For 35 years, Kitta Reeds edited or wrote about 300 proposals a year—that’s over 10,000 proposals—ranging from $25,000 to $25 million. Kitta Reeds joined SRI in 1964 and became a technical writer/editor in 1970. She edited for all parts of SRI, but primarily for the physical and life sciences groups. As Manager of Publications for the Sciences Group, Kitta streamlined the proposal process to relieve the researchers of all the details of proposal preparation except writing of the technical sections. She summarized the requirements of each Request for Proposal to help the people who prepared the cost and contractual parts of the proposal and who were responsible for approval and mailing. Kitta was the first to put all the contractual provisions for proposals on-line so that the Business Office could prepare that part of proposals easily.
Kitta constantly reminded SRI's proposal writers to "write about what your client wants to buy—not just what you want to sell.” She prepared detailed outlines for each major proposal to make sure that it complied precisely with the Request for Proposal, met all the client’s evaluation criteria, and made it easy for the proposal evaluators to appreciate our concept and award a contract.
Kitta went far beyond her job as an editor. She designed and led workshops to train staff in proposal writing. She was a coach, cheerleader, and confidante to many a project leader. Her loyalty to SRI staff and to the organization as a whole was unwavering. She was unafraid to speak her mind (and she did so effectively) when she thought people were not acting in the best interests of the organization. As chair of the Institute Staff Advisory Group in 1984-1985, she led SRI staff in discussing issues with SRI’s top managers.
Kitta never did a forty-hour week; she stayed late, came in on weekends, and generally exhibited a spirit of teamwork that was exemplary. Kitta routinely performed wonders for the sometimes inexperienced, almost always tardy, proposal authors, turning their initial efforts into clear, organized, winning proposals. Remarkably, she accomplished these transformations without changing the meaning of the technical information the writer wanted to convey while working under exacting deadline pressure. Kitta Reeds left to SRI the legacy of high writing standards and writers capable of meeting those standards.