Jon Ritzdorf
Email: jon@ritzdorfacademy.com

I currently hold the position of "Solutions Architect" with Moravia, a top 10 language service provider (LSP, a.k.a., "translation agency"). I have previously worked for two of the largest US-based LSPs, and one of the five largest LSPs in the EU. My role has changed over the years; starting out as a translator and eventually ending up in the position I'm in now where I support sales teams with high-value clients such as Google, Adobe Systems, Apple Computer & Abbott who have large volume translation needs.

How did you end up in the localization industry?

Well, I first entered the language service side in 1999 with a small Taiwan-based "mom & pop" agency called Pristine Communications as a linguistic reviewer of Chinese>English translations. By late 2000 I found myself turning my back on the "traditional" translation training I received at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) realizing that the real world of translation seemed different from what I was was being taught. This fact was driven home when I found the role of "localization engineering" in 2000 thanks to a great instructor in computer-assisted translation (CAT). He took me under his wing as an intern at a localization agency he was temporarily managing and soon one job led to another...and then to another. By the month after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, I found myself signing a contract to become the first localization engineer ever hired for a medium-sized LSP in NYC known as Translations.com (now the third largest agency in the US). I later joined Bowne Global Solutions, which was the largest US translation agency at the time, and worked there for three years as a senior localization engineer, quitting after it was acquired by Boston-based Lionbridge. After that, I worked for Moravia for a few years in a new role where customer and sales support was my main function. I eventually joined a less prominent player, Acclaro Inc. in greater NYC in order to challenge myself to grow with a smaller company...still in a sales support function, but I eventually returned to Moravia as I find the work to be more exciting.

As teaching goes, I've been instructing translation technology and localization topics at NYU and MIIS for nearly a decade.

If you want to know anything else, feel free to bribe me with a cup of coffee or, even better, a bubble tea and I'll tell you anything you want -- yum...gummy bubbles ;-)

Anyway..as any of you who know me can attest to, I could go on forever but enough boring details about my life and why I teach...get your homework done!