Living
La Vida Divina
by Lana
Walker-Helmuth
Introducing a great opportunity!
Do you like meeting and learning about people? Do you like writing? (Of course you do!) Do you want an interesting service opportunity for your chapter? Yes, you can have it all.
You're invited
to write the monthly "Introductions" column, starting with the
September 2002 issue. If interested, please
e-mail Lana Walker-Helmuth at Lana@pe.net.
Kathy Wittert
loves, truly loves, to untangle sentences. The harder it is to decipher
the mangled prose, the better. As a technical editor at Bechtel working
on environmental reports, she gets plenty of opportunities to practice
her craft.
Before joining
Bechtel a year ago, Kathy spent 11 years as a contract editor in the environmental
health and safety field. She got her start in editing while working in
the Methods and Procedures Department at HomeFed Bank.
Love of
Literature
While growing up in the Chicago suburbs, Kathy discovered an old series
of Childcraft books her mother inherited, and she fell in love with reading.
Because no one else in her family was a voracious reader, books were practically
forbidden fruit.
She took
her love of literature to Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, and earned
a bachelor's degree in English. She continued her studies at the University
of Iowa and earned a master's. Realizing she had a practical nature about
writing, she decided not to continue in a Ph.D. program.
After leaving
college, Kathy taught English at a tough high school in Illinois for a
year. The experience was disillusioning. Mercifully, her husband, who
was in the restaurant business, was transferred to California. Only low-paying
substitute teaching jobs were available, so Kathy decided to try the business
world. In administrative jobs she gravitated toward writing how things
were done. Her first employer noticed her efforts and gave her a $100
bonus. She was totally jazzed and on her way to a better job at HomeFed
Bank, where she led classroom training and developed self-study guides.
After a two-year
absence, Kathy returned to the bank and worked as an editor in the Methods
and Procedures Department. When the bank started to fold, Kathy decided
to go off on her own. She got into environmental editing by answering
a newspaper ad. Although new to the field, she quickly learned the lingo
and processes.
Love of
Life
Eleven years flew by. She enjoyed consulting work but missed being with
an editing team where decisions can be made with others. She jumped at
the chance to join Bechtel, only six blocks from her downtown condo and
boasting the nicest people around. She walks to work. Once a week she
gets in her car to burn out the carbon and to haul groceries.
"The
world is about trying different things," Kathy says about their move
from the North County suburbs to downtown San Diego. She's excited to
be in the heart of a growing town that she envisions becoming a world-class
city. She and her husband enjoy the wonderful cultural offerings such
as the San Diego Repertory Theatre and the San Diego Symphony.
They also enjoy international travel and have a trip to Switzerland planned
for this summer.
She gets to return to a job that she loves, to the nicest boss she's ever worked for, and to one of the finest cities in the world. Simply divine.
