Evan Kjos

Editor

North Dakota State University
Bachelor of Science, English and Public Relations, 2013

Mr. Kjos is an editor with more than 3 years of technical writing and editing experience. At PAI Consulting, he uses this experience to write, edit, format, and review a variety of technical and regulatory documents. Mr. Kjos edits documents for spelling, punctuation, grammar, style, and readability in accordance with the U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual, the Chicago Manual of Style, and PAI’s internal style guide.

While a student at North Dakota State University, Mr. Kjos began his editorial career in 2010 as a copy editor for the fourth volume of Northern Eclecta, a literary journal at the university. For all editions, he provided final document edits and design advice, helped select the poetry submissions, and facilitated annual improvements to the journal and its website. Mr. Kjos also helped write, edit, and distribute press releases to local media outlets and classrooms on campus, soliciting contributions to the journal. For Northern Eclecta’s fifth volume, Mr. Kjos served as contributions editor and was responsible for distributing confidential acceptance and rejection notices. For the sixth volume, he served as chief poetry editor and was responsible for managing the other poetry editors and giving the final approval of poems selected for publication.

In 2011, Mr. Kjos studied abroad at Vesalius College in Brussels, Belgium. During this experience, he interned with PaperImpact, the European Trade Association for Specialty Paper Manufacturers, as assistant to the Secretary General. In this role, he helped plan and coordinate a conference for PaperImpact’s member companies and others in the industry. Specifically, Mr. Kjos wrote the speaker biographies and conference agenda, budgeted conference materials, organized convention room layout for presentations, and prepared and distributed post conference materials to attendees. In addition, he updated and maintained PaperImpact’s extranet and public websites. Mr. Kjos also drafted and distributed confidential documents to PaperImpact employees.

Beginning in 2012, Mr. Kjos was a residential treatment advisor at the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch in Fargo, North Dakota. He directly supervised and provided therapeutic assistance to a diverse, ever changing “at risk” youth population in a home environment. Mr. Kjos provided basic parental care for residents, including preparing meals, providing transportation, and tutoring them in various subjects, such as English language and literature. He drafted and maintained daily and weekly confidential reports for each of the residents in his care based on objective and subjective observations, which he provided to their therapists and other personnel involved in their treatment. Mr. Kjos also coordinated with these individuals to modify treatment plans, as necessary.

While still employed at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, Mr. Kjos interned for Fargo Force, a Tier I Junior Ice Hockey team in the United States Hockey League’s Western Conference. As a media intern for the team, he wrote, edited, and published game recaps on the team website after all home games. Mr. Kjos also managed the team’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram pages, as well as a play by play feed during all games. In addition, he wrote blog posts on the team website, which included providing updates about team alumni and stories about current players. Mr. Kjos also designed, drafted, and published statistics and lineup cards for all Fargo Force home games.

Mr. Kjos left Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch to join Forum Communications Company (FCC) as an operations associate. In this position, he processed and provided editorial support for death notices, obituaries, milestones, and business and legal announcements in several newspapers. This involved fact checking and editing the various content according to AP and individual style manuals. For obituaries, Mr. Kjos worked with grieving families to help draft notices suitable for print based on information they provided. For legal notices, this also involved working within strict legal statutes and guidelines. During Mr. Kjos’ tenure at FCC, management formed a new company for his department called Modulist to support more clients outside of those newspapers owned by FCC. Upon the transition to Modulist, Mr. Kjos was part of the team that developed and tested a new submission website handling these notices for more than 25 local newspapers. He also coordinated with other departments and property locations to oversee the publication of advertisements and monitored customer satisfaction post publication.

Upon leaving Modulist, Mr. Kjos worked for Zandbroz Variety, a book retailer in Fargo, North Dakota. For Zandbroz Variety, he assisted the owner and manager with all daily operations, including handling correspondence with customers and outside vendors.