COVER STORY by Laura Dorsey , Master Storyteller
L anguages put our worlds in focus , give shape to our thoughts , and help us to communicate with the others around us . Translating from one language to another is the most artful of creative exercises . Few people know this better than Melina Torrico , CEO of Global Voice Translations , a top-rated translation service , which translates documents or anything else that requires professional language experts . She understands that for their clients , the translator is their most important ally , with an awareness that the translator is a patron to humanity . And humanity is what it is all about for Melina because she is a people person . She recently sat down to translate her transition into this phenomenal business , which has a tag line of “ many languages , one voice ”.
A child is taught to articulate the languages belonging to their culture . This was probably the start of her love for languages . Born in California , Melina and her family ( mom , dad , and sister ) moved to Bolivia South America to live for seven years . While there , she perfected her Spanish in reading and writing . Without the capability to translate between two languages , she might have been constrained to the boundaries of just one country . Her first language instruction taught her that words have memories , a story of their own . There are never two words that have exactly the same meaning . To reconstruct one language into another language , she knew that she needed to understand what went into making the original language for her to disassemble it and rebuild it in the other language .
Even she did not immediately see that her love of language would translate into a business . Still , Melina also knew that she wanted to do something that helped others . She realized that she had an attitude of servitude . Melina tried a variety of career paths related to customer services such as telemarketing , theme parks , and retail sales . It was not until she started working for another big company that her eyes were open to the need for translation services .
COURTESY KALYSA WILSON
18 IBA Success Magazine n VOL 6 , Issue 2