Covered in flour and wearing a soiled apron, a 1960s homemaker adds a pinch of salt to a kettle. Then, she slices onions and debones a chicken as she creates a savory masterpiece for her hungry family. At the same time, Janis Ramey is breaking ground creating her own recipes filled with words, calculations, and process descriptions—all sprinkled with a touch of creativity.
In 1962, as one of the first graduates with a bachelor's degree in technical writing and editing from Margaret Morrison, Carnegie Mellon's former women's college, Ramey has a future of managing her own consulting business, earning a master's degree in English from Carnegie Mellon, raising a family, and teaching and mentoring other authors in the field.
Unlike many women living in the early 1960s, Ramey spent her workdays in factories and research labs writing about engineering feats at some of Pittsburgh's best-known companies, such as Westinghouse and Alcoa. Surrounded by men in suits with unprecedented knowledge of subjects like electronics and nuclear power, Ramey was a pioneer in the new field of technical writing, as she weaved passages about complex topics for proposals, manuals, or manufacturing catalogs.
Today, she continues to write for medical, software, and tech firms that have replaced many of Pittsburgh's traditional manufacturers.
In recognition of her career, Ramey was recently designated a Fellow by the Society of Technical Communication, a national organization of 14,000 technical communication specialists.
—Camille Downing
