With more than 25 years’ experience working for clients in fields ranging from robotics to retail, Cheryl Landes crafts crystal-clear technical communications that enable users to truly understand how to use products and follow procedures.
Her training in journalism taught her how to approach any subject matter fearlessly and then organize the information in a logical and reader-friendly way. She works remotely with clients throughout the United States and worldwide.
Clients praise Cheryl for her depth of knowledge and experience, ability to solve problems, flexibility, and professionalism. In one client’s words, “I was and am in awe at Cheryl’s ability to take the complex and chaotic and make it understandable and usable. No matter what product change I threw at her, there it was…right where it should be in the manual. Cheryl also was incredibly helpful with marketing copy; using her gift for the clear and concise instead of using a lot of technical jargon. She is patient, incredibly focused, hard-working, and cares deeply about getting it right.”
Since 1995, Cheryl has been a registered business as Tabby Cat Communications in Washington State, which has been a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) in Washington State since 1996.
Cheryl has a master’s in education from the University of Phoenix, where her concentration was online learning for adults, as well as a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oregon. In addition, she typically completes three training activities a year to help keep her technical and writing skills up to date.
Also, Cheryl enjoys sharing her knowledge with others. She is a regular speaker at technical communication conferences and meetings throughout the United States and Canada. She has mentored five fledgling indexers, who now operate successful freelance businesses of their own. In 2011, the Society for Technical Communication (STC) recognized her outstanding contributions to the fields of technical communication and findability with a Fellow award, the highest honor bestowed on a society member.
Cheryl gives back to her community by speaking to job seekers and beginners in her profession. She helps with special events hosted by the Vancouver (Washington) Parks and Recreation Department. Since 2017, she has volunteered on the Marketing and Events Committees at Animal Aid, a no-kill animal shelter in Portland, Oregon. In 2020, she began co-hosting a weekly Creative Writing for Wellness session and teaching Family to Family classes for caregivers of loved ones with mental health challenges through the Southwest Washington affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Three years later, she became a certified state trainer for the Family to Family classes.
Her publications include journal articles and handbooks on technical communications and findability, as well as articles and books for the general public on Northwest travel and history, gratitude, mental illness, and homelessness. She wrote the “Findability” chapter in The Language of Content Strategy, which set the standards for definitions and best practices in the emerging field of content strategy.
Cheryl’s many hobbies include travel, hiking, photography, quilting, and listening to jazz and classical music.
List of Clients
- Agency Mania
- Aircuity
- Bluefin Robotics
- Brasfield & Gorrie
- Caliper Content Services
- The Content Wrangler
- Cornerstone Commissioning
- Creative Media Development (CMD)
- Crowley Maritime Corporation
- Diagnosys
- E. & J. Gallo
- Heinz Marketing
- LavaCon
- Lucent Books
- MadSkills
- Mahoosuc Guide Service
- Minder
- Mountaineers Books
- National Resource Management
- North Atlantic Publishing Systems
- Pearson Education
- PC Database Solutions
- Schneider Electric
- Soteica Visual MESA
- Target
- Town of Acton, Massachusetts
- TRA360
- XML Press