Newsletter of the East Bay Chapter of STC
September/October 2002

Member Spotlight: Jacquelyn Lee

by Don Huntington
EBSTC Member

Jacquelyn Lee is an EBSTC member. After working as a programmer and a technical writer for 13 years, Jacquelyn started her own recruiting company, Writing Innovations, which provides innovative solutions to technical writing challenges in the Bay Area.

Don wrote Jacquelyn's biography for her web site. This article is excerpted from that material.

Punching Through to Success

Jacquelyn grew up in a ghetto area of Oakland, but her parents never let her feel that she was poor. She excelled in high school, getting good grades as well as being head of her high school cheerleader squad. She subsequently became the first of eight children to go to college, which she attended on a four-year scholarship.

It seemed to Jacquelyn that life became conflicted when she moved from high school to college. From that point on, life seemed to challenge her in everything she set out to do.

Jacquelyn graduated from predominantly black McClymonds High in Oakland and entered the mostly white Scripps College at Claremont University. In fact, hers was only the third class entering that college that included African-Americans. The director of the Claremont science program told her that black people didn’t belong in the program. In response to that racist and ungallant comment, Jacquelyn says she took five science courses in a single semester and got all As and Bs. Her performance that semester served as a model for the other African-American students and finally secured the respect of the department heads.

Getting Down to Work

Entering the workforce produced a whole new set of challenges. Jacquelyn began her career in the Bay Area working in the lab at Chevron Research and requested that one of the VPs give her a position in development and human resources. He instead gave her a job in the engineering department as a programmer.

Jacquelyn took a training class alongside engineers at a time when she says she “didn’t even know what a byte was,” but she successfully developed a few small programs, a Statistical Analysis System (SAS) database, and a Nomad database.

Jacquelyn eventually entered the world of technical writing in the most common way—through the back door. While working in a customer support position at Intuit, Jacquelyn developed her first technical manual—even though she didn’t know what a manual was!

Jacquelyn subsequently showed the manual to the manager of the writing group, who said the manual was well organized, thoughtful, and well written.

Doing What She Really Wants to Do

Jacquelyn has come to realize that rising to meet challenges in her life produces a joyful sense of accomplishment. She has become sensitive to the feeling that she is being propelled through life even through the tough times. An old Ojibway proverb says:

"I went about in pity for myself. And all the while a great wind was blowing me across the heavens."

Jacquelyn said she began to enjoy the feel of that heaven-sent blast. She’s having fun rising to meet the challenges of life. Her life is heading in a great direction.

She has come to realize that she is at heart a people person. Her greatest satisfactions come from human communication.

Jacquelyn started a company, Writing Innovations, in 1997 as a way of working with and serving people—specifically in helping writers become successful.

Jacquelyn says she’s going to be successful in growing her company to an impressive size! She’s going to face up to and overcome the challenges. And she plans to help a lot of people!

 If you’re interested in what Jacquelyn is up to, check out her web site.

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