Work & Activities

Translation experience
He became bilingual in English because he lived in the United States at a very early age, when his parents spent some time in NY and Connecticut while his father, a medical doctor, did a three year rotating internship in US hospitals. He subsequently became a civilian employee of the US Air Forces at Torrejón Air Base near Madrid, Spain, where, as an obstetrician and gynaecologist, he helped deliver a few thousand US babies in the 35 years he worked there until his retirement.
His keen interest in sailing and his good English helped him approach British sailing yachts from their summer house in the NW coast of Spain, resulting in several cruises under sail in the Baltic, North Sea, British Channel and French coast of the Bay of Biscay, which turned his accent more British and earned him the only Spanish membership in the exclusive Royal Cruising Club of London in 1974.

He was first asked to translate books because of his knowledge of sailing terms. Starting in 1977, he translated or revised the whole of the sailing series of Nordbok, a Swedish packager (Pleasure Boating, Ships and the Sea, The Lore of Ships), for the Spanish publisher Centropress, and then of the Swiss consortium United Nautical Publishers ("This is" series, such as This is Sailing, This is Sailboat Cruising, Boat Tuning for Speed, This is Racing, This is Competitive Sailing, Looking at Sails, This is Surfboard Sailing, etc.) for the Spanish publisher Hermann Blume. Thereafter he became a publisher on his own, and he translated and published many books from various European and American publisher (Dorling Kindersley, Bantam Doubleday Dell, Elder Books, Scott Foresman, Time Life, National Geographic Society, Nordbok, Larousse, Macmillan, Adlard Coles, Fernhurst, etc.) for his own company, Editorial Raíces, S.A., and for various other Spanish publishers such as Ediciones del Serbal, Ediciones Pirámide (Anaya Group), Editorial Everest, Editorial Acribia, Editorial Quercus, Salvat Editores, Celeste Ediciones, National Geographic Spain, etc. The largest books he has translated are the Macmillan Encyclopaedia of Animals and the Larousse Gardening and Gardens, both for Everest. The former was published in three volumes... He has translated altogether some 200 books.
Subject matters for these books have ranged from sailing and natural history (zoology, botany, gardening, ornithology, mycology, medicinal herbs, aquaria, ...), to antiques, automobiles, golf, astronomy, cooking, history, nutrition, guitar, engines, sports, Alzheimer, travel guides, medicine, text books, etc…
He also began to translate for international translation agencies, such as ELB Translation Services, AD-EX Translations and Transperfect in London, ETS in Ireland, 4t in Paris, abc.networx in Berlin, Sprachendienst Bangard in Marburg, Morote in Seville, Prisma in Minneapolis, ASET in Arlington and Transperfect again in New York. For these he began to specialise in medical and pharmaceutical material, particularly clinical trial protocols and drug registration, although he has done all sorts of things, such as patent applications, International Baccalaureate tests, disease management handbooks (diabetes, hypertension...), pest control material, veterinary medicine material, and even insurance claims. In the course of this work he has translated for many pharmaceutical laboratories such as Pfizer, Bayer, Roche, Schering, Fort Worth, Rowa, Leiras, Elan, Virbac, American Medical Systems, etc. In late 1998 he began working for Medtronic, the manufacturer of implantable defibrillators and pacemakers, first in Spain and later in Minneapolis and in Holland, translating clinical trial protocols and marketing material. He has translated some 800.000 word for them alone.
Since 1990, when he began working for the fifth largest listed Real Estate company in Spain, he has been translating many technical documents about construction and development, as well as business and financial documents, both in the daily affairs of the company and for special projects, such as a Road Show planned for an IPO. He also translate every year the Annual Accounts and participate in board meetings as an interpreter for their foreign Directors.
In March 2000 he became a sworn English interpreter, a certificate issued by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs allowing him to act officially in legal matters, as a sort of Notary Public regarding translation. He has since translated lots of legal documents, birth and marriage certificates, certificates of studies, contracts, public deeds, etc. He has also acted as a simultaneous interpreter in legal proceedings, such as weddings and court sessions, when a party spoke no Spanish.

Lastly, he has a very long experience in simultaneous translation and has attended in this capacity many congresses and business meetings, in Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Switzerland, Australia, etc…