Mike Benda
Graphic Designer

Mike offers clients more than seventeen years of professional experience in print design and production. His area of expertise includes concept development, as well as design creation and layout, and preparation of final, print-ready files. In addition to his design acumen and expert-level skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, Mike is a consumer-packaging specialist, focusing on pre-press production, brochures, manuals, and user guides. Mike works efficiently—independently and as a team member—collaborating with clients to deliver professional, polished projects on budget and on time.

Tammi L. Coles
The Boss

Tammi is a copywriter and communications manager with nearly two decades of professional experience working with for-profit companies and non-governmental organizations. She has a talent for creating pleasurable reading out of complex business jargon, a skill she developed as the marketing manager for a multinational vendor to global and Fortune 500 businesses. Prior to her work in corporate communications, Tammi focused on fundraising and membership development for nonprofit groups, first with a foundation through which she coached organization leaders on grant writing and then as the director of development for a U.S.-wide advocacy organization. She writes sales and marketing copy, ranging from press releases to trade show signage, as well as foundation proposals, annual reports, and direct mail letters and other materials. She also has experience in web site development. Tammi holds a bachelor of arts in letters, arts, and sciences, with a minor in business, from Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

Jaime McGill
Translator, Proofreader, and Editor

Jaime is a skilled translator committed to providing accurate German-to-English translations that reflect the content and style of the original. She has experience with projects ranging from the technical (medical equipment manuals, SAP-based billing systems) to the literary (biographies, academic lectures). Jaime’s marketing translations have advanced clients’ interests on both sides of the Atlantic, helping them tap into the diversity of consumers in the United States. She prides herself on her ability to find the right word for every situation. Jaime combines her language abilities with her proofreading and editing skills for document comparison and verification to ensure the accuracy of third-party and other translations. When not at her desk, she can often be found leading seminars on business negotiations, presentation skills, and intercultural communication to English language learners at a number of companies, including Bombardier, Commerzbank, Daimler AG, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Post, and Nokia Siemens. Jaime attended Oberlin College, where she earned a bachelor of arts in German studies and a bachelor of music in clarinet. She also holds a master of music in clarinet from Temple University. As a graduate student in musicology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, she has guest lectured in English and in German at Berlin-area universities.

Robin O. Surratt
Editor

Robin has more than twenty-five years of editorial experience in a variety of areas. She is available to copyedit and proofread promotional brochures, display and advertising copy, instruction manuals, book manuscripts, articles and research reports, corporate and legal documents, museum catalogues and exhibition text, press releases, newsletters, event calendars, and Web content. Robin has extensive experience editing text by non-native-English speakers. She worked for eight years as a project editor with CQ Press, copyediting textbooks and reference volumes, and before that she served for seven years as senior editor at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Harvard University, editing scholarly publications. She also worked for seven years as managing editor of the Middle East Journal, a respected peer-reviewed quarterly. As a freelance editor, her clients have included the Brookings Institution, Georgetown University, Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, the Smithsonian Institution Press, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik—Deutsches Institut für Internationale Politik und Sicherheit. She holds a bachelor of arts in Middle Eastern studies and international relations from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.

Sara Zaske
Writer, Editor, and Proofreader

With a decade of experience in nonprofit communications and journalism, Sara knows how to get the right message to the right audience. As director of communications and media relations at the OSU Foundation, she helped Oregon State University raise more than $625 million in its first capital campaign. She has created a variety of fundraising communications, from tailored proposals for major donors and foundations to mailers, Web copy, and press releases that inspire thousands of annual donations. Prior to her work with nonprofits, Sara was a journalist at the San Francisco Examiner and Independent, covering such complex issues as homelessness, urban development, and education. A highly detail-oriented editor and proofreader, Sara often helps non-native-English speakers perfect their manuscripts for international publications. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a master’s degree in English from San Francisco State University.