By Alex Garcia, Nominating Committee Chair/Director-at-Large
The STC Florida Chapter Nominating Committee, chaired by 2021-2022 Director-at-Large Alex Garcia, is pleased to present the slate for 2022-2023. Voting will open at midnight Monday 27 June 2022 and will end at 7:00 PM on Friday 22 July 2022. If you are a STC Florida Chapter member as of 26 June 2022, please be on the lookout for an email from invitations@mail.electionbuddy.com with your official ballot.
Announcement of results and officer installation will follow at our 2022-2023 Leadership Retreat on Saturday 23 July 2022. We invite all chapter members to attend the Leadership Retreat, help plan the 2022-2023 chapter year, and get more involved with the Chapter. If you are interested in attending the Leadership Retreat, contact President Bethany Aguad at President@stcflorida.org.
NOTE: Debra Johnson automatically continues as Immediate Past President per the bylaws of the STC Florida Chapter. Her bio is provided below for your information.
Meet the Candidates:
President: Bethany Aguad (She/Her)
Bethany Aguad is the current STC Florida chapter president, co-chair of the Education Committee, and former member of the STC Board of Directors. In her years with STC, she has been a Sigma Tau Chi honoree, received the Distinguished Service Award for Students, co-managed STC’s student outreach initiative, and represented students on the Community Affairs Committee.
Bethany has served the STC Florida chapter in many positions, including Treasurer, Webmaster, and President. She has nurtured her passion for student outreach through co-managing the education committee, pairing students at UCF with professionals in the industry.
A graduate of UCF with a B.A. and M.A. in English—Technical Communication, Bethany has received the prestigious Melissa Pellegrin Memorial Scholarship and the Stuart Omans Award for Excellence in Technical Communication.
Bethany has worked in academia, hospitality, and financial services leveraging communication skills and process improvement to solve information problems. She currently works as a Technical Documentation Specialist at Sagent Lending Technologies where she handles the publishing process for loan servicing documentation.
Vice President: Julia Southwick (She/Her)
Julia Southwick currently works at JHT, Inc as a technical writer. In her time with the STC Florida chapter, Julia has served as the chair of the communication committee, editor of Memo to Members, and co-chair of the 2021-2022 chapter mentoring program. Julia is a graduate of UCF’s technical communication program class of 2019.
As the editor of STC Florida’s Memo to Members (MtM), Julia has recently published an article on a personality type and tech comm which is the start of a series of posts. She is interested in how personality types and tech comm intersect. Julia also started a series of STC Membership Spotlights which are “getting to know you” posts in a similar style to meet the new editor.
Treasurer: WC Wiese (He/Him)
WC currently works as an exam proctor for Rasmussen University. He has 45 years’ experience in aerospace marketing support and program communications, retiring as Communications Manager for a unique joint venture company formed by Lockheed Martin with German and Italian defense contractors. A member of STC for over 30 years, WC is an STC Fellow and has served as STC Treasurer and Director at Large. He previously served as President of STC’s Orlando Chapter following a 5-year tenure as chapter treasurer. He has presented at 13 STC Summits. Recognitions include an STC Jaffe Outstanding Technical Communicator Award, two Lockheed Martin Comet Awards, a PR News Platinum Award, and multiple awards in the Florida Technical Communication Competition.
Secretary: Yosh Leonard (He/Him)
Yosh Leonard works at Siemens Energy Field Service as a Technical Writer. Previously, he spent six years working for the Department of Labor helping assist the military with unemployment claims that serve our soldiers. He also serves the greater Orlando area, editing websites for small businesses. Yosh finished his B.A in Technical Communication at UCF in December 2021.
Recently, he accepted a nomination for a role as secretary with the STC Florida chapter. Using this role he plans to further his skills and assist the STC Florida chapter in its endeavours to grow and assist the technical writing community.
Director-at-Large: Alex Garcia (He/El)
Alex Garcia (He/El) is the outgoing Vice-Chair of STC’s Community Affairs Committee, where he specialized in chapter outreach. Professionally, he has over 13 years’ experience documenting hardware systems in the aerospace and defense industry, currently at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.
An STC member for 16 years, he has held just about every role in the STC Florida Chapter. As a student member, he was president of the Future Technical Communicators (FTC) organization at the University of Central Florida and served as co-manager of the student mentoring program. As a professional member, he served as the Jaffe Award Committee chair, editor of the Memo to Members chapter newsletter, chapter treasurer for two years, and then two terms as chapter president. For his leadership and dedication, the Society awarded him the Distinguished Service Award for Students (DSAS) in 2006 and the Distinguished Chapter Service Award (DCSA) in 2013 and 2015. Alex presented at the 53rd Annual STC Summit in Las Vegas in 2006 and the 65th Annual STC Summit in Orlando.
Immediate Past President: Debra Johnson (She/Her)
Debra Johnson has been a seasoned Technical Communication professional, Enterprise Content Strategist, a leader of teams, and TechComm specialist for 28 years. She has been a member of the STC Florida Chapter since 2010. She was Vice President and Programs Director 2010-2013, President 2013-2016, Immediate Past President 2016-2019, and resumed as Chapter President 2019-2021. She is our current Immediate Past President. She is a mentor to students at UCF in the TechComm program. Debra was the 2011 Gloria Jaffe Outstanding Technical Communicator Award winner for exceptional and sustained contributions to her company’s products, customer satisfaction, business and financial performance. She also published an article in the May 2014 issue of STC’s Intercom magazine called “The Art of the Elevator Speech.” Debra is an STC Associate Fellow.