Message From the Board Q1 2006

Aki Ito, GALA Board Chair

New year, new board, consistent vision. Since 2002, GALAs growth and development has been guided by three great leaders: Hans Fenstermacher, Renée Sztabelski, and Daniel Carter. The three were founding board members and served the association tirelessly in their efforts.

I have great respect for their contributions to the association, and I will miss their involvement as board members. Last month, Arancha Caballero and I welcomed three dedicated new members to the GALA Board: Christiane Bernier, Matthias Caesar, and Stephen Ryan; we have begun the year with exciting new energy as a group. Before sharing some of our plans for the coming year, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Hans, Renée and Daniel for their work. We hope they will continue to be actively involved with GALA and the industry.

The 2006 Board shares the unchanged vision to provide members with a common forum to discuss issues, create innovative solutions, promote the industry, and present a joint – and more powerful – voice within the industry and to the outside community.

Collaboration, promotion, and regional events are three of our main themes for 2006. We will encourage collaboration among GALA members, with our clients, and with professionals in other industries as well as educational institutes. For instance, GALA is continuing to cooperate with The Localization Institute and Multilingual Computing for the upcoming Localization World conference in Barcelona, which promotes the theme of working together. In this conference, you are invited to discuss collaborations among peers and with clients.

You will hear from us in our efforts to collaborate with the outside community such as the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and tekom to raise GALA’s visibility. We are also working with California State University at Chico and The Localization Institute on a summer localization program that gives certification to participants. All of these activities will give us more industry visibility.

New GALA Board member Stephen Ryan and our new PR Coordinator, Jackie Walsh have been working diligently on GALA’s industry promotion effort through press releases, story pitches to the general press, advertising and event cross promotion opportunities.

For regional events, we encourage members to submit proposals and get funding for local member gatherings and new member recruiting. I am planning to organize a GALA event in Japan this year and Christiane Bernier is planning to organize an event in Canada. For more information about regional events, contact Matthias Caesar.

Last but not least, Laura Brandon and Cindy Cookson continue to provide their superb services to GALA in the area of administration and accounting. We have hired a part-time administrative assistant to support Laura on some day-to-day tasks, allowing Laura to get more involved in strategic planning for events, industry promotion and member recruiting.

You will hear lots of exciting news from the Board this year. And we would like to hear from you to understand your interests and needs. Remember, the members that benefit the most from GALA are those that get involved.

For the GALA Board,

Aki Ito
GALA Board Chair
 

Aki Ito is chair of the GALA Board and vice president of TOIN, a globalization and localization services company that specializes in Asian languages.