Between the Lines (BL) recently met up with Mike Haap (MH), a recent Quality Integrator retiree. With his extensive experience in the technical communications field, Mike gives us great insight on how success can be achieved.

BL: Thank you for taking the time to share with us some of your experiences and career in the technical communications field, Mike. Could you give us a brief background of your experience?

MH: To try to briefly summarize 32 years in technical communication is really hard. Let me say that I was a detail-oriented person who developed an eye for words and pictures that weren't right. Unfortunately, at P&G my emphasis on details was looked on as a weakness. It was hard to resolve that and probably one of the reasons I was laid off. You can read into that what you want. However, at GE my talents were recognized and rewarded. Probably one of the reasons was that I had learned some lessons at P&G that I applied at GE to survive the office politics.

BL: What responsibilities did you have in your previous position?

MH: At my last position at GE I was responsible for the pubs of one of our military engines. Due to the continued out-sourcing of the work this entailed coordinating the generation and revisions to this set of manuals by a supplier. This title was called Program Integrator. We not only had to deal with the supplier but our pubs management, the many engineers responsible for their part of the engine, the customer and all of the requirements of the military regulations.

BL: Why did you choose this particular field of work?

MH: It was a combination of not being happy as a drafter/designer at P&G and wanting to try my hand at technical writing.

BL: How did you break in to the technical communications field?

 

  

 

MH: Fortunately P&G worked with me in the transition. I expressed my desire for a change to technical communications and they facilitated the change. First I gathered data to update the Dust Control Manual. This was the field of engineering that I was working in. Then they transferred me to Standards & Pubs to prepare the data for the update to the manual.

BL: How did college and/or the military prepare you for your career?

MH: My Associate in Civil Engineering exposed me to technical writing through classes and of course reports that we had to write, including the final paper of our choice on a particular aspect of civil engineering. The military, which I did before college, got me interested in who wrote all of those manuals that are used to support all of the activities required to do our jobs.

BL: What was your experience like transitioning from Procter & Gamble to GE Aircraft Engines?

MH: Although it may not have seemed like it at the time, looking back at the transition, it went pretty smoothly. My P&G coworkers gave me valuable suggestions on improving my resume. And once I found out that one of our previous contract writers was back working for GE, he passed my resume onto to the hiring mangers at GE. The key to this was that he could vouch for me in a very positive way. Eight months prior to the lay off I had applied at GE but got the standard “Thank you, we'll hold your resume for a year” response.

BL: What made you transition from being a Senior Technical Writer to Quality Integrator? What were the benefits and tradeoffs?

MH: One of the strategies that I determined I'd do at GE was not to get stagnant in one job. So after working as a technical writer for 7 years at GE and 11 years at P&G before that, I knew it was time for a change. I didn't see any negative tradeoffs at all in making the transition.

BL: Which of your skills would you consider being most crucial for this position?

MH: Flexibility and communication. QA had a lot or rules and regulations but one thing I learned somewhere in my career was that there are always exceptions to every rule - and the key was to recognize when to apply those exceptions. It always astounded me when people in pubs either didn't read or care about the written communications. So we had to ensure we told people what we wrote and what it meant.

BL: In your career, what person has had the greatest influence on you, why?

MH: I had never really thought about this - maybe because there was no one person I could look back at and say they made the difference in my career. What comes to my mind as I try to answer this question last - is people like Rudolph Flesch; Strunk and White; Brusard/Alred/Oliu; and Tarutz. Hopefully everybody will recognize these names as authors of writing and editing books. And I just remembered another - Rolf F. Rehe who wrote Typography: how to make it most legible. (Interesting enough is that he found italics not easily read.) Their books were read by me and now line the top of my roll-top desk at home. Friendly ghosts from my past.

BL: What motivated you on the job?

MH: Personal satisfaction that I did my best. I'll never forget one performance appraisal where my boss said I was self-actuated. I actually laughed at his comment because that was a term used to described some of the devices on a jet engine - self-actuated. He said he knew what it meant and so did I but that's an engineer giving a performance appraisal.

BL: This month's issue focuses on problem solving. Could you describe an on-the-job greatest crisis and how you solved it?

MH: I was involved in one crisis that I was drafted into to help solve. My part was to be one of the editors to review the new pages being produced and to establish a style manual to help control the format and writing process. We had to keep pounding away at the old methods of doing things and to initiate better processes.

BL: What accomplishment are you most proud of?

MH: It was definitely a manual that I was responsible for at P&G. We converted a monthly revised manual that was housed in a 3-post binder to a softbound manual that was issued once a year. We issued a few sticky-back pages quarterly to update the costs parameters and any corrections or necessary updates. This challenge was accomplished by the efforts of a very component composition clerk, cost engineers, and our printing clerks. And, the most rewarding part of it all was to see my name on the inside cover of the manual - a first for our pubs group.

Thank you, Mike. It has been most interesting speaking with you about your career and experiences. You have giving us insights on how to better our careers and achieve success.