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Author: Ron Charest

Ron is a native New Yorker and 22 year Navy veteran. He retired from active duty in 1996 and went on to build a successful post-Navy career in logistics. Ron currently works for a Government organization based in Washington D.C., and together with his wife Weifang make their home in Northern Virginia.

Career Resume with Illustrations

I had designed a web-based resume format several years ago, but wasn’t entirely happy with the results. Although the format was interactive, I felt it was too restrictive. I wanted to create a resume format that allowed me to place both my work history, education, significant community activities, and side projects in proper context. I also wanted to show my career path using visual aids.

After several attempts I designed this format. I think it meets my design objectives and provides a good visualization of my total professional career. I’m using this resume format in my consulting website at CharestConsulting.com.

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Technical Paper on Integrated Logistics

This is a paper I wrote and published to my LinkedIn account on Integrated Logistics. Also referred to as Integrated Product Support, I defined the twelve elements as proscribed by the Department of Defense at the time I published it. The format is similar to my “Reflections” essay, and also includes references links to other websites and document downloads. I like this writing format as I can convey a lot of information with relatively simple graphics, and fully utilize a wide post format.

This is one of the early technical papers I’ve written in support of my primary career in the defense logistics industry.

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My Professional Resume

My hard-copy professional resume now runs to six pages of mostly 10PT text. This is a densely packed document that attempts to accurately reflect my forty-seven years career. So, when it came time for me to put my resume online, I decided I wanted to make the online version less painful to wade through then the hard-copy. My solution was another variation of the “Pull” format that I pioneered (for me) in my Educational Autobiography.”

I think this resume project provides an excellent illustration of using interactive online formats for improving the delivery of technical writing.

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Reflections on Graduate School

My final assignment for my grad school program was to write an essay reflecting on what I had learned. This included tying my newly-gained knowledge to the curriculum standards as defined by the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction (IBSTPI), and how my knowledge would help me in my career.

So once again, I ran into the paradigm of my graduate program not being designed for a senior-citizen simply trying to accomplish a life goal. I decided to use this essay assignment as another design challenge in presenting a technical paper with specific objectives.

This essay proved to be surprisingly difficult to write. But I do like the presentation format, and plan to use this again in future web-based writing assignments.

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COVID-19 Timeline Project

Coronavirus As Seen Under An Electron Microscope
Coronavirus As Seen Under An Electron Microscope

My largest and most complex webpage project to date. In this project I’ve attempted to map out key events in the Coronavirus pandemic as a way of making sense of what otherwise might appear to be unrelated incidents. My timeline starts several years before the virus makes it’s great leap forward from whatever animal host it came from into humans. The timeline is divided into one page per month (after the first two pages) and in a day-by-day sequence.

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My Educational Autobiography

Knowledge in A Book
Knowledge In A Book

This started as a school project in my graduate Instructional Design and Technology program through George Mason University. The assignment was to write about our educational experiences in an autobiography format that has shaped our approach to learning and reason for pursuing a career in education. Along with our experiences, we had to include context in the form of technology, social and cultural events that put our events in proper perspective.

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