Ariel Vergara

Ariel moved to Canada straight from Manila 12 years ago and, armed with a marketing background, he hit the ground running and took on almost any job he could find.

Technical writing came to him when he was asked to write a manual for running the daily operations of the service centre where he was working as a supervisor. It was while working on the manual that he realized how much he enjoyed learning and sharing the knowledge through a clear and concise form.

Looking for formal training in writing, he enrolled in the online Certificate in Technical Communication at SFU and was one of the very first students to complete the program entirely online.

Two weeks after graduation, Ariel was laid off from the company where he had worked for seven years. But determined to be a technical writer and armed with his newly developed skills in writing and advice from mentors in the program and the Society for Technical Communicators, he started doing informational interviews. Three months later, he was the sole technical writer for a BC-based software developer called eNegotiation.

Ariel is currently a knowledge and learning facilitator (with a technical writing focus) at the FortisBC Customer Contact Centre, where he delivers training and manages the SharePoint powered knowledge base—writing and updating procedures for the SAP-based ERM system and developing eLearning materials.