Carmens’ Story
The path to becoming a professional translator is rarely a well-planned one. It is a path often shaped more by happenstance and serendipity than by clear-cut career plans. And my journey into the translation industry has been just that.
Raised on a sugar cane and tobacco farm in Cidra, Puerto Rico, a small rural town in the heart of the island, my first encounter with translation began when I was personally invited by the head of the Graduate Program in Translation at the University of Puerto Rico to be one of its first students. After completing the Master’s degree, I was again extended an invitation by the head of the program and the university’s personnel committee, but this time to join the Program’s teaching staff. I accepted the challenge and thus began my 37-year career educating hundreds of future translators. During that time I completed the post-master’s certificate program to become a Specialized Translator in Medical Translation.
I leveraged this specialized knowledge to design the program’s medical translation curriculum in response to the need for more specialized coursework. Over the years, as I rose in rank to professor and as students asked for more specialized classes, I gladly accepted the challenge of offering courses in environmental translation, business translation, and translation critique to meet their professional needs. Teaching is a passion of mine that I am happy to have evolved. And I was even happier to have transitioned that passion from academia into the professional field through Atabex Translations.
In addition to the day-to-day business of running the company, I and another colleague, Marshall Morris, offered the first set of formal introductory courses in interpretation in preparation for the Federal Exam Certification in Puerto Rico I was able to see the importance of ensuring that the local industry was equipped with trained, qualified interpreters.
Today, I continue to expand my passion/vision for teaching by entering the exciting world of online courses and reaching a wider audience of translators and interpreters who want to enhance their professional development. Once again, Atabex continues to maintain the high standard of quality expected within our profession.
In Carmen’s Own Work
What I love about my work is that I’m an eternal student, always learning something new from my experiences.
Carmen’s Interests
Meditation
Reading
Nature (Tropical Forests)