In Memoriam: Herbert B. Michaelson (1916–2009)

By Edward A. Malone | Senior Member

Our organization has gone through several name changes since its creation in 1953: TWE to STWE to STWP to STC; Herbert B. Michaelson saw them all. He is included on a roster of “associates” who participated in at least one TWE meeting/conference between April 1953 and March 1955. Thus, Michaelson had been affiliated with our organization for more than 50 years when he passed away on 13 February 2009. He remained active in STC well into his 80s, and his contributions to the profession were many.

Born in Washington, DC, on 29 December 1916, Herbert Bernard Michaelson was the third child and first son of Samuel and Minnie Michaelson, two naturalized citizens who had immigrated from Russia in the 1890s. During World War II, Herbert served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, specializing in microwave radio communications. After his discharge in 1946, he went to work as a technical editor for Sylvania and attended New York University, earning a bachelor of arts in physics in 1955. From 1956 to 1984, he worked for IBM, most notably as an associate editor of the IBM Journal of Research and Development. After his retirement in the mid-1980s, he continued to work as a technical communication consultant.

Michaelson (third from left) presenting at the December 1955 meeting of the Association of Technical Writers and Editors.

Michaelson was a featured speaker at the Winter 1955 national meeting for TWE. He worked in an editorial capacity on the TWE Journal (Spring 1956 issue) and contributed articles to that journal in the 1950s. Over the next three decades, he served on various national committees, chairing several of them, including the publications, nominating, goals, and bylaws committees. He was the program chair of the 15th annual ITCC in 1968 and a frequent session moderator at later conferences as well as a guest editor of an issue of Technical Communication in 1977. He served on the STWP/STC Board of Directors from 1970 to 1973 and was elected Fellow in 1979. For his contributions to the New York Metro chapter, he received STC's Distinguished Chapter Service Award in 1998.

Michaelson was also one of the founding members of the IRE Professional Group on Engineering Writing and Speech (PGEWS), now called the IEEE Professional Communication Society (PCS). He was that group's first treasurer (1957–1960), the second editor of its Transactions (1960–1961), and a long-standing member of its Administrative Committee. In 1990, he received PCS's Alfred N. Goldsmith Award for Distinguished Contributions to Engineering Communication, partly in recognition of his influential book, How to Write and Publish Engineering Papers and Reports, published in three editions between 1982 and 1990.

Michaelson was a scholar, with a publication record that would have earned him tenure at most universities. He published more than forty articles about physics, engineering, and technical communication in such journals as the Proceedings of the I.R.E., Engineering Education, Journal of the Franklin Institute, Journal of Applied Physics, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, the transactions of at least two IEEE societies, and of course STC's Technical Communication. His first peer-reviewed article about technical communication was published in 1949; his last in 1991. The example he set as a practitioner-scholar with a commitment to professional service may be his greatest contribution to the profession.