The results of the first Board of Directors’ election were announced at the General Meeting, on Sunday, October 19th, in Oak Brook, Illinois. Nine of the eleven candidates were elected as follows:



President: Moira Pujols

Vice President: Madeleine Velguth

Secretary: Montserrat Zuckerman

Treasurer: Jeff Gary

Directors: Alberto Aguilar

Enrica Ardemagni

Rodney Bogardus

Sylvia Fosslien

Sara Vlahovic



Thanks to all the candidates who ran in the election! The new Board plans to meet for the first time in mid-November. The newly formed board has the following tasks/plans--among others!--for the next few months:

1. Incorporate MATI in the state of Illinois

2. Establish yearly dues

3. Find new home for the website

4. Publish a newsletter

5. Outreach to corporate and institutional members

6. Program events for the year

MATI’s General Meeting was very well attended and extremely informative. Did you know MATI is over 120 members strong? Twenty-nine people registered for the ATA exam sitting, some of whom stayed for the general meeting. An additional 30 MATI members attended. All and all, more than fifty translators and interpreters had a chance to mingle prior to the meeting.

Our speakers were Estela Guianze de Zaffaroni, US Regional Secretary of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), and Marilda Averbug, AIIC Council Member for the U.S. Region. Ms. Zaffaroni has been an interpreter and translator since 1983, working both simultaneously and consecutively at ministerial and head of state meetings. Ms. Averbug is a freelance conference interpreter for many international organizations and the private sector in the East Coast.

The subject of their talk was the International Conference Interpreting Market and the work of AIIC in the United States and the world (2,500 members in 65 countries). While founded to serve and represent interpreters working for international organizations, it is increasingly relevant to the growing numbers of conference interpreters working in the private sector. The organization is seeking to expand its role in the United States and to grow beyond the East Coast, where it has had a long history of representation, research and advocacy.


Specifically, the relevance of AIIC to interpreters working in the Midwest was explored, and the seed of an eventual formal relationship between our two organizations planted. The discussion evolved into the potential formation of a MATI ad hoc committee to serve as liaison with AIIC. This committee might make it possible to bring about opportunities to obtain AIIC sponsorship for a core group of interpreters who would then constitute a concrete AIIC presence in our region. AIIC’s own evolution into a more active player in the private sector would clearly benefit conference interpreting here.

In addition to a wealth of information about the organization, the AIIC website has information relevant to interpreters and translators and a link to their publication Communicate! It is well worth a visit.