President – Lou Kummerer
Presides over meetings and Chapter activities.
Lou Kummerer began his professional life as a technical writer with AccuRay Corporation in Columbus, Ohio. He worked as a writer with Systems Engineering Laboratories in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and then with Intel Corporation in Hillsboro, Oregon. Intel later moved him to Phoenix to manage a newly formed desktop publishing group. Since retiring from Intel in 2013, he has been working as a contract technical writer focused on the semiconductor industry.
Lou has been a strong supporter of the STC throughout his writing career. He served as president of the Ft. Lauderdale STC chapter and was an active member of the STC chapter in Portland, Oregon. He is former secretary and current president of the STC Arizona chapter. Lou has presented papers twice at the STC International Technical Communications Conference. The documentation created by the technical publications group he managed at Intel received an Award of Excellence in STC’s International Competition.
Vice President – Terri Thorson
Assumes the president’s role or other duties as needed.
Terri Thorson has more than 22 years of high-tech experience specializing in worldwide media relations, technical writing and editing, strategic public relations, marketing communications, employee communications, and corporate communications.
Other accountabilities include worldwide product launches, strategic counsel, and developing public relations materials. Terri received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Public Relations and a Master of Mass Communication from Arizona State University, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
She currently teaches written communication at Arizona State University.
Treasurer – Julie Badger
Oversees Chapter finances and filings.
Julie Badger has spent more than two decades in the software space. With a career focused on business software, she’s worked with multiple verticals including transportation, retail, legal, and healthcare. Her roles have spanned technical support, QA, documentation, training, and product management, but she always finds her way back to documentation and training. She enjoys building communities of confident, self-sufficient software users by providing them with the right content in the right format at the right place and time. When she’s not at work, Julie enjoys designing and creating custom handbags and geeking out in her very high-tech, well-stocked craft room.
Arizona State University Liaison – Dr. George Standifer, PhD
I am George, and I am an instructor at Arizona State University in the Technical writing and communication program. Originally from Chattanooga, TN, I have a B.A. in History from Emory University, a M.A. in Rhetoric and Writing from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Professional Communication from Iowa State University. This is my 14th year teaching college English. Before getting my M.A., I worked in a variety of industries as a technical writer, graphic designer, speech writer, and webmaster.
Northern Arizona University Liaison – Dr Erika Konrad
I teach professional and technical writing at Northern Arizona University. Here are some of the classes I teach:
- editing
- beginning technical communication
- advanced technical writing style
- research writing
- workplace grammar
- writing for the web
- content strategy
I enjoy being a part of the Arizona STC. By attending workshops, I can keep up with the “technical” side of professional and technical writing. I can also meet people who work in the diverse jobs in our field. I love learning what everyone writes at work and how they write it. In fact, interacting with AZ-STC members makes me a better teacher.
Before returning to teaching in 2010, I was co-director of a non-profit organization for about a decade. There I wrote reports, grant proposals, and managed projects in rural Arizona. Prior to that I taught English as a Second Language in California, Northern Arizona, and overseas.
BA English University of California, Davis
TESOL Certificate California State Sacramento
MA Linguistics University of California, Davis
Ph.D. Applied Linguistics NAU
University of Arizona Liaison – Dr. Ann Shivers-McNair
Ann Shivers-McNair is an associate professor and director of professional and technical writing in the English Department and affiliated faculty in the School of Information at the University of Arizona. Her research and teaching focus on equity and justice in design communication. Her first book, Beyond the Makerspace: Making and Relational Rhetorics, was published in 2021 by the University of Michigan Press, and her collaborative work has been recognized with national grants and awards, including a National Science Foundation grant and the Society of Technical Communication Frank R. Smith Distinguished Article Award. She also serves as secretary of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing and as a co-organizer of UX@UA, a user experience community in southern Arizona.
Social Media Director – OPEN
