Terry Lynn Blessing

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Independent Consultant

Ethernovia

Jul 2025 - Mar 2026 (9 months)

Converted large manuals generated by AI to DITA XML from multiple sources (MS Word, InDesign, Doxygen). Oxygen XML Editor v 28.
• Built all ditamaps with keyrefs rather than hrefs per B2B customer request.
• Created keys maps for topics and graphics.
• Entered topic metadata in root master ditamap.
• Built reltables rather than cross-references for multiple chapters per customer request.
• Overrides on some reltable topic titles due to lack of unique titles.
• Created warehouse topics for conkeyrefs to single source content.
• Created the DITA folder structure in Perforce. Recommended implementing a DITA-aware CCMS such as Componize.
• Suggested edits to some egregious sentences written by AI, which w

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Dita Xml Information Architect/Content Strategist

Acolad Consultant for iRhythm

Jul 2024 - Oct 2025 (1 year 4 months)

Led the content migration strategy for iRhythm labeling from Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign to DITA XML for the iRhythm Zio suite of products.
• Created a slide deck of information about DITA and presented it along with my managers to over a hundred iRhythm personnel.
• Evaluated CCMS products presented by the system integrator consultants from AmeXio. Decided on the structured document tools stack.
• Administrator for Componize CCMS and Review module for iRhythm and Acolad employees. Added users, assigned roles, and deleted users. Backed up branches. Set permissions on publishing pipeline files and stylesheets to prevent inexperienced users from tampering with critical files. Tagged files and folders with metadata.
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Consultant

LearningLens Consultant for Precisely

Sep 2023 - Dec 2023 (4 months)

Migrated and published converted documentation using Oxygen Author version 26, DITAToo 2023 CCMS, and Fluid topics. Short-term contract. Verified valid ditamaps for documents, resolved any errors, applied taxonomy, and published from DITAToo to their Fluid Topics Help System. The source is versioned in DITAToo. The client of LearningLens (Precisely) is migrating their documentation from a knowledge base site to a help system powered by Fluid Topics. Extensive use of Microsoft Excel to track projects. Collaboration conducted with Microsoft Teams. Windows 10 operating system.

Information Engineer

Starburst

May 2022 - Jun 2023 (1 year 2 months)

Trained on Starburst Academy with direction from the Starburst Lead Solution Architect. Deployed Starburst Enterprise Platform (SEP) on Kubernetes (K8s) clusters (EKS, GKE, or AKS). K8s is the preferred deployment platform for SEP. Starburst officially manages platform installation and upgrades directly through the starburst-enterprise Helm chart. K8s deployments use structured YAML files mapped to internal SEP configs.
Updated documentation for Starburst Galaxy (cloud), Starburst Enterprise, and the Trino open-source project. Accomplishments:
• Created ~237 pull requests for Starburst and Trino documentation repos.
• Learned the docs release processes for Starburst Enterprise platform, including backports. Updated the wiki a

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Technical Writer IV

SalesforceMulesoft

Mar 2022 - May 2022 (3 months)

Contract through Spectraforce. Edited and collated materials for several accelerator releases.

Technical Writer

Striim

Jan 2022 - Mar 2022 (3 months)

Documented streaming platform product features using Paligo. Assigned responsibility for the Kafka aspect of the platform. Documented onboarding processes.

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Technical Writer

DeltaStream

Dec 2021 - Mar 2022 (4 months)

Documented product features for a stealth startup in the cloud streaming domain using Antora ASCII docs. The product is a cloud-native hosted application for managing streaming pipelines. Worked with web designers on the UI theme and build engineers on the build processes. Part-time consulting position.

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Technical Writer

oNote (Evident Systems)

Jun 2021 - Oct 2021 (5 months)

Documented, tested, and made UI recommendations for the oNote event modeling cloud application. First and sole writer developing content with Antora ASCII docs toolchain. Made videos with Camtasia, imbedded in docs, and posted to YouTube channel. Wrote blog article and email communications to customers. Copy edited company web site. Seed startup.

Staff Technical Writer

Kong

Mar 2020 - Jun 2021 (1 year 4 months)

Responsibilities include the Kong Developer Portal and developer plugin guides. Markdown with liquid templating language for documentation source in GitHub. PR builds were hosted by Netlify.
Summary of accomplishments: Documented feature updates for the 1.5.x, 2.1.x, 2.2.x, 2.3.x, and 2.4.x releases for both open source and enterprise Kong products.
#2 contributor to the Kong docs public and private repos
Tested and documented the Mocking plugin for 2.4.x:
• https://docs.konghq.com/hub/kong-inc/mocking/
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Senior (Principal) Technical Writer

Confluent

Jan 2019 - Mar 2020 (1 year 3 months)

Content developer for the Confluent Platform (enterprise and community Apache Kafka). ReStructured Text source in GitHub with builds on Jenkins.
Accomplishments:
• Documented from scratch the License Manager feature released version 5.2. Updated for releases 5.3 and 5.4. Tested example license XML files in Charles proxy to simulate license type expiration scenarios.
• Improved the Confluent quick start guides, which have high visibility and heavy traffic. Added tear down sections for local install and Docker installs, both Confluent and Community versions. Collaborated with cross-department DevX team member and added troubleshooting sections appropriate for each of the four quick starts.
• Documented the Control Center R

Senior Technical Writer

DataStax

Dec 2014 - Oct 2018 (3 years 11 months)

Updated CQL (Cassandra Query Language) documentation. Made extensive review comments on existing documentation, and created 13 rounds of pull requests to correct grammar and typos. Created new and tested existing CQL command examples in 12 rounds of pull requests. Modified example table schemas due to query errors in existing syntax. Created coderefs in oxygen to runnable code examples and documented the process on the company wiki. Trained on DataStax Academy Data modeling course.
Contributions to the DataStax Docs team process improvements included:
• Advocating for pull request workflow: Convinced the team that they should implement a pull request workflow using git. As a former member of the OpsCenter team, the documentation l

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Contract Technical Writer

Dolby

Aug 2014 - Nov 2014 (4 months)

Part-time contract manually migrating legacy unstructured FrameMaker audio decoder content into oXygen v15.2 with an easyDITA CMS. Wrote new content for some Atmos surround sound features.

Senior Api Technical Writer

Digital River

Feb 2013 - Nov 2014 (1 year 10 months)

LearningLens consultant; converted to FTE September 2013. Responsible for the DR Connect Developer Portal:
• Documented the DR Connect RESTful OAuth and Shoppers APIs supporting global eCommerce using Drupal. Wrote FAQs, blog articles, tutorials, and reference material.
• Observed API requests and responses in SOAPUI tests for improved comprehension of API behaviors.
• Improved the user navigation experience: Configured Colorbox modules and content types to show content in a lightbox without requiring leaving a page. Configured Flippy module for perusing pages of blog posts.
• Tweaked Drupal Views for displaying content.
• Created custom content types and edited existing content types to include newly defined fields

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SystemsOne Consultant

PaR NuclearWestinghouseToshiba

Dec 2012 - Jan 2013 (2 months)

Documented factory and site acceptance tests for nuclear power plant equipment.

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Consultant

Vital ImagesToshiba

Apr 2012 - Sep 2012 (6 months)

LearningLens consultant. Advised DITA and HTML5 delivery strategies; instructional design content developer. Created webhelp with FrameMaker and RoboHelp. Created instructional design modules with Powerpoint and Captivate for clinical imaging applications. Coordinated translations.

Senior Technical Writer

MTS

Jun 2011 - Apr 2012 (11 months)

Senior technical writer for the TestSuite Materials Testing System application, a programming GUI. Participated in scrum and sprint sessions in an Agile development environment. Content strategist and information architect. Devised naming conventions for topics and folder structures that indicated scope of content reuse. Participated in XSL design decisions. Created prototype specializations. Recommended best practices for screen captures and image resolution using SnagIt, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Prepared legacy unstructured FrameMaker content to convert to DITA topic types. Created new content for tasks assigned during agile sprints. Tools included XML editor and xDocs CMS.

Senior Technical Writer

Beckman coulter

Jul 2010 - Apr 2011 (10 months)

Senior technical writer supporting Immunoassay and molecular diagnostics products. Managed translations in 23 languages with CSPAN China.

Consultant

Emerson Process Management

Apr 2010 - Jul 2010 (4 months)

Creating planning and diagnostics manuals in XMetaL with a SharePoint backend CMS for the PlantWeb digital architecture. Logged XML production issues and collaborated with SuiteSolutions vendor to resolve. Short-term contract through WAI.

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Consultant

Imaginatik

Feb 2010 - Apr 2010 (3 months)

Conversion and content update project from Word to Confluence and Apple Wikis for an idea incubation portal. Part-time telecommute contract through WAI.

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Cdi Consultant

ProVation Medical (Wolters Kluwer)

Sep 2008 - Feb 2010 (1 year 6 months)

CDI consultant. Documented cardiology specialties for Catheterization, Nuclear Imaging, and Echocardiography modules. Conversion and update project from Word to FrameMaker. Documented endoscope reprocessing module for Australian customers. Devised conditional text to create EHR documentation from single source.

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Senior Information Developer

Sterling Commerce (Nistevo, now IBM)

Jul 2007 - Sep 2008 (1 year 3 months)

Senior Information Developer. Documented Sterling Transportation Management System for a user and administrator audience. Completed deliverables for quarterly releases. Modules documented included Freight Payment, Contract Management, Average Rates Calculator, Capacity Center, and CarrierConnect.

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Technical Writer

McAfee (Secure ComputingIntel)

Nov 2006 - Jul 2007 (9 months)

Technical Writer. Documented and tested SnapGear firewall appliance line. Maintained documentation for Sidewinder G2 firewall Common Criteria certification guide.

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Consultant

Dashe and Thomson Consultant at Medtronic

Feb 2005 - Nov 2006 (1 year 10 months)

Documented medical device reference manuals for a physician and field service engineer audience in an FDA-regulated environment. Documented ICD topics for the Gen 2 platform using MAPS (Medtronic Advanced Publishing System), a proprietary publishing system based on ArborText Epic Editor.

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Senior Information Developer

Oracle (Stellent)

Aug 2003 - Jul 2004 (1 year)

Senior Information Developer. Documented Records Management System component in compliance with the Department of Defense Standard 5015.2. Created an installation guide, administrator guide, and user guide. Updated discussion threads component of Stellent Content Server Management System. Trained in Administering and Customizing of Stellent Web CMS. Produced documentation source in FrameMaker, which was then converted to PDF and HTML Help using Quadraly WebWorks ePublisher. Documentation structured into concept, task, and reference topics in anticipation of an XML-based document architecture.

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Senior Technical Writer

Adobe Systems Incorporated

Nov 2000 - Mar 2003 (2 years 5 months)

Senior Technical Writer, Developer Technologies. Documented XML-based PDF document server version 5.0. Documented AlterCast XML-based graphics server product (AlterCast) versions 1.0 and 1.5 for a developer audience. The server products had multiple APIs, including Java, Perl, and COM. Responsible for reviewing Web training modules and technical support knowledge bases. Created sample XML command scripts that shipped with the SDK for the Adobe Document Server version 5. Over two years experience documenting XML command languages. Possess a basic understanding of the Document Object Model (DOM) and its manipulation, DTDs, and XML schema.

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Independent Contractor

Clarity Online Design Incorporated

Jan 1994 - Nov 2000 (6 years 11 months)

CEO of my own corporation. Clients included Oracle, Prodea/Platinum Technology, Information Advantage/Sterling/Computer Associates, Retek, DataCard. Also performed multiple projects with various contract houses including Aerotek Engineering, Dacon Engineering, and Hayden Associates for clients: Allaire, Medtronic, Seagate, Shimadzu, NCS.

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Technical Writer

National Computer System

Sep 1992 - Mar 1994 (1 year 7 months)

Created Windows-based online help systems manually using Microsoft SDK for a school scheduling system MicroCIMS.

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Consultant

Century Design Consultant

Sep 1989 - Apr 1991 (1 year 8 months)

• IBM, Boulder, CO-Designed online help using IPF (Information Presentation Facility), a subset of SGML, for Print Utility Application project on an OS/2 forms application.
• IBM, Rochester, MN-Updated user guides for an AS/400 mid-frame office application for IBM, Rochester, MN using BookMaster.

Terry Lynn Blessing

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