News Stories

In a recent column in the Salt Lake City area‘s Deseret News, alumnus Adam Wooten (MAT/MBA ‘06) emphasizes that conversational skills and even fluency in another language do not in any way compare to the formal graduate education required to be successful as a high-level translator and interpreter. Wooten is vice president of the Globalization Group Inc. and teaches a translation and technology course at Brigham Young University. His article “Multilingual workers can be an asset only if used properly” was published in the Deseret News on December 10, 2010.

Wooten earned two degrees from the Monterey Institute in 2006, the first in translation, capitalizing on his fluency in another language, and the second in business administration, to further his interests in the business side of international relations. The Monterey Institute now offers a masters degree in Translation and Localization Management, organized around three axes of training: translation, technology, and business management.

In the Deseret News article, Wooten talks about the vital role that professional translators and interpreters play in the facilitation of high-level international communication. He takes as an example the career of Barry Slaughter Olsen, chair of the nation’s only graduate degree program for conference interpreting at the Monterey Institute. Twenty years ago, Olsen served as a young Spanish-speaking missionary in Southern California. Upon returning home, he decided to improve his language skills through formal education, and has since launched a conference interpreting career, interpreting for many Latin American heads of state and prominent U.S. officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

For More Information

Jason Warburg
jwarburg@middlebury.edu
831.647.3156

Eva Gudbergsdottir
eva@middlebury.edu
831.647.6606