Simon J J North

Simon J J North

Ringoven 19

6042 KB Roermond

The Netherlands

Tel: +31 (0)475 327632

Email:

A highly skilled Senior Technical Author/Writer with a wide experience of the electronics, software, telecommunications, aerospace, and semiconductor industries. A strong team player with good leadership skills. Highly computer literate; a natural communicator with a passion for learning.

• Knowledge of a wide variety of authoring software packages including Frame (FrameMaker, FrameSGML), Interleaf, ForeHelp, RoboHelp, DreamWeaver and various structured authoring tools
• SGML/HyTime/XML expert
• Wealth of experience in documenting programming languages for software development (C, C++, Ada, Java) and hardware design (RTL, VHDL, Verilog, SystemC, SystemVerilog) and verification (Vera, OpenVera)
• Native English speaker; functionally bilingual in Dutch, French and German.

• 3 GCE “A” levels: English, French, Pure and Applied Mathematics; 10 GCE “O” levels.
• BSc (Honours) (CNAA) degree in Mathematics, Computing and Statistics; completed first year only.
• BA (Honours) (CNAA) degree in Modern English Studies, minoring in French.
• Technical Education Council (TEC) Certificate in Aerospace Studies (A9) - Avionics; two distinctions and one merit.
• Technical Authorship certificate, Technical Services (Ramsey) Ltd., course equates to City and Guilds 535/536 certificates, parts 1 and 2.
• Post graduate diploma in Technical Authorship, Sheffield Hallam University UK.
  

Professional

• Engineering Technician (EngTech(CEI)), registered with the UK Engineers Registration Board (ERB).
• Fellow of the UK Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (FISTC).
• Technician member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Incorporated Engineers (TMIEEIE).
• Associate of the Royal Aeronautical Society (ARAeS).
• Member of the Institute of Practitioners in Radio and Electronics (MIPRE).
• Senior Member of the American Society for Technical Communication (STC).

Other

• FrameMaker-to-Acrobat Advanced Techniques course, MicroType.
• Presenting Data and Information, Edward Tufte, Palo Alto.

PresentTechnical Writer,
Quintiq BV, ‘s Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.

Quintiq is a producer of software applications and tools for advanced planning, scheduling and supply chain optimization.

In addition to writing and producing printed documents, online help, embedded help and user assistance for all Quintiq software products, I have a number of secondary roles as a member of the software R&D department:

• I have designed and implemented a single-source online and PDF documentation system using DreamWeaver, RoboHelp X5 and Macromedia Captivate for application documentation) and application-derived XML code (for C++ class documentation).
• I am the functional owner and content developer for embedded user assistance support (embedded help and user assistance integrated into the user interface) for future software packages that are being productized and will be assembled via an ASP interface.
• I am the user interface (GUI) usability and design expert and am responsible for final application user interface development and fine tuning.
• I have designed, implemented and continue to manage a wiki-based system for knowledge collection, collaborative documentation efforts and information sharing. This includes PHP, Perl and WordBasic code for converting source material into wiki (dokuwiki) format and Perl, C and XSLT code for converting wiki code back into other formats for re-use.
• I have prototyped a web-based document storage and retrieval system using Owl, PHP and Perl as the first step towards a knowledge management system.
• I am responsible for all documentation translation and software localization issues (current languages: Danish, Dutch, French, English and German).

1997-2003Senior Staff Technical Writer,
Synopsys GmbH, Herzogenrath, Germany.

Synopsys GmbH is the German R&D subsidiary of Synopsys Inc., Mountain View, California; one of the world leaders in Electronics Design Automation (EDA) software tools.

Working closely with a multidisciplinary team distributed throughout the USA, I was responsible for the complete documentation process for a suite of manuals and online documentation for high-level design, simulation and verification software for integrated circuit devices, working on a very packed three-monthly release schedule.

Additional strategic and management roles:

• Consultation and technical expertise for the company's migration through SGML delivery using FrameMaker+SGML to XML-based Web delivery.
• Member of a task group for defining on-line help strategies.
• Editing of technical material for Internet publication,
• Authoring of material for Intranet publication.

1995 - 1997Documentation Engineer,

Tedopres International BV, Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Tedopres is one of the foremost documentation houses in Europe, providing third-party documentation services.

My roles included:

• Documentation engineering consultant/project manager (the application of an engineering approach to documentation/information development, design, production, delivery and maintenance) to third-party customers.
• System manager for company e-mail and Internet resources (including WWW site) and UNIX network,
• Supervisor, interactive (multimedia) documentation projects (from commercial presentations to CBT, on-line product catalogs and Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals (IETM)),
• Technical writer; covering a phenomenal variety from mechanical to electronic, small scale to million-dollar projects (including HVAC crane systems, software, printing/paper machinery, chromatography, oil pipeline technology, smart card reader systems, domestic power tool equipment).
• Technical translator (Dutch to English, French to English, and German to English),
• Quality assurance (assistance in ISO 9000 activities).

1989 - 1995Document Technology Consultant,

Hollandse Signaalapparaten BV / Thomson-CSF Signaal, Hengelo (O), The Netherlands.

Hollandse Signaalapparaten BV / Thomson-CSF Signaal (now Thales Nederland) is the leading Dutch defense manufacturer, specializing in marine combat systems.

1989 - 1992Technical Writer/Team Leader, Software R&D Department (RDT)

Contract technical author, after two years I moved to a staff position as technical documentation team leader. In charge of a team of three technical writers tasked with producing documentation for software engineering tools, environments and methodologies.

1992 - 1993Quality Assurance Engineer, Software R&D

Overall responsibility for the documentation aspects of software quality assurance, with particular emphasis on the requirements for ISO 9000 and the SEI Software Capability Maturity Model. Responsible for the origination and implementation of standards (including house styles and documentation templates), guidelines and procedures for a wide variety of documentation tools, methods and technologies in support of real-time software development.

As a member of the departmental quality audit and assessment team, I continued to fulfill a role as a technical writer (developer, user and quality documentation), and as a translator (French, German, and Dutch to English).

1993-1995 Team Leader, Document Technology Support Group

Participating leader of a group tasked with piloting the company towards paperless manufacturing. Responsibilities included assisting in the company-wide introduction of SGML and the necessary support facilities (documentation configuration management, object-based databases, workflow management, etc.) and the implementation, supervision and guidance of Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM) production. Specialist role as SGML/HyTime expert, DTD author, technology expert and standards advisor. Advised, assisted and trained staff members in all aspects of technical communication (including on-line information, hypertext documents and instructional and presentation material) and the use of document engineering tools.

Member of the Dutch CALS technical commission responsible for evaluating and recommending industry standards for EDI in defense areas.

In 1994, in my own time, I single-handedly designed, built, implemented and introduced an internal company-wide web-based information system (now known as an Intranet) using a unique system of distributed servers.

1987 - 89 Senior Engineer/Author/Projects Manager,
Pergamon Technical Services International, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands.

Pergamon TSIB, was the Dutch subsidiary of the Pergamon publishing group providing third-party documentation services to the Dutch petrochemical and space industries.

• Lead author/project controller for a Well Services Guidance Manual for the Shell International Petroleum Maatschappij (SIPM).
• Sole author of various brochures, specifications, standards, reports and manuals for ground segment satellite communication systems for the European Space Research and Technical Centre (ESA/ESTEC).
• Technical adviser/supervising author for user and reference manuals for a ‘silicon compiler’ for the design of ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits).
• Sole author, Mathematics Support Division at ESA/ESTEC, producing user documentation for a suite of FORTRAN77-based software (ESABASE) for the finite element modeling of satellites, and the simulation and analysis of the space environment. Installed, set up, and managed a TEX, LATEX documentation system under Ultrix.
• Responsible for assisting in analyzing new projects, writing statements of work and job specifications, tendering for work and recruiting, interviewing, assigning and supervising subcontracting staff.

1984 - 87Senior Technical Author,
Philips Industrial and Electro-acoustic Equipment Division, Almelo, The Netherlands.

Philips I&E Almelo is one of the leading manufacturers of optical emission and x-ray spectrometry equipment.

• Sole author for the optical emission spectrometry and laboratory automation activities (chemical analysis and reporting, and robotics software), producing documentation to self-originated standards.
• Sole author, service specialist, engineer and instructor for RF induction furnace equipment (powder sample preparation).
• Editor and supervising author for x-ray diffraction and fluorescence spectrometry activities.
• Technical translator: French to English, German to English and Dutch to English.

1984Product Support Engineer / Senior Technical Author,

Lucas Aerospace, Electronic Systems and Equipment Division, Birmingham, England.

Responsible for producing component maintenance manuals for digital and analog fuel control electronics for Rolls-Royce aircraft (RB211-535-E4) and marine (Spey) jet engines. Also responsible for controlling spares, repairs, and supplier and customer liaison for these equipments.

1977 - 83Avionics Technician Class 1 (Corporal),

Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), HM Armed Forces.

Service in England, Northern Ireland and Germany.

Responsible for the maintenance and repair, at various levels, of the electronic and electrical equipment (ranging from basic electrical equipment to digital electronics such as automatic flight control, radar navigation and TOW missile weapon firing and guidance systems) either fitted directly to, or associated with, Army aircraft (both rotary and fixed wing).

Airborne forces trained; member of the REME Silver Stars free-fall parachute display team. One-time co-holder European record for largest free-fall parachute formation (60-man star).

I was one of the authors of the Dutch national standard (NEN 5509) for the production of user documentation for consumer products (“products of consumer interest”).

I was one of the contributors to the IDML markup language design and the XSL style and transformation language for XML, and I was a committee member for the ISO standard for Topic Map Navigation (ISO/IEC 13250).

Since 1997 I have co-authored or authored the following books:

• “Presenting XML”, Richard Light, Sams.Net, 1997, ISBN 1-57521-334-6
• “Dynamic Web Publishing, Unleashed”, Shelley Powers et al., Sams.Net, 1997, ISBN 1-57521-363-X
• “HTML4 Unleashed, Professional Reference Edition”, Rick Darnell et al., Sams.Net, 1998, ISBN 57521-380-X
• “Platinum Edition, Using HTML4, XML and Java”, Tim Ryan et al., Macmillan Computer Press, 1998, ISBN 07897-1759-X
• “Teach Yourself XML in 21 Days”, Simon North & Paul Hermans, Sams.Net, 1998, ISBN 5791-3926-6. This book has published in French, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, Dutch, Japanese and Korean.

I have presented tutorials and papers on XML and related subjects at several major international conferences.

I am a technical editor/reviewer and subject matter consultant for various publishers, including Prentice-Hall (Pearson Educational): C, C++, C#, Java, Perl, JavaScript, XML, and HTML; Wrox: XML; Manning Publications: XML, Visual Basic, and ASP.

Married, 6 children; full driving license.

I was brought up in a French/English bilingual family (my mother’s family are French-speaking Belgian and my father lived in French Congo for many years, graduated from Lille University, and taught French at school for more than 20 years). From 1989 to 1995 I was employed by Hollandse Signaalapparaten in a Dutch/French-speaking environment. I have been translating professionally from French to English since 1976.

I served in Germany with HM Forces, during which I spent a lot of my time totally immersed in a German-speaking environment. I took German at night school and passed a GCE O level exam, but in practice was the regimental interpreter for 3 years. From 1997 to 2003 I was employed by Synopsys in Aachen in a German-speaking environment. I have been translating professionally from German to English since 1982.

I moved to the Netherlands in 1984 and started attending Dutch language courses at the Volksuniversiteit almost immediately. In 1986, I married a Dutch woman. Although I have no formal qualifications in Dutch, after residing in various parts of the country (Overijssel, Nord Holland, Brabant and Limburg) for more than 20 years and fully participating in normal Dutch life, I consider myself fully proficient in written and spoken Dutch. I have been translating professionally from Dutch to English since 1988 both as a freelancer and in a full-time capacity (Nederlandse Aardolie Maatchappij, Tedopres International BV).

I founded ‘Directions’, a registered Dutch company, in 1987. Since then I have been continuously employed as a freelance translator. Major contracts include, the documentation for the Leopard Main Battle Tank, documentation for the Orion maritime patrol aircraft, Apache AH-64 documentation, and many others.

I am proficient in the use of professional translation tools, translation memory tools (Trados, Transit, Wordfast, SDLX) and machine-translation tools (Euroglot, Systran, Prompt).