Elana Shippen, P.E., is a licensed professional engineer in mechanical engineering with 22 years of experience, including 14 years in the aerospace industry with Boeing Company's commercial airplanes program. She has a very strong background in engineering and other technical fields, such as HVAC systems for commercial buildings, Lean Manufacturing, the Toyota Production System (TPS), project management, and education.

At Boeing, she designed, integrated, and tested various systems design. She also communicated extensively with multiple engineering and manufacturing organizations, airline customers, and global suppliers. As a consulting engineer, she designed Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems for commercial buildings and was responsible for documenting the design specifications for those systems.

Elana also offers a technical editing course, for those currently working or studying in technical fields. This course varies between three and seven days in length to meet the client's specific needs and can be taken either in Seattle or at your work place for a group of employees. The course covers the necessary skills of the technical editor and it is primarily focused towards the needs of engineers and technical staff, who are seeking to improve their technical editing skills in their daily workplace. It includes an overview of the editing process; reviews of grammar, punctuation, and spelling for technical editors; steps for improving technical writing style; and key strategies for enhancing the overall quality of technical communications.

Elana completed the Technical Writing and Editing Certificate Program at the University of Washington in 2001.

Specialties:

As a freelance technical writer and editor, and project manager Elana can help you improve or write your technical documents in the following areas:

• Engineering, information technology, and scientific books and publications
• Development of online technical courses for certification purposes
• Educational publications
• Technical reports
• Manufacturing processes documents
• Project management
• Aerospace industry-related technical documents
• Case studies
• Engineering mathematics

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Feedback

"Elana is a terrific editor and organizer and a very pleasant person to work with. She really took charge of a challenging project; the creation of a custom-published magazine about careers for the Department of Labor called "In Demand." Elana edited three issues--careers in advanced manufacturing, careers in science and technology, and careers in biotechnology. She scouted out the story ideas and found and guided freelancers developing the stories. She also worked with graphic designers to create the look of the magazine for a very demanding client. Throughout, Elana demonstrated intelligence and attention to detail. And she was calm and cheerful even during tense moments on deadline. I give her a high recommendation!
Jan Tuchman
Editor-in-Chief
Engineering News-Record
The McGraw Hill Companies

 

"Elana is very professional, great to work with, and is excellent at communicating and keeping you updated on project deliverables. We definitely plan to continue using Elana for future projects."
Steve Bjornberg, President
American Continuing Education

 

"It is rare to find a combination of skills such as Elana's. Her engineering expertise along with her technical writing and editing skills has been a great asset for us."
Michael S.
Patent Attorney

 

"Our company publishes books for the computer industry, specializing in Novell products. I have worked with Elana for several of my published titles. She has delivered very good quality work when editing our titles. Since we are based in the Netherlands and are non-native English speakers, it was great that she was very patient with us and gave us great directions in improving our writing throughout the projects. It was also very good that she was able to keep up with our very tight schedule.
Rob Bastiaansen
Publisher
www.Books4Brains.com

 

"I am so glad that I used your services. Your turnaround time was fast so I was able to submit my thesis on time. I will definitely recommend your service to other students.
Thank you for everything!!!!! You are the best!"
Ella Chan
Graduate student at NYU

 

"English is my second language.  Sometimes, writing in English can be difficult for me in some specific situations; For example, when I am trying to express or explain something that is abstract.  Elana has been of great help along the course of my writing with her patience and professional writing skills.  I will certainly come back to her when I have my next project."
C.S. Yoo, Taiwan
Adjunct professor/semiconductor processing