working with the People Who Deliver the Project
My experience has involved working directly with both Principal Contractors and Building Services Contractors, understanding not simply what information is required at handover, but where that information originates and how it should be assembled, authored and presented.
That practical industry background has allowed me to work comfortably with documentation covering everything from individual building-services installations to large, technically complex multidisciplinary projects.
My completed work has included:
Commercial developments and office buildings
Industrial and manufacturing facilities
Schools, colleges and educational establishments
Ministry of Defence projects
Foreign Office and overseas projects
Building-services installations
Major refurbishment and redevelopment schemes
Complex mechanical and electrical installations
Large-scale commercial buildings and high-rise developments
From Plant Room to Skyscraper
Every project is different.
The building may change. The client may change. The contractor may change. The technology certainly changes.
The fundamental requirement does not:
Someone has to understand the information, organise it properly and write the story of the completed building.
That is where experience matters.
From plant rooms to skyscrapers, my role has remained essentially the same — turning the enormous quantity of technical, contractual and manufacturers' information generated during construction into documentation that can actually be understood and used after handover.
Completed Projects
A selection of successfully completed commissions and previous project experience can be found within the Completed Projects Portfolio on this website.
It provides perhaps the best demonstration of my pedigree — not simply what I say I can do, but what I have already done.
The Manualwriter
Professional Technical Author
From plant room to skyscraper.
Written from experience.
A Career Built on Words, Engineering and Experience
My working life began with words rather than engineering.
On leaving school, I entered the world of sports journalism, discovering early on that I had an instinct for putting a story together and communicating it in a way people wanted to read.
Life, however, had other plans. I married at nineteen, responsibilities arrived, and earning a living became rather more important than chasing the next sporting headline. I went to work in a factory before finding my way into sales — apparently helped by the fact that my shoes were brushed and my shirt was ironed.
That move proved to be the beginning of a career spanning the electrical, mechanical and building-services industries.
From the Trade Counter & Back Door to Technical Author
Further technical education followed, together with experience across wholesaling, contracting, sales and technical design. Working on different sides of the industry provided something that cannot be obtained from a textbook alone: an understanding of how buildings, contractors, consultants, manufacturers and ultimately their clients actually work together.
Over the years, my professional development and affiliations have included the Institute of Sales Management (ISM), CIBSE, BSRIA, the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), and the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC).
I wrote my first Operation & Maintenance Manual in the late 1980s.
It wasn't to be my last.
In 2013, I became a professional freelance technical author, bringing together decades of engineering-industry experience with the writing skills that had first emerged when I left school.
Today, based in the Black Country, I specialise in the authorship and preparation of:
Operation & Maintenance Manuals
TM31 Building User Guides
Building Logbooks
Health & Safety Files
BREEAM-related documentation and assessment evidence
Technical and commercial content
Product reviews
Editorial writing
Ghostwriting
My work ranges from highly structured technical documentation to editorial and commercial writing where a rather different voice is required.
Full Circle
There is perhaps a certain irony to it all.
I left school wanting to write, spent much of my working life in the electrical, mechanical and building-services industries, and eventually found a profession that brought the two together.
Engineering gave me the subject. Experience gave me the understanding. Writing gave me the voice.
More than three decades after writing that first O&M Manual, I remain a working freelance author — still based in the Black Country, still learning, still writing, and still of the opinion that experience and technical knowledge count for rather a lot.
The Manualwriter — Professional Technical Author
Black Country born. Industry bred. Writing from experience.
Engineering gave me the subject.
Experience gave me the understanding
Writing gave me the voice.
IF THERE'S DOUBT - THERE'S NO DOUBT
Call - 01922 868286