Thomas Shipley Presented with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by
Marquis Who’s Who
Thomas Shipley has been endorsed by Marquis Who’s Who as a leader in his industry
During my engineering days (1950 to 1965) with General Electric Company, writing about evolving technology and industrial automation activities was extremely important. Those who could use and needed automation didn’t know anything about it, machinery equipped with the new systems was much more expensive, and labor unions in the manufacturing sector, quite strong in those days, were adamantly opposed to its use.
For these reasons, the company gave engineers, not known to be effective communicators, formal instructions in a wide range of subjects, one of which was effective presentation (oral and written). We were taught writing skills, but the importance of knowing what we were writing or speaking about was emphasized. It was more important to know the subject—what we were writing or speaking about and to write or speak with clarity—than it was to have journalistic abilities to be able to present the story in the very best manner. My objective in writing or speaking was generally to describe some automated phenomenon, improvement in a production cycle, or the production of a miraculous product that I had witnessed, and readers of the publications, extremely interested in the advances being made in automation and machining technology, read my stuff and that of others religiously. It was only necessary to write with clarity and to avoid “engineering-speak.”
In the ’80s and early ’90s, small-computer technology was advancing rapidly, and machine manufacturers and users of the machines thirsted for information. I was engaged by a trade publication to inform readers about these advancements. The editor sought me out because of copious material I had written about computers and automated machines—using words and terms that were understandable to interested people who were not engineers or professionals in industry.
