History

The Founders Speak: AATIA’s First Decade

In September 1995, on the occasion of AATIA’s 10th anniversary, Ingrid Lansford explored the organization’s beginnings with its founders, Esther Díaz, Albert Bork, and Harvie Jordan. Merry Wheaton has rewritten for the website Lansford’s interview, which originally appeared in the November 1995 issue of The AATIA Letter. Here then, introductions to the three translators whose drive to know others in the field launched an organization that numbers more than 200, followed by a brief history of AATIA’s first ten years, based on the founders’ memories of how they unfolded.

Esther Díaz, who had lived and studied ten years in Mexico before returning to the U.S. where she earned her B.A. in Spanish at the University of Texas at Austin, was the magnet that attracted the other two founding members of AATIA. That’s because they wanted her job! Hired in 1978 as a Spanish translator with the Texas Rehabilitation Commission (TRC), Díaz was promoted to trainer in 1983 and had to find someone to fill her former position. She met Albert Bork and Harvie Jordan when they applied.

Albert Bork already had considerable experience when he applied for the job. With a recent M.A. in French under his belt, he had just entered the Ph.D. program in Portuguese at UT-Austin when his department received a request to translate a Portuguese newsletter that was an outgrowth of the International Geophysical Year. Bork translated that newsletter until it was discontinued, and then he and a colleague translated and published a Brazilian short novel. On completing his Ph.D. studies, Bork took a teaching job in Nebraska but later returned to Austin to set up a translation business with his colleague. By the time he responded to the TRC’s ad and met both Díaz and Jordan, he had freelanced for some time and had also traveled to Brazil as an interpreter. He took the TRC job and worked there for many years as a translator and translation manager.

Harvie Jordan began his education in Spanish as a child working side by side with braceros in cotton fields on the South Plains of Texas. He won a scholarship to Mexico City College, studied at Texas Tech, and worked in broadcasting, then came to the University of Texas at Austin and earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies. His graduation in May 1972 marked a turning point: a group going to Mexico to negotiate with a Mexican broadcasting company asked him to be their consultant and interpreter on the trip: all expenses paid, plus $250! Over the years, Jordan has alternated between broadcasting and working for the State, but all his jobs have included a large component of translation and interpretation. While at the Good Neighbor Commission, he began to seek contact with other translators and wrote to three organizations he had heard about. ATA was one of them—the only one that responded. About that time, the phone rang and Esther Díaz, calling in response to his application, said, “Hello, Harvie!”

From the Nighthawk to the Austin Public Library: the organization takes shape

On January 11, 1984, Díaz, Bork, and Jordan met at the Nighthawk restaurant on South Congress Avenue to discuss the possibility of an Austin-based translators’ organization. Díaz and Jordan both wanted to get acquainted with other translators, and Bork knew several, most of them from a defunct local organization of the seventies, TRACT (Translators Association of Central Texas).

The three invited these colleagues to meet informally after work at the TRC, and two years later, after several meetings there, they held AATIA’s charter meeting at La Tapatía restaurant on December 7, 1985. Until that time the group had been called AATA. Asked to recall who had attended, the founders agreed there were eleven people (a typical number by that time), but their collective memory produced twelve names. In addition to the three founders, Allan Adams, Raquel Elizondo, Cristina Helmerichs, Fritz Hensey, Paul Makinen, Chema Saenz, Howard Simms, Patricia Thickstun, and Dorothy Turner were present. The organization also had other members who did not attend that meeting.

Díaz, Bork, and Jordan were all members of the American Translators Association by that time, and, according to Jordan, the charter owed much to the ATA bylaws, which he suggested they use as a model. He and Bork adapted them in 1985. “We were hoping to be an ATA chapter,” Bork explained.

From its charter in 1985, the organization was defined as embracing both translators and interpreters and as representing the Austin area. Díaz remembered, “We did not want to make it too narrow and wanted to include the area around Austin. Ed Brandes was one of our members, and he lived in San Antonio.”

Albert Bork used the ATA mailing list to invite translators from all over the state to the meetings. “I had already decided even then that Austin was a state of mind,” he said. Groups which had existed in Dallas and Houston were no longer active, and with no competition, AATIA was flexing its muscles, conducting workshops, issuing a newsletter, and holding regular meetings. Then as now, it held six board meetings and six member meetings a year, along with an annual spring picnic and Christmas party. “Good food has always been important at our events,” Bork quipped.

In April 1985, Jordan issued the first directory, which consisted of several sheets of paper stapled together, then a year later, he put out the first newsletter. “It was a letter—8.5 x 14 on ivory stock—and my first question to the membership was what to call it,” he recalled. He got no response, so, lacking a better name, it remained simply The Letter.

At first the organization’s structure was quite informal with group members, usually the three founders, taking turns arranging for meetings. Díaz’s leadership skills earned her the nickname “La Mandona.” A steering committee with specific duties evolved to take care of specific responsibilities. Díaz was the first presiding officer, then called Executive Director.

Information management was simpler then. Membership forms asked only for name, address, telephone number, and source and target languages. Allan Adams, translator of Atari software, managed the membership list on an Atari computer and produced the mailing labels until Bork got his first Macintosh and took over, producing AATIA’s first truly professional directory in 1987.

In the 1980s, dues started at $5.00, and the organization operated on a shoestring. At first AATIA did not even have its own bank account; instead the group put its money into the financial officer’s account to avoid bank fees. The early board did not register AATIA as an organization, much less incorporate, because that would have cost money. Attendance was up, and luckily the board discovered that the Austin Public Library offered free meeting space. The organization could continue to grow.

A new organizational model facilitates growth and involvement. An organizational turning point came during Patricia Bobeck’s two terms as President (1992 and 1993), when Jordan introduced the organizational model of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). According to Jordan, “It is a system whereby leadership is developed by delegation of responsibility with backup provided by an experienced member. IABC members often say it creates a place where you can learn management and make mistakes but not get fired. Responsibility is shared between a coordinator and one or several assistants who are in charge of a job, such as providing refreshments for the meetings, mailing the newsletter, or arranging ATA accreditation sittings. The goal is to develop leadership, and the key to success lies in clear job descriptions.”

The need for clear job descriptions led to the Manual of AATIA Practices and Procedures, commonly known as the MAPP. According to Díaz, Mike Conner suggested the name, and Marta Blumenthal chaired the committee that developed the manual. Díaz explained that an organization’s structure is hard to grasp without written material, and that without having a clear idea of what was expected of them, people tended not to delegate. “Now, with the MAPP, they have a reference source and history,” she said.

During the first months of Díaz’s term as AATIA President in 1993, she united the board behind a common vision, mission, and goals. She asked Jordan to talk about the IABC system, since the new board members had not yet heard of it. AATIA has reaped many practical benefits from this theoretical framework, including its successful volunteer effort in hosting the 1994 ATA Conference in Austin.

Although relations with the ATA have been good over the years, AATIA has never become an ATA chapter. Initially AATIA asked to be and was accepted as an ATA cooperating group. This was the relationship in 1989 when the ATA board, unhappy with several other cooperating groups for a variety of reasons, voted to terminate its relationships with all such groups. Nobody told AATIA of the vote. Jordan remembered, “We found out in January 1990 when the ATA Chronicle published an oblique summary of the board meeting.”

AATIA leaders found he whole matter very disconcerting, yet AATIA publicized and hosted the ATA summer board meeting in 1990, and for all practical purposes continued its relationship to ATA as though nothing had happened. AATIA still recruits for the ATA, gives ATA accreditation exams, and reports on the ATA conference at each November meeting. The topic of chapterhood has come up repeatedly, but AATIA members have always concluded that chapterhood would unacceptably restrict the ways AATIA serves its members.

Díaz joked that AATIA’s real crisis occurs every year at officer nomination time. Yet volunteers do step forward and Bork attributed AATIA’s success to willing volunteers and an effort to spread the work around. Jordan said, “The IABC model has helped develop leadership. Each of us has stepped aside, as adults do when their children have been raised and as managers ought to with their employees, to let someone else step forward.” Díaz agreed: “At AATIA we don’t form closed groups and don’t hold on. We willingly stepped aside to allow other committed leaders like David Jones, Patricia Bobeck, and Mike Magee to share their talents and skills with the association. Their efforts led us through the tough growing phases.”

Díaz also cited the group’s collegiality: “We’ve been very civil. No matter what came up, we have been fortunate in avoiding feuds and hostilities. In spite of a few personality clashes, there has been enough commitment to keep the organization going.”

Jordan concurred: “We have had differences of opinion on what to do and how to do it, but we’ve dealt with them. Austinites are a special kind of people and they have made the organization thrive. For some time now we’ve sustained a year-end membership of 200. We’ve had momentum.”

Looking into the crystal ball Díaz noted that during the past 10 years, the group has devoted most of its energy to growth and internal development, and that during the next 10 years it needs to reach out to the public. She believes that when it comes to educating clients and the public about our profession, AATIA can and should learn from other groups who have been successful in that area. Also she said, “We will need to pay attention to the world of business. Austin is becoming an international city.”

“The Southwest is becoming more important as an arena of international trade,” said Bork, and referring to the expectation that Samsung would build a $1.5 billion chip fabrication plant in Austin, he predicted in 1995 that AATIA would soon have a large number of Korean translators and interpreters.

Jordan emphasized the need to remember what we have learned and to be willing to change: “Our vision, mission and goals need to be revisited with some frequency. New officers and new members need to find out what our goals are. We also need to revise our vision, mission, and goals statements from time to time, as well as the officer job descriptions.”

On the subject of goals, Díaz said, “We reached our previous goals [formulated in 1993] within two years! Now we need a vision farther into the future.” Jordan pointed the way to AATIA’s future in three words: “Onward and upward!”

Since 1994, when Lansford conducted the interviews and wrote this article, much has happened to AATIA and its members. As we find additional articles relating to AATIA’s history, we will post them here.