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In Memoriam: Russell R. Coley, 1935-2004
by Dale Erickson
If we're lucky, we have several mentors in a lifetime—our parents, a teacher, a colleague. If we're exceptionally lucky, one of those mentors is Russ Coley.
I met Russ Coley on my first day as a technical writer in 1979. I was re-entering the job market after spending six years working in Iran. I had no clear idea of how to make a living outside a helicopter-training center, but thanks to a timely referral, I landed a position as a contract technical writer at Dresser Industries. My supervisor introduced Russ by saying, "Meet Russ Coley, the best tech writer in Dallas." I would soon learn why his colleagues held him in such esteem.
Russ made a career out of contracting, a career path as different to me as tech writing was as a profession. To Russ, the sweetest phrase was, "Sorry, guys, but I'm gonna have to put you on overtime." Others may have groaned, but to Russ, this meant extra money in his paycheck. His wife and son would have more, and they were his sole reason for working so hard.
Russ often said that he had been at tech writing so long that he had witnessed the receding of the glaciers and the building of the pyramids. His favorite story involved an engineer losing the drawings to the pyramids; in his depiction of this tale, Russ fortunately had the foresight to make a Xerox copy. Over the next 17 years as our professional paths crossed, I heard that story many times, often with coaching from me, as other writers had the opportunity to enjoy Russ' humor and experience his pride in being the "village elder" within the documentation staff.
Russ truly loved technical writing. In his mind, he took machines and systems apart and put them back together again. Then he told you how to do it. During my first days as a tech writer, I was fascinated by Russ' ability to interview an engineer, ask the relevant questions that revealed the next layer of detail, synthesize the new information, and write in the clear, crisp style that I came to associate with good technical writing. Wet hair. Lather. Rinse. Repeat as desired. Yeah, I recognize Russ' style even on my shampoo bottle.
When we worked on related procedures for manufacturing rock bits, Russ encouraged me to sit in during his interviews. I was being mentored, but I wasn't yet aware of how valuable and selfless this act was.
For most tech writers in 1979, our only experience with a keyboard was high school typing class. This was the fading era of the pad and pencil. During this time, Russ revealed to me two other indispensable tools for writing: transparent tape and scissors. When I could reuse some detail from one procedure in a related procedure, rearranging a photocopy using tape and scissors could save valuable time. I actually learned to cut and paste in the physical sense before I learned the metaphoric cut and paste in word processing.
The first person to tell me about the Society for Technical Communication was Russ Coley. Russ was contracting at Rockwell and his manager was an officer in the Lone Star Chapter. Russ and I attended a meeting together so that we could both find out about this organization that represented the profession to which he had devoted his professional life. I joined STC after one meeting in May 1981, and Russ joined soon after. In 1981, Lone Star was a small chapter, so every member who attended a meeting got a committee assignment. Russ chaired the Nominating Committee and, within few years, was elected Second Vice-President of the Lone Star Chapter.
During each new contract assignment, Russ spread the word to other technical communicators that STC offered a valuable network of colleagues. The contractors among us recognized the worth of the chapter's job bank, especially when the economy took a dip and leads were scarce.
Perhaps no job bank was as effective as Russ Coley himself. More than once my contracts ended with little notice, and I found myself seeking another project. My first call was always to Russ. Within hours I would be contacted by a recruiter who had just gotten a call from Russ. Over and over I was amazed at the respect Russ had earned among the decision-makers on the hiring end of the contracting business. More than once I was offered a job without the supervisor seeing my resume or even conducting an in-person interview—offers that were based solely on Russ' recommendation. Imagine that happening today!
Life, however, was not without speed bumps for Russ; the transition from handwritten to word-processed documentation was difficult. A terrible accident in the 1960s had left his right arm withered and his fingers stiff. But Russ never let anything get in his way when he had a task that he wanted to accomplish. Refusing to let his physical difficulties deter him, Russ made the transition, creating his own unique style of attacking a keyboard.
Despite his initial difficulties, the personal computer proved to be ideally suited to Russ, the science-fiction writer. A fan of Asimov, Star Trek, and Star Wars, he often speculated about space travel, powerful machines, and life from other worlds. Eventually, Russ began writing down some of his fantasies. He wrote his first novels, A is for Aberrant and B is for Beneficence, and began planning for the rest of the alphabet. Over the years he submitted manuscripts to literary agents, often receiving encouraging letters from interested readers. Then he met a kindred soul in creative writing while working at BNSF in Fort Worth.
John Shea was also contracting at BNSF, writing an online help project. When Russ and John realized their shared interest in fiction writing, they formed a strong bond that creative writers understand best. The two encouraged each other and shared their ambitions for getting published. Their friendship would hold them closer than either could then anticipate as life was soon to take a horrific turn for Russ. In June 1997, Russ suffered a massive stroke. The great communicator was left unable to speak, read, or write. His body responded on only one side, leaving him wheelchair-bound and in a nursing facility for the remainder of his life.
However, the stroke did not take away Russ' ability to listen and respond to conversation. With a nod, a wink, and a hearty laugh, he let visitors know of his approval or polite disagreement with what they had to say and, in heartbreaking contrast, his often anguished expression showed how much he wanted to share the words that continued to dance through his mind.
Russ' greatest comfort was the weekly visit from John Shea. John talked with Russ about what was happening in the world—politics, the Cowboys, the Rangers, the weather. When the temperature allowed, John rolled Russ' wheelchair outside so that they could watch the clouds and see the open sky. John e-mailed his observations of Russ' condition to colleagues who all too infrequently visited themselves, myself included. John monitored Russ' needs for clothes and shoes, often buying the items himself.
I always preferred to visit Russ with another person so that I could have a conversation that Russ could listen and respond to. I never got the knack of the one-sided conversation that John managed hundreds of times over those seven years. But I admire him for his dedication and loyalty to a man direly needing both.
Besides John Shea, Russ received regular visits over the years from Nancy Lee, Jo Byrd, Anne Simpson, Sara Taylor, and Jim and Patsy Savidge. My last visit to see Russ was with Sara last Christmas. Jo also met us at the nursing home. Russ was bedridden and barely aware that we were there. We showed him our gift of new sweat pants and made sure he knew where we put them in his small dresser. I couldn't help but wonder how much longer he would hang on.
Last June, as his condition worsened, John's e-mails alerted us that the end was near. John tracked Russ to a Mesquite hospital and visited him during his final three days. Just a half-hour after John's last visit, Russ passed from this world, perhaps to the one his imagination had already mapped out. If they have an editor's slot in that world, I'm sure he's rewriting the style manual. He never did like bullet lists.