Comtech Services
February 1, 2020
We are sad to announce that Marie-Louise Flacke, from Lannion, France passed away on January 16, 2020. Marie-Louise attended our first DITA Europe Conference in 2005 and had been a regular speaker and attendee to that conference ever since. She’s presented about everything from DITA and IoT, Becoming a CX Expert, Troubleshooting, and Minimalism and its application in DITA. For many years, she represented Comtech as an instructor, teaching the principles of Minimalism in French. Marie-Louise was trained in structured documentation at the American University of Paris and pursued her professional career by combining her participation to professional conferences together with practicing technical communication, both as a Sr technical writer in Continental Europe (including EUROCONTROL, EU Commission, Vodafone Telematics, Deutsche Boerse, and Roche Diagnostics), and course developer at French universities (Université de Haute-Bretagne, Université Paris Denis Diderot, and Université Catholique de l’Ouest).
JoAnn Hackos, founder and past president of Comtech, said, “I have been greatly impressed by Marie Louise’s dedication to improving the quality and effectiveness of technical communication wherever it happens. She was indefatigable in researching and exposing the errors in the technical manual that helped exacerbate the infamous crash of a plane into the Hudson River in New York. She detailed her concerns that warnings and cautions in documents were being abused. Her focus was on helping technical communicators do the best work possible to support information users. She never stopped making us better writers and designers. I cannot imagine traveling to France and the rest of Europe without missing her greatly. May she Rest In Peace.”