“My story is the plight of the immigrant child. In the beginning of every situation my Mom faced as an immigrant, there was always some form of concern or disappointment or being upset about something that could be resolved by the interpreting function. I quickly noticed, even as a young girl, that her whole demeanor changed when the interpretation happened. She’d literally go from upset to happy.
There were thousands of situations in my youth that had to be dealt with – my mother needed that help and I became her interpreter. Once she learned to speak the language, I had to speak ‘right’ for her. This is the plight of the immigrant. It causes a lot of children to be in an unfair situation. And it happens all over the world. The children just want to play but they become busy helping mom. That personal experience so influenced my life, it became my career.”
Peruvian native Amelia Rodriguez founded Vocalink Global (formerly Vocalink Language Services) more than 20 years ago. She turned her love of language into a much-needed service to help others like herself. But she also grew it into a business-to-business service, meeting the translation needs of corporations doing business around the world.
Starting first as a freelance interpreter, Amelia established her reputation as a Federal Court interpreter. She enjoyed the respect for interpretation work in the courthouse setting, noting it is a very different type of domain. There is a certain challenge in interpreting legal topics, but she also enjoyed that the judges and attorneys knew and appreciated your work.
“Personally, I liked the high stress, high stakes challenge of court work, more so than other interpreting situations. But I soon realized there were others working there who had been at it longer and would always have more experience. That’s when I started looking at how to build a business myself and bring on talented interpreters. I realized there must be translation work out there as well.”
While interpretation is about being a third party liaison for the spoken word, translation services focuses on the written word.
Amelia secured her first major account by attending events with businesses she targeted. That opened the door to the Iams Company while it was still independently-owned. Even then, the pet care and animal nutrition company needed translation services for marketing and sales materials being sent all over the world.
In recent years, Amelia has seen a major shift in the language services industry, driven by technology. Remote video interpreting is coming into vogue, allowing a much more simultaneous interpretation session. But some of the more exciting facets involve changing point-of-service dynamics, the impact of cloud technology and the massive amount of content many large enterprises are trying to manage.
“In the early days, when you needed translation services, you requested whole translation files sent via email. With today’s cloud-based platforms, we no longer need to use the slow email process. Today’s file exchanges are very customizable and include status notifications. You can now have centrally-located files which can be easily accessed with password verification.
That really changes the world for both the client and the translator. You know the status of any piece of work immediately and you can also have a searchable pipeline. For example, we can include data intelligence that will let the client know to reuse already interpreted material that may fit a new project and avoid duplication. There are significant benefits for the customer to have that kind of access and availability.”
That need for access and availability in language services has helped Amelia transform her own immigrant child’s plight into an engaging, state-of-the-art business where every client can be heard and be understood.
Biz Beginnings 