Can I Get a Witness?

“It has been a pleasure working with Sarah in the Developer Advocacy team at the Wikimedia Foundation. Sarah has excellent documentation skills. Her contribution to the MediaWiki Action API documentation improvements, development of maturity models, and publishing blog posts on our collaboration with other organizations and outreach programs exemplify her skills. Her facilitation skills are fabulous, and that makes the mentoring programs, meetings, tech talks she coordinates effective and result-oriented. Sarah has research and innovator’s mindset. She often brings up new ideas and likes to assess the impact of the work we do.

“Sarah has empathy for all kinds of audiences we serve: users, contributors, and developers. This enables us to keep the audience and their perspectives in mind first as we design and develop for and with them. She is very kind, humble, and also a great mentor. These qualities are the key for us in developing relationships both within and outside Wikimedia. I was freaking out before my talk at LibrePlanet this year. She let me practice with her at least twice, gave me helpful feedback and exactly the motivation I needed 🙂 It is so much fun to work with Sarah from the San Francisco office, have wonderful conversations, learn a bit more from her about the US culture, exchange ideas on all work topics, and get things done!”

~Srishti Sethi, Senior Developer Advocate, The Wikimedia Foundation

“Sarah’s communications skills are her super-power. She is able to interpret conversational nuances that help others to see a fuller picture than they otherwise might. She is a trusted advisor who I have more than once turned to in order to review emails written on a tight deadline to ensure that my tone complements the content of the message. I’ve known her to go out of her way to make her customers happy when managing any project. She upholds high standards when training new employees and is not afraid to push back on stakeholders who want to proceed before her team is ready to support them. I find her to be very organized, customer focused, and generous with her time. To top it all off, she makes me laugh a lot and is a supportive workplace confidante.”

~Grace Gellerman, PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM

“Sarah’s vast range of work experience and work product would be an asset at any organization. At the Foundation, Sarah has brought project management acumen, top-notch event/logistics support, and tech writing and documentation skills to the table. She is a diligent and delightful person to work with, and the effects of her presence at the Foundation are clear; events, projects, and teams all run more smoothly as a result of her dedication and initiative. She’s a commensurate professional and a fantastic colleague!”

~Daisy Chen, UX Researcher at the Wikimedia Foundation

“Sarah is an outstanding writer and an exceptionally efficient project manager who brings clarity and good humor to every project she undertakes. She was my manager as I made a career transition from education into software technical support, and her clear communication and empowering style of leadership set me up for success. She knows how to capitalize on the strengths of every member of her team while sharing her knowledge and experience to help them improve their performance. The reference resources she’s developed for our clients—including video tutorials and written user guides to our software services—are wonderfully concise and clear, and I’ve personally heard a lot of words of appreciation for these resources from our clients. It’s a delight to work with her.”

~ Peter Goodwin, Outreach Associate, Berkeley Electronic Press

“Sarah is an outstanding technical writer, who produces high-quality, comprehensive documentation efficiently. Her strong technical background enables her to trial-run documentation while she assembles it, walking through setup and use-case procedures. She has written professional and thorough marketing materials, user guides, manuals and webinars.

Her true worth as a writer becomes apparent when working directly with colleagues from multiple departments: developers, management, customer support, sales, QA and clients. Sarah is able to collaborate harmoniously with everyone, and create a cohesive end-product that fulfills the scope of the project and the needs of her readers. Her pragmatism, project management, and expert writing play a pivotal role in customer communications and company success.”

~ Elina Rubuliak, Graphic Designer, Berkeley Electronic Press

“Sarah’s a delight to work with – not only does she produce clean, accurate, and engaging writing, she’s got a terrific sense of humor and is wonderful at helping keep the whole group moving forward in good spirits. She’s self-motivated and works to a very high standard, as well as encouraging that level of engagement from her team members and those reporting to her.”

~ Allison Williams, Artistic Director, Aerial Angels

“Sarah exhibited a high level of creativity in copywriting both product pages as well as blog posts for the company. In addition, she drafted the protocols for a successful new customer outreach program, making contact with and collecting testimonials and other information from dozens of customers. Sarah also trained several of my assistants and has offered her thoughtful input on many projects.”

~ Monica Friedman, Lead Copywriter, Elk River Systems

“Sarah is wonderful with people…she was great at making current and potential clients feel at ease on the phone and helping them to have confidence in our product. She was also instrumental in marketing strategy and helping with our company’s growth and development. She cares about her work and goes out of her way to ensure quality and efficiency. She is extremely professional, capable, and intelligent, and is unfailingly good company, and I think that she would be a very valuable asset to any organization.”

~ Jessica Harris, Production Manager, Tigerfish

“Sarah is an excellent writer and editor. She was a graduate student in my composition theory class. More recently, she was my consultant from Berkeley Electronic Press as I launched a new journal. She was a great help to us — very professional and knowledgeable.”

~ Dr. Jonathan Bush, English Department Chair, Western Michigan University

“I’m delighted to write on behalf of Sarah R. Rodlund, commending her to any organization that values communications skills, both written and oral, editorial ability, and excellence in teaching. Sarah earned the BA in Organizational Communications and Creative Writing (2002) and the MFA in Creative Writing (2005, Poetry) at Western Michigan University, where she earned induction into the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, and she has extensive experience teaching composition courses at a number of institutions….All in all, Sarah is an excellent, highly experienced teacher. Her strong writing and editorial abilities make her all the more desirable as a colleague. While at Western, Sarah was highly involved in departmental and professional activities, and demonstrated maturity, initiative, and dependability in all of her work. She is also perceptive, tactful, and good-humored, and her extensive background in communications, teaching, writing, and editing should make her an excellent colleague in any organization that values such experience, skills, and personal qualities.”

~ Arnie Johnston, Emeritus Professor of English, Emeritus Chair, Western Michigan University

“Sarah was always a great motivation to me, as her writing was, and continues to be, extremely strong, creative, and interesting. Sarah has always invested a great deal of amazing energy into her writing. Additionally, Sarah is a person who delves deeply into a subject and possesses a unique quality of high intelligence, in-depth insights, and superior focus on a subject. Her ideas have always prompted me to think differently about an issue and dig deeper into analysis of issues…I cannot praise her highly enough for her use of language, her wisdom and insights, and her interest in helping others.”

~ Jo Doran, Graduate Instructor, Western Michigan University