GALA Champion Max Troyer

In this series of interviews, GALA members share their insights on the pursuit of globalization & localization brilliance.

Today’s GALA Champion is:

Max Troyer, Associate Professor and Program Chair at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

Max Troyer has more than 20 years of experience in the technology, language and consulting industries. He has worked in a wide variety of functions both freelance and in-house, including project management, localization engineering, multilingual layout (DTP), training, technical support and process/workflow consulting. In addition to being an Associate Professor and the Program Chair of the Translation and Localization Management (TLM) masters degree program at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, he is a freelance translation and localization consultant.

[This transcript has been edited]

What’s in a job title

I’m always thinking of ways to improve students’ experience in and out of the classroom: how we make learning more effective, how we can be more inclusive, how we can raise awareness, and how we can be more connected.

Starting out

It's a crazy story that I'll try to condense into the 15 second version, I was in France at an airport speaking French with a gate agent. A man came up to me and said, "You speak really good French, you should become an interpreter." And I said, "Oh, that sounds interesting. How do I do that?" And he told me about the Monterey Institute, as it was called back then. I came home and I applied, and I was in awe. I didn't know about localization at the time. So I started going down the road of translation and interpretation. But eventually, when I learned about internationalization and localization, I was hooked and never looked back.

Skills that universities should be more focused on developing in students

I don't train translators per se, I train future project managers. But I do have strong opinions about how we can better train our translators, because we obviously have translator and interpreter training at the institute. And my thinking is the same for future project managers as for future translators and interpreters: We need to start empowering our students and graduates to be more like consultants within this industry.

I have this vision that a translator is no longer a service provider, but goes on to being hired by companies, is paid very handsomely to come into marketing meetings and help create international campaigns. And you can do the same with interpretation, you can do the same with project management teams. I have this idea that companies should start shifting from having a centralized localization department to embedding localization talent throughout the company. It's kind of the big coming out party of the localization industry: we don't need our own offices; we can now be confident to go out and evangelize and advocate for localization out of a company-wide basis.

Where GALA fits in

I don't think there's another organization that does more to connect people in the industry and to create opportunities for them to exchange information. And it's really a kind of a low-pressure non-sales environment. So, I don't know that GALA has a lot of competitors in that space. I'm very thankful that the organization exists.

I've participated in some Global Talent Special Interest Group meetings. I'm looking forward to the next one of those. I joined the Marketing and Communications Committee, which is made up of about 10 or so industry professionals, and we are acting in many ways, like consultants, for representing the GALA constituents and making sure that the GALA content reaches the intended audience. 

Volunteering for GALA

It's a great way to network. I know a few people that are in my committee, but I've met some new people at all different levels in the industry. So, it's a great way, especially for someone new in the industry. If you want to make some connections with some really senior people, this is a shortcut way to do that. I'm pretty sure that if I wanted to, I could ask any of the committee members if they would schedule a 1-on-1 meeting with me so that I could ask them some questions or learn something from them.

Why join GALA? Take a look at the Member Benefits.

Closing the talent gap between academia and the industry

Oh, no, you've mentioned the talent gap! I actually don't believe in the talent gap. I think that it's simply the fact that we have been combating the status of vendor for so long, that we're just used to being negotiated down in rates.

I just read an article about the trucking industry: everyone is saying that the global shipping delays are caused by a lack of truck drivers, but it's simply not true. There are way more folks in California with a commercial driver's license available to drive trucks, but the rates aren't there.

And so, coming back to translation, I'm sure that the top talent would be right back in the game, offering to translate. If we're not paying enough, we're not going to attract the top talent that we need to keep this industry sustained. If you look at internationalization engineering, for example, I often talk to engineers who say they don't want to become an international engineer, because that's where their software engineering career will stagnate.

I want to take internationalization as a skill set to every engineer so that it's not something that you you go into and then your career stagnate. So, I may have gotten a little bit off track there. GALA is the way to connect all these people, so we can be on the same page together, we can rise up and fight against lowering rates.

It's not a race to the bottom, it needs to be a race to the top, the highest quality we can get and spend whatever it takes to get there. We need a nonprofit organization that brings together for profit corporations and academic institutions so that we can all be on the same page and have a common voice when we go into companies and even talk to to the government to make laws that concern how we're able to work.

Accomplishments 

I didn't really set out to be a teacher. I moved to Paris with my girlfriend who became my wife while we were living there. We moved back to Monterey. I emailed Uwe Muegge who was teaching here at MIT at the time, and said "Hey, do you have anything open?" And about six months later, he gave me my first course.

The year after that, I had another course: I wanted to create a multilingual desktop publishing course and Dean Jordan at the time said, "Fine we can do that". So, I was able to create my dream multilingual desktop publishing course. I'm most proud of expanding my course offerings to encompass a lot of creative related content. And that's what I'm most passionate about.

I've also done some innovation with our online curriculum. We have an online advanced curriculum for those with industry experience. It was a successful launch, creating and converting many courses over to a fully asynchronous model. It took a lot of thinking to do that in a way that students had the same learning outcomes, and the courses had the same learning outcomes. We're just putting together these things we're calling "learning paths" for non-degree students who want a specific skill set. So, I'm just trying to try to combat this talent gap through different ways of getting access to our training.

Career-building tips

When I was in high school, I had an after-school job at a manufacturing plant in my hometown. I was in the IT department and was tasked with helping folks with computer problems, fixing their computers, and installing updates and upgrades.

It was a great experience, and my boss was awesome. Occasionally he would invite me into his office to chat, and I’ll never forget this advice: he started by asking what I wanted to do in college and after. I have no idea what I told him, but he told me, "You absolutely need concrete goals in increments". He said I should have one-year, five-year and ten-year goals. Ten he said my goals could change at any time, but it was super important to have them in place. I thought that was pretty good advice and I guess it worked—I’m pretty happy with work and my personal life.

Networking tips & techniques

Our students attend many conferences, we tell them not to go to events and try to get their needs met, especially when it comes to career opportunities. We explain the best mentality to have is to consider how they can help other attendees, as creating this positive energy that will eventually circle back and help them with their obvious goal (to get a job). It’s the classic “pay it forward” idea, and we find it has improved the reputation of our students at conferences. I think at this point if a student said “are you hiring” at a network event, another student would take them aside and ask what’s wrong with them!

What I learned last year...

My wife and I wanted to build a pergola in our backyard. We started building it and our neighbor complained and got us into the permitting process. The planning and building departments wanted detailed plans, and since I designed it, I had to learn Sketchup Pro to create the architectural elevations. Sketchup has been on my radar for a long time, and I really took the time to learn—this is the first new complex application I’ve learned in years, and I feel I could design almost any object in 3D space at this point. I also have a 3D printer and have been designing replacement parts for things that break, so maybe it’s not so bad my neighbor complained. This experience reminds me to always look for the silver lining.

Finding inspiration

I love receiving notifications when our students get an internship, or our grads find their first career after school! On LinkedIn, I’m thrilled to see someone got a promotion, created a new company, shared a new localization trick, or mentioned a conference or opportunity to connect.

Life beyond localization

I grew up in a roller rink and DJed all through high school and college. This led to a love of singing and eventually to a few vocal jazz a cappella groups. I’m also a huge fan of karaoke and built a semi-professional karaoke system to host karaoke parties for friends. I really love the technology aspect, looking into equipment and perfecting my setup. This came in handy during the pandemic when I used parts of my karaoke system to greatly improve the quality of my Zoom audio. If you’re curious, I use a Shure SM-58 microphone, plugged into a DBX 286s preamp and vocal processor, which feeds into a Scarlett Solo audio interface. I may be overdoing it, but I secretly like to sound like a DJ.