Welcome to Dossier!
Let me introduce myself. My name is Karla and I am a document control specialist.
I was born in London to a Caribbean mother and a British father. Most of my childhood was spent with my nose in a book and setting up make-shift libraries in my bedroom. Eventually, I put all that reading to good use and graduated with an English language and literature degree at South Bank University in London. After my degree, I decided to go to France and ended up living in Paris for 3 years. During that time, I obtained a diploma from the Sorbonne University and then proceeded to undertake studies in French film and literature at the L’institut Catholique (affiliated to the Sorbonne). My wanderlust continued in Germany, where I lived in Munich for 3 years and taught business English at a school called, Linguarama.
I eventually returned to England and decided that I wanted to pursue a career as a librarian. At the time, I lived in Bristol ( in the west of England). By chance, the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum had moved from Kensington in London to Temple Meads in Bristol. The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum (known as BECM), was housed in a train station designed by the legendary engineer, Isambard Brunel. When the museum moved from London, the staff had the monumental task of unpacking all the artifacts.
Along with the exhibits, the museum had shipped their entire library and archives to Bristol. I had the wonderful opportunity to work in the museum library. It took years to unpack all the books, catalogue them and organize them on the shelves. A section of the library housed a myriad of historical House of Commons papers that pertained to the British Commonwealth. I absolutely basked in this environment of books and archive documents. Archiving and cataloguing seemed like second nature to me. I have very fond memories of working in that museum without even knowing where the time went.
“Archiving and cataloguing seemed like second nature to me.”
Fast forward to Seattle. I decided to forge a career in the field of archiving and document management. I happened to take on a temporary assignment at the architectural firm, Callison. In the course of my time there, I absolutely loved the excitement of being amongst the designers and seeing their ideas take shape. Since I had a degree in English; the fields of engineering, architecture and design appealed to my creative side. I was fortunate to meet a wonderful friend and mentor who managed the archives department. Under her tutelage, I realized that I could apply my skills of file organization and cataloguing in a library, to the field of records management for the design sector. After my assignment, I was hired by the engineering firm, Parsons Brinckerhoff. I will never forget that moment when I walked into the office and instinctively felt at home. At the time, the Alaskan Way Viaduct Project was underway and the office was a hive of activity. As luck would have it, the Seattle office needed someone to archive the entire project from start to finish. Not only was there a need to archive the Alaskan Way Viaduct Project, but word quickly got around the office that I was available to assist on other projects as well.
If you go to any engineering and architectural firm, you are guaranteed to see storage rooms of boxes. These boxes can house anything up to drawings, technical memorandums, calculations, contracts and meeting summaries. During my time at Parsons Brinckerhoff, I eventually archived over 1,500 boxes. One day, one of the engineers had made me a mock business card with the name; “Mistress of Information” with a caption underneath that stated; “if Karla can’t find it, then it doesn’t exist.” My career as a document control specialist was born.
My work as a document control specialist eventually took me out of my company office to co-locating on projects directly with clients. I enjoyed this new opportunity to engage with clients directly and cultivate a good professional relationship with them. Project work enabled me to understand the logistics of design submittals and quality compliance. I learned that if you listen to the client and formulate an efficient document procedure from the start, then all of the contractual components will slot into place for a perfectly executed project.
I have now been in this industry for 20 years and I have never had one bad day. Document control is as natural to me as it is for an engineer to design a light rail track or for an architect to sketch a station. Seeing a design develop from the planning stage to actual construction is one of the most rewarding things in the world. I’m truly honored to be a part of it all.
You could say that I’m still making those make-shift libraries from my childhood, it’s just that this time, I’m creating actual record management systems for planning, design and construction projects. It took quite an interesting journey to get here but like a design project, everything came together perfectly.
