Unsure Where to Start?

Written by: Lisa McCormack - The Stowe Reporter

Imagine you’re a national health-insurance company with a great product that you want to market to Chinese-American senior citizens who live in New York City and don’t speak English.

First, you’d have to translate your marketing materials into the correct Chinese dialect. Next, you’d have to hire an interpreter to attend health fairs and translate for prospective customers. Then, after selling your product, you’d have to translate all of your members’ materials and add a Chinese-language page to your website.

Or, you could just call Auracom International Inc., a multilingual communications company headquartered in Stowe, and let it take care of the rest.

Gordon McDermott founded the company 15 years ago.

What sets Auracom apart from companies that merely offer translation services, he says, is its level of expertise in a broad array of professional fields, including business and retail, finance, hospitality, health care, legal and technology.

"Whether we’re providing legal or health-care-related communications services, all of our people are highly specialized in what they do," McDermott said.

For instance, if the company hires someone to translate a court document from English to Spanish, the person must have a background in both Spanish and law.

At any given time, 200 linguists in the U.S. and abroad are working on Auracom projects, which include translating documents, providing language interpretation in telephone calls, building foreign-language websites, and translating marketing campaigns for international audiences.

Auracom receives resumes from all over the world, but hires linguists with only one language combination, such as English-French or English-Arabic.

"You can’t do more than one language combination and do it to our specifications," McDermott said.

Legal beginning

McDermott, a Canadian citizen, moved to the U.S. after college. He has a degree in international business.

He was living in New Jersey and working in the international shipping industry when his wife, Josée, suggested they start a company together.

She had a law degree and a passion for interpreting and translation.

As an international businessman, McDermott had noticed that most translation services were unprofessional and unreliable. Plus, he knew that even the slightest translation error could have costly repercussions.

They started the company as Legal Link Translations, specializing in translating legal documents. From there, with the help of word-of-mouth recommendations from its legal clients, the company expanded its areas of expertise and changed its name to Auracom International.

The company still has an office in Jersey City, but its headquarters moved to Stowe when the McDermotts moved to town four years ago.

The company takes a "business partner" approach to working with clients, McDermott said.

"We offer everything a client could need to get into a new multicultural market and we truly try to partner with them," McDermott said. "It’s not just taking a document and translating it into Chinese. We want their business to grow and we want to grow with them."

The company has translated everything from legal documents, to videos, to notes scribbled on a Post-It pad.

Auracom contracts with linguists both in the U.S. and abroad, but its phone-call translators are all located in the U.S. to guarantee clients quick service.

"We have a live operator who gets an interpreter online within 30 seconds, or within 10 seconds for a Spanish interpreter," McDermott said.

The company relies heavily on technology to bring its global clients and linguists together.

"Our clients can log on to our portal and draw up what they need," McDermott said.

Multilingual advantages

McDermott sees language barriers as opportunities to expand in the global marketplace.

For instance, the Hispanic population is the fastest-growing consumer segment in the U.S., with 42 percent population growth projected over the next 10 years (according to the U.S. Census) and enormous buying power.

"Half of that number communicates mainly in Spanish and/or is not comfortable using English," McDermott said.

Companies that don’t go the extra mile to reach the multilingual market put themselves at a disadvantage, he said.

"With Google Translation and other automated services, people make the assumption they don’t need to hire a translator," McDermott said. "But those services don’t take the context into consideration."

Word-for-word translations don’t always make sense and some English words have no foreign-language translations. Not to mention the subtle linguistic and cultural nuances that - if something is wrongly translated - could lead to unexpected humor or an unintentional insult.

Auracom’s focus on getting even the smallest details of a translation just right helped it land an account with the Children’s Place when the company wanted to expand into the Canadian market a few years ago.

"We were up against mega-companies," McDermott said. "That’s not unusual for us. It’s often a David and Goliath situation."

Auracom didn’t just have to pass muster with the Children’s Place; the translated written materials had to pass a rigid inspection by the French-Canadian language police, officially known as Office Québécois de la Langue Française. The office strictly regulates how the English language is used in Quebec. For instance, English-language signs must have smaller letters and appear below French-language signs.

Auracom was on a tight deadline, translating everything from advertising materials to online descriptions of children’s clothing, such as "the little green tootie fruity dress," within a two-month span.

"Ultimately, the language police said that they wished everyone could do it (translation) this well," McDermott said.

The Children’s Place later hired Auracom to help it expand its marketing reach to Puerto Rico and Spanish-language communities in the U.S.

A growing company

Auracom has about 80 regular clients, including the Children’s Place, Con Edison, Prudential Insurance, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, IBM, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Most recently, the company signed Riley Weiss, a major branding and marketing firm that works with Adidas, Symantec, Advantage and other large companies.

Auracom works with some clients every day; for others, it’s a few times each year.

Among companies it’s working with in Vermont are Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Eating Well Magazine, Stowe Area Association, Stoweflake Mountain Resort and Spa, and Green Mountain Inn. It has also provided translation services for Vermont Gov. James Douglas.

"We have developed some great relationships in Vermont and are looking forward to expanding on that momentum, particularly in the health-care arena," McDermott said. "We want to help Vermont businesses grow."