In order to comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations, the U.S. Congress mandated the establishment of the U.S. Enquiry Point (EP). USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service’s Multilateral Affairs (MA) Division serves as the official U.S. Enquiry Point and facilitates the U.S. transparency obligations under the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. WTO member countries are increasingly passing laws, creating and amending regulations that change the trading environment and requirements for U.S. agricultural exporters. Lanza will translate these measures (into and from Spanish, French, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, and Chinese), as well as other supporting documents, in a timely manner to assess their trade impact and to provide an accurate basis for formulating official United States Government (USG) comments.

Work is typically pretty quiet between Christmas and until a week or so after New Year. After years of stressing about it, I’m able to relax now, feeling comfortable that things will pick up after the holidays. With the government shutdown this year, work has been very slow, considering the amount of work we usually get from the Federal Government. With the government up and running again, work is trickling in, mostly from USDA. There was a backlog of Food Recalls that were waiting to be translated, and we got right on it as soon as the federal employees at USDA-FSIS went back to work.

We also got a few new clients in 2018 – 2019 including ModMarket, BigRedF Restaurant Group, Snooze, and Taco John’s! Also happy and somewhat surprised that we got a small interpreting job with the Air Force – NORTHCOM last week. We’ll be providing simultaneous interpreting and interpretation equipment for the 40+ attendees, in San Diego, CA. Hope your 2019 is off to a good start.

I’m really thrilled to announce that Lanza was awarded a three year translation contract with USDA – FSIS. In 2012 we did a tiny “foot in the door project” for FSIS, translating a newsletter from Greek into English. Since then, we’ve been translating mostly slaughterhouse audits and legal documents from partner countries into English, from many different languages, including Chinese, Icelandic, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Portuguese, Romanian, Polish, and Spanish. It took 5 years of working on micro purchases and little jobs to get this contract, building trust, showing that we are a reliable partner, and can produce valid, reliable translation, often on short notice. I’m very grateful and psyched for this partnership, and I feel like we are helping with very important work, not for the “US Government” per se, but for everyone that consumes meat in the United States. Slaughterhouse audits have graphic photography, intense stuff, which definitely makes it more interesting and fun.

Lanza just got a new job with the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, the island nation off the coast of Venezuela. Lanza will be providing Spanish<>English simultaneous interpreting for a small delegation in Washington, DC for the Hemispheric Forum, conducted in partnership with the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, who will be hosting next year’s Twelfth Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CDMA XII). During the Hemispheric Forum, panelists will discuss proposed thematic axes for the CDMA XII: the changing international defense and security environment; hemispheric security and defense cooperation policy; and environmental protection and resilience. Although Lanza will be providing Spanish <> English interpreting, the official language of Trinidad and Tobago is English.

After a lot of research and hard work, Lanza was awarded a contract with DSCA (Defense Security Cooperation Agency). Lanza will be providing State Department certified simultaneous interpreters to facilitate communication during the WSDS (Washington Security and Defense Seminar). WSDS brings together 73 participants from 19 countries in the Western Hemisphere diplomatic community for an intensive week-long course on the formulation of U.S. security and defense policy for the region. Over the coming week, participants will gain perspectives on U.S. national objectives, strategies, policy guidelines, and the dynamics of decision making.