A Germany-based translation company that has offices in 10 European countries and works in 83 languages, opened its first U.S. branch in Atlanta in June, choosing the Georgia capital over Chicago, Detroit and New York.
Edward Vick, founder and CEO of Frankfurt, Germany-based EVS Translation Services, told GlobalAtlanta that the availability of downtown office space and proximity of international companies made Atlanta a fit for his company.
“EVS is a European company up to now, we’re here in the U.S. to change that,” he said. “In Germany, out of the top 100 companies 50 are our clients, almost all of these 50 are located in the U.S. many in the region of Atlanta.”
Though EVS signs confidentiality agreements with all of its clients because translators may work with sensitive material, Mr. Vick said that many of them are in the automotive, legal, pharmaceutical and technology fields.
He added that the company hires native speakers in its different branches and the Atlanta office could grow to 25 translators and staff.
The company began translating annual reports and branched into press releases, financial information and marketing material.
Mr. Vick said that the challenge in business-to-business translation is developing company-specific wording in a number of different languages.
“EVS doesn’t have a specialty in translating love letters,” Mr. Vick said. “When you are writing thousands of pages of translations for one single company, that company wants to know that you have special vocabulary which you use for that company and nobody else.”
Expanding on its role in facilitating communications, EVS sponsors an annual contest in Bulgaria, where it has an office, recognizing native novelists similar to the Pulitzer Prize.
The Vick Foundation, started by Mr. Vick in 2004, awards 10,000 Bulgarian lev, approximately $8,000 to the novelist chosen by a panel of judges and 1,000 lev, about $800, to an author chosen by fans.
This year’s judges are European Commissioner Meglena Kouneva, Boryana Hristova, a professor at Bulgaria’s National Library; Georgi Lozanov, a psychologist and writer, Valeri Stefanov, a professor at St. Clement of Ohrid University in Sofia, Bulgaria; and film director Andrei Slabakov.
The 2007 winner was Georgi Tenev for his novel Partien Dom, or Party Headquarters, and the contest has more than 60 entrants this year.
