After being recognized as a 2016 Woman of Influence by the Chicago Business Journal, Elizabeth sat down with them to do an interview about how she came to start a professional interpreting and translation agency. The following is an excerpt from that article.

While working at a hospital as a nursing student, Elizabeth Colon witnessed firsthand the risks of inadequate interpretation.

A doctor needed to give a Spanish-speaking cancer patient an important update on her condition, and he pulled Colon into the room because she was bilingual. The doctor used oncology terms that Colon didn’t fully understand and she couldn’t translate them properly.

“I basically told the patient she had cancer and that she would be cured,” Colon told Bizwomen. “And that wasn’t what the doctor said at all.”

Although the situation was eventually straightened out and the patient got the accurate information, the ordeal upset Colon and left a lasting impression. What happened to her was not an uncommon practice. When someone needed something translated, they would grab the closest bilingual person – regardless of whether or not they were qualified.

The experience led Colon to become a trained interpreter, and in 2007, she founded Metaphrasis Language and Cultural Solutions in Chicago to alleviate the consequences she saw from poor language services. In health care, what gets lost in translation can endanger patients, and in the corporate world, bad communication can harm business.

“Businesses are realizing, if their communication is not specifically in the language they’re trying to tap into, they’re losing business,” said Colon, recently named a Woman of Influence by the Chicago Business Journal (a Bizwomen sister publication).

Metaphrasis offers translation services in 38 languages in the Chicago area. Interpreters are required to go through extensive training, testing and observation to ensure they are truly equipped to meet client needs. Colon said there’s nothing worse for conducting business than hiring an interpreter who can’t efficiently and accurately get the job done.

“I would say, based on the fact that I focused on health care, there is an increased need for businesses to get it right the first time,” she said. “Businesses need to wise up and realize the lower cost doesn’t mean it’s best for you.”

Technology is making the world smaller, increasing the need to cross language barriers in every industry. In the health care sector, Colon said people often travel to the U.S. to get specific treatment. In other sectors, companies may want or need to do business overseas. Companies are also starting to need more language services internally.

“The workforce is diversifying,” she said. “There’s an immediate need now.”

The ability for interpreters to stay neutral is also an important factor, Colon said. Interpreters must not only translate words, but actions like eye contact and hand gestures as well.

Colon worked on and off as an interpreter for five years before starting Metaphrasis, and she had to learn to communicate messages from one party to another in a completely impartial way.

“Our training kind of makes us a little rigid,” Colon said. “We try not to create relationships with the person we’re interpreting with.”

It’s exhausting work, Colon said, and it’s easy for the needs of the interpreter to go overlooked. Metaphrasis interpreters must be given mandatory breaks while on the job, often at 30-minute intervals. Given how much is at stake, they need to stay sharp.

“We value our interpreters,” Colon said. “And that’s the way it should be.”

To read the article on bizwomen, click here.