Seattle, Washington, USA (1 February 2011) – The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) has announced the 2011 GALA board officers. The officer positions were elected from among seven board members, three of whom are newly elected to two-year terms.
Hans Fenstermacher, Vice President of TransPerfect / Translations.com, will continue as Chairperson, a position he held last year as well. In 2002, Fenstermacher co-founded GALA and was the first board chair. The 30-year language and localization veteran will continue to take a hands-on, active role as this year’s chairperson.
Kim Harris of text & form was elected Vice Chair. This is the second year of her two-year board term. Harris previously served a two-year term with GALA in 2007-2008, acting as board chair in 2008.
“It is a pleasure to lead such a dynamic, diverse and creative group of board members,” said Fenstermacher. “I am looking forward to working with a strong GALA board again as we continue to increase the benefits provided to our member companies.” In addition to Fenstermacher and Harris, the GALA Board of Directors includes two other directors in the second years of their terms, Aki Ito of TOIN and Arturo Quintero, co-owner of Moravia Worldwide. Additionally three other board members are beginning their two-year terms:Serge Gladkoff of Logrus International, who just finished his first board term, Xavier Maza of iDISC Information Technologies, and Shelly Priebe of Priebe & Associates.
All initiatives developed by the association, including the educational webinar series and the GALA Language of Business conference series, are crafted for the benefit of the localization and translation industry. “We are working hard to ensure that our resources and our events are relevant to the issues our members face every day,” Fenstermacher added.
Currently GALA is preparing for the GALA 2011: Language of Business. Business of Language conference to be held 28 – 30 May in Lisbon. Information and registration for the event can be found at www.gala-global.org/conference.
Other initiatives include a new membership level, Affiliate Membership, for buy-side localization teams, as well as the GALA Webinar Series, numerous local networking events and a new localization workshop program for exporters. In the coming year, GALA will also furtherdevelop its industry promotion initiatives and continue to reach out to the industry and community for collaborative initiatives.
For more information on GALA and the 2010 GALA Board, please visit www.gala-global.org