Ron Read is vice president and Osaka manager of Human Global Communications Co., Ltd., previously Kurdyla and Associates, a communications firm established in 1969. He holds a bachelor degree in Journalism from the University of Oregon, and before coming to Japan worked as a radio news reporter-producer and a newspaper editor. His work involves training technical rewriters and presentation trainers, rewriting academic papers and other documents, and training presenters before conferences. He has given seminars at Kyoto University, Osaka University of Arts, Panasonic Corp., and the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He has collaborated with Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE), Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), Japan Society of English for Research (J-SER), Keihanna Venture Championship (KVeCS), and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). He is secretary of Kinki Macintosh Users Group. He writes the quarterly column “Author’s Toolkit” for IEICE (personal-use copies at http://hgckansai.com/download/).