401 Cumberland Ave. #510
Portland, ME 04101
pat@patwashburn.net . (207) 251-2143

Technical writer in cybersecurity

Flexible, skillful technical writer. Expertise in cybersecurity, IT, AI, software, threat analysis, internal comms, and marketing. Positive, capable team member and nuanced message manager. 

Experience

Technical writer, Trinity Cyber, January 2025-present. Documentation, communications, and AI development to support elite cyber threat analysis team. Collaborate on time-sensitive notifications and reports to customers. Support marketing efforts through positive communications and program management. Projects include:

• Create guides to LLM prompting and threat neutralization.
• Provide fast, accurate copy editing for weekly action reports and new threat notifications for major defense client, as well as proposals for new business.
• Overhaul outdated documentation for threat formula development, including companywide glossary of terms and abbreviations.
• Collaborate with expert threat analysts on regular reports covering major threat groups including nation-state actors, documenting their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) and matching those to Trinity Cyber’s network defenses.
• Created and published The Pulse, a monthly newsletter highlighting the innovative work of Trinity Cyber’s threat analysis team.

Multiplatform editor, Maine Trust for Local News, November 2023-January 2025. Page design, headline writing, and editing for print and digital products for local newspaper.

Senior UX Writer, DigiCert, November 2021-October 2023. Created and managed technical documentation for major provider of cybersecurity products. Projects included:

• Ownership and rewrite of team style guide
• User experience copy for dashboards, order forms, and user emails
• Guides for customers migrating from other solutions
• Documenting new and updated features on multiple products
• Compliance documentation
• Served on core team for content management migration
• Ghostwriting and proofreading blog posts for C-suite executives

UX writer, Aetna Medicare, March-November 2021. Created, edited, and proofread microcopy to inform Americans over 65 about health plans in highly regulated market during annual enrollment period.

IT writer, Northeastern University, July 2020-February 2021. Crafted technology communications for major university. 

Governance and compliance writer, Hilco Global, part-time May 2020-May 2024. Wrote complete set of cybersecurity policies; managed phishing testing and training, and helped implement and communicate security initiatives.

IT writer/cybersecurity program manager, JLL, June 2015-May 2020. Software documentation and security GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) for Fortune 500 company with 82,000 employees. Projects included:

• Managing ISO 27001-certified security awareness communications (email, SharePoint, news articles, posters, social media posts).
• Managed phishing campaigns including choosing tests, gaining approvals, writing education, and reporting and analyzing results.
• Delivered targeted security training to small teams. Improved one client team’s phishing test failure rate from 62% to zero.
• Planned and communicated corporate cybersecurity awareness program.
• Created instructional designs and documentation, including live webinars.
• Wrote and edited blog posts for C-suite executives.

Certifications

ISC² Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), 2022.

CompTIA Security+, 2019; CySA+, 2021; Network+, May 2025.

RAG and Agentic AI certification, IBM, April 2026.

Fundamentals of Software Engineering, IBM, January 2026.

Skills

• AI:  Prompting, testing, evaluation, LangChain, RAG, application development
• Graphics: Adobe Creative suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Figma, Axure, Canva
• Platforms: Google Workspace, ProcessWire, WordPress, Drupal, MediaWiki, Joomla, Confluence, Jira, ModX, SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics, Paligo
• Security: Wireshark, Nessus, nmap, Kali Linux, Metasploit
• Coding: HTML5, CSS, PHP, Python, Java, JavaScript, jQuery, TypeScript, Markdown, GraphQL, Postman, GitHub, ElasticSearch, Kibana, Grafana
• Methodologies: Agile Scrum

Education

Certificate in UX Management, Nielsen Norman Group, October 2023.

Continuing education includes: Security Operations Center Core Skills, Technical Communication Management, LLM Prompting, Python for Data Science, Software Engineering.

M.S. in IT/cybersecurity, December 2017, University of Southern New Hampshire. GPA 3.94. Relevant coursework includes Human Factors in Cybersecurity, Information Assurance, Cyberlaw and Ethics, Network Defense.
Graduate work in computer science, University of Southern Maine.
B.S. in journalism, summa cum laude, Boston University. 

Personal

• Trustee, First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Portland, Maine, 2025-present. Wrote and won $150,000 federal grant for security measures.
• Author, Self-Care for Cats (Adams Media, 2019).
• Hobbies include theater, science fiction, board games, writing.