Mathes, J(ohn) C(harles) 1931-

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MATHES, J(ohn) C(harles) 1931-

PERSONAL: Born January 3, 1931, in Toledo, OH; son of John Charles (an engineer) and Cletus (Fagan) Mathes; married Rosemary Lewis, March 7, 1960; children: George Malcolm, John Craig. Education: University of Michigan, A.B., 1952, A.M., 1953, Ph. D., 1965.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—J et R Selections Ltd., 900 S. Bradley, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48804-0389.

CAREER: San Diego State College (now University), San Diego, CA, instructor in humanities, 1961-63; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, assistant professor, 1966-70, associate professor of humanities, beginning 1970, became professor of technical communication, currently professor emeritus; J et R Selections Ltd. (wine importer), Mt. Pleasant, MI, owner. Military service: U.S. Army, 1954-56.

MEMBER: American Society for Engineering Education; Society for Technical Communication; Society for History of Technology; World Future Society; Association of Teachers of Technical Writing; Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; Midwest Modern Language Association; Phi Kappa Phi.

WRITINGS:

(With H. B. Benford) Your Future in Naval Architecture, Rosen Press (New York, NY), 1968.

(With Kan Chen, Karl F. Lagler, and others) Growth Policy: Population, Environment, and Beyond, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1974.

(With Dwight W. Stevenson) Designing Technical Reports: Writing for Audiences in Organizations, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1976, 2nd edition, Longman, 1991.

(With Ingrid Brunner and Dwight W. Stevenson) The Technician as Writer: Preparing Technical Reports, Bobbs Merrill Educational Publishing (Indianapolis, IN), 1980.

Contributor to Phi Kappa Phi Journal and Journal of Technical Writing and Communication.

SIDELIGHTS: J. C. Mathes, is a former professor of technical communication at the University of Michigan. In Designing Technical Reports: Writing for Audiences in Organizations, Mathes and coauthor Dwight W. Stevenson provide a manual for those technical workers who need to write reports on their activities for a broad audience who may not be familiar with their field. The authors state in the book that technicians must "treat writing as a design task, one which requires predesign analysis and decisions." They cover such topics as writing for a multinational audience, the legal and ethical aspects of writing, and writing such varied items as reports, memos, proposals, and correspondence. Robert G. Hays, reviewing Designing Technical Reports in the Journal of Applied Communications, stated: "The chapter on legal and ethical responsibilities is good. Its premise is that technical and professional documents are by definition ethical acts, a fact the writers who produce them should never lose sight of. The basic message to the writer is, 'You are accountable.' Another strength of this book is the quality of examples it offers."

Since retiring from the University of Michigan, Mathes has devoted full time to running J et R Selections Ltd., a firm specializing in importing wines from the Southern Rhone Valley in France. The Rhone Valley section of Provence in southern France is that country's second largest wine producing region, just behind Bourdeaux. In an article posted on the company's Web site, Steve Rosoff described a wine-buying trip he made to France with Mathes. As Rosoff explained, "The checkpoints on [Mathes's] one-man road rally are wine estates, where the proprietors greet him as an old friend as well as an expert on the region's many small wineries. Years of trial and error have refined his judgment, to the point that he knows the wines of Provence better than local winemakers do."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Crain's Detroit Business, September 5, 1994, Stephen Rosoff, "The Vine Intervention," p. I15.

Journal of Applied Communications, Volume 76, number 2, 1992, Robert G. Hays, review of Designing Technical Reports: Writing for Audiences in Organizations.