The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2020 - 7

ATA 2020 Election: Candidate Statements
ATA will hold its regularly scheduled election during the upcoming virtual 2020 ATA Annual Conference to elect three
directors for a three-year term. In addition, members will vote on two proposed amendments to ATA's Bylaws.
The Annual Meeting of Voting Members will be held October 22, 2020.

DIRECTOR | Three-Year Term
ROBIN BONTHRONE, CT
rb@robinbonthrone.com
I'm honored to be
nominated for a position
on ATA's Board of
Directors. My first direct
experience with ATA was
in 1997, when I attended
the 38th Annual Conference in San
Francisco. I subsequently gave my first
ATA conference presentation in St. Louis
in 1999. Since then, I've presented 11
regular sessions and 10 preconference/
Advanced Skills and Training Day
seminars, as well as several sessions at
ATA's Financial Translation Conferences
in 2001 and 2005. I'm also an ATAcertified German>English translator.
I've been training translators for most
of my 31-year career as a professional
German>English financial translator, not
only for ATA, but also at workshops,
seminars, and conferences in many
European countries-mainly in Germany,
where I lived for over 30 years. I trained
in-house translators at the specialized
translation boutique in Germany I
co-owned for 20 years and taught
financial translation to students in the
legal translation MA program at City
University, London.
www.atanet.org

This brings me to the strategy I believe
must be anchored at the heart of ATA's
mission in the years to come: education,
education, education.
COVID-19 has changed everything-
not just our lives and our profession
but also ATA. Compounding the other
challenges we're facing, including AB 5,
neural machine translation, and remote
interpreting technologies, the pandemic
has exposed the urgent need to refocus
ATA as an agile, responsive, and intelligent
learning organization that challenges
its members to actively embrace
continuing (and continuous) professional
development (PD) and supports them
across all stages of their journey.
As a member of ATA's Professional
Development (PD) Committee, I drafted
a PD roadmap containing several
very ambitious proposals. I hope it
will serve as a basis for discussion for
significantly reshaping our PD activities
and positioning ATA as the go-to leader
in specialized/subject area training
in particular. ATA's stated position
is that specialization is key to future
professional success, and we now have
an opportunity and a duty to help
our members acquire the specialized
knowledge they need to safeguard
a sustainable future and remain
competitive and financially secure.

In 2019, I urged ATA to step up its
public opposition to AB 5 in California,
and my ATA activities this year have
focused on encouraging members to apply
for federal funding programs, in particular
the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
In addition to keeping members informed
on the Business Practices listserv, I
authored a guide to PPP and other federal
assistance programs for ATA members and
presented a webinar on the Coronavirus
Aid, Relief, and Economic Security
(CARES) Act/PPP for the New York Circle
of Translators, an ATA chapter. This is
tangible evidence of my efforts to provide
valuable support to ATA members.
I also proudly serve as a member of
ATA's Finance and Audit Committee
and Business Practices Education
Committee and represent ATA as cochair of the International Federation of
Translators' International Organization
for Standardization (ISO) Standards
Committee, in which capacity I
authored the "ISO 17100 FAQs for
Freelance Translators."
I'm asking for your vote so I can focus
firmly on the future of ATA in a rapidly
changing world. Working with fellow
Board members in the interests of all ATA
translators and interpreters, I will be a
strong, principled advocate for embedding
PD at the heart of ATA.
American Translators Association

http://www.atanet.org

The ATA Chronicle - September/October 2020

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