Please consider me in your search for a Copywriter. As my resume details, I have a wide range of experience writing for many audiences and organizations.
I believe I can write about anything for anyone.
After completing my Education degree at the University of Alberta (while also serving as a writer/production editor for the Students’ Union, Gateway), I joined The University of Calgary as a Communications Officer II. In that position, I worked with university administrators to develop and implement strategic communications plans for students, staff, faculty and the public. As co-editor of the bi-weekly, Gazette, I proofed the work of other writers and contributors and researched and wrote copy covering virtually all Faculties. I always sought to produce articles that would engage the reader. My article, New ways to slice the mapping pie and its accompanying commissioned illustration and my profile of new staff member, Beatrice Medicine, are two examples. I also supplied photography, illustration and design skills to further market the university to its various communities.
After almost five years with the U of C, I accepted a position as a Journalism Instructor at the then Grant MacEwan Community College. Preferring to “do rather than to teach,” I joined Southam Business Communications in Vancouver as Western Editor for Canadian Forest Industries Magazine, providing copy on all aspects of the business including harvesting, safety and milling. I then settled in Nanaimo, writing business articles about submersible cameras, for example, for The Nanaimo Business Examiner and, as daily reporter, front-page stories for The Nanaimo Daily Free Press. I then joined forest equipment manufacturer T-MAR Industries in Campbell River as the company’s Marketing Manager. Part of my duties included conducting customer surveys; producing advertising copy, brochures and videos, and launching the company’s newsletter, The T-MAR Times.
My Nanaimo experience also includes almost five years running a direct-mail advertising franchise, Val-Pak. As owner/operator, I helped small to medium size businesses develop direct-mail advertising promotions. Part of my duties included analyzing customer redemptions for clients.
A downturn in the industry led to leave T-MAR and spend 10 years overseas teaching in Libya, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Norway, the UAE and Japan. Highlights of my years overseas include co-authoring mathematics workbooks for vocational students and producing a student-illustrated video of my children’s story about life from an apple’s point of view, The Apple of Albert’s Eye. In addition to writing and narrating a film Truck Logging in Africa, I scripted, directed and edited my video application for the position of Traveling Ambassador for Air Transat.
Returning to Canada in 2012, I launched my WordPress website to highlight my creative abilities in writing, photography, art, music and video production. I use my blog to promote my art and my philosophy that life is an essentially positive experience. I have a working knowledge of MS Office, Illustrator, Photoshop, WordPress and Movie Studio. As a practicing artist, I’ve written a number of proposals for art commissions, including a design for a Commemorative Centennial Spire for the City of Prince George, posted in parts one and two on my website.
I’m a creative thinker and visualizer with a gift for turning old ideas into fresh expressions of what was meant before they became clichés. This has allowed me, with confidence, to add creative to the name of my website and to make thinking “outside the circle” an ongoing part of what I have to offer. Let me suggest, then, that we meet to discuss the contribution I could make to your organization in this role.