Spotlight on Wallace Clements

By Becky Rude

Name: Wallace Clements

Job: Travel, and writing about political and social issues. (Wallace is retired.)

Hours: Although Wallace officially retired in 1988 after 30 years with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, he continued to work at various writing positions until recently. He is now fully retired as a technical writer/editor, but is pursuing a career as a newspaper columnist writing on political and social issues through Creators Syndicate, Inc. This company represents such famous columnists as Ann Landers and Mike Luckovich.

Years as STC Member: Wallace was one of the charter members of our chapter, which was called Pacifica when it started in 1962. He held the office of President for a year during his 30-year STC membership.

How I Became an Editor/Writer: Wallace graduated from Hobart College in New York with a bachelor's degree in math and a minor in English. For 10 years, Wallace worked in the field of seismic oil exploration where he analyzed seismic results.

He had always wanted to be a fiction writer, but pondered technical writing because of his science background. An opportunity opened at Lawrence Livermore Lab, and he decided to make the career switch. At Lawrence Livermore, he was both a technical writer and technical editor.

I Love My Job: Wallace got a great deal of satisfaction from turning out good documents that were well printed and illustrated. He enjoyed the feeling of completing a worthwhile project.

I Dislike My Job Because: There wasn't much that Wallace disliked about his work. The working conditions were good, and he was privileged to work with interesting and friendly people.

My Top Work Challenge: During his career at the lab, Wallace had always written and edited work for journals or reports. After he formally retired, he worked on a project for Materials Data, Inc. in Livermore that required user documentation for their x-ray diffraction equipment. This work was very demanding, but Wallace was proud of the end result, and the fact that he had taken on the challenge of learning about a different type of writing.

What I Remember Most About the Pacifica Chapter: Wallace remembers that in 1962 when both the chapter and his technical writing career just started, he was sent for six weeks to work on Christmas Island to document nuclear testing. Christmas Island is an Australian Territory located 2600 km northwest of Perth. He remembers that the native people were relocated during the time of the testing for their safety.

The Biggest Change in Technical Writing Over the Years: That question was easy for Wallace: the equipment writers use to produce their work went through the greatest change. He commented that the actual writing process didn't change, but the equipment went through tremendous changes. Writers went from working on typewriters to Wang word processors, and finally to the personal computer.

When I Grew Up I Wanted to Be: When Wallace was a small boy, he wanted to be a truck driver! As a young man, he wanted to be a pilot. He was a pilot for the Army's B-17 plane in World War II, and was scheduled to go to England to be in the 8th Air Force. Unfortunately he was involved in an accident that caused him to miss this opportunity. At that point, he started thinking more about being a writer.

At Home I'm Most Proud: Of his two children, a son and a daughter. The son has a Ph.D. in physics and is co-owner of a business in Washington, D.C. His daughter is an ecologist for the Bureau of Land Management, and lives in Colorado with her husband and 4-year-old son.

I Enjoy Reading: A variety of political books, biographies, and short stories (although Wallace commented that it seems harder to find these now). He also enjoys reading the New Yorker.

The Devil Mountain Views -- May/June 2002
(ebstc.org/newsletter/front.html)
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