Ten Years, Latina-Owned Language Services Company

A ten-year reflection from the founder of a latina-owned language services company

By Shirley X. Moore, Founder & CEO, Be Moore Interpreting   ·   5 min read

October 2016.

I sat at a kitchen table with a notebook, a laptop that was too old, and an idea I had been carrying for years. Be Moore Interpreting was going to be a Latina-owned language services company. It was going to pay interpreters fairly. And it was going to treat every client, every family, every appointment as if the person in front of us were the only one that mattered, because in that moment, they were.

Ten years later, I still believe every one of those things. And I want to spend a few minutes telling you why.

In that moment, they were the only one that mattered.

Why I Started a Latina-Owned Language Services Company

I did not start Be Moore because I wanted to run a company. I started it because I had spent enough years in this profession watching interpreters be underpaid, watching families be talked around instead of talked to, and watching perfectly capable people leave language services because the industry did not treat them with the respect they deserved. I thought, quietly, someone should build the thing that fixes this. Then I thought, less quietly, why not me.

The Hard Years

The first year was hard. The second year was also hard. If any of you are in the middle of building something right now, I want you to know that. The stories where a business turns a corner and everything gets easy are mostly not true. What happens instead, if you are lucky, is that you get better at the hard.

We got better at the hard.

Somewhere in year four, I looked up and realized we were not just an idea anymore. We were a team. Patty joined and made quality something we could actually point to. Lovely joined and made every client feel like the only client we had. Interpreters and translators started coming to us because they had heard we paid fairly and treated people well. More brave clients took a chance on us. They stayed. They referred us to others. And the thing I had imagined at my kitchen table started to become the thing you see today.

The Clients Who Became Family

There are two clients I want to name by name this anniversary, because they are not just part of our client list. They are part of my story.

The first is The Learning Center. TLC, as we have always called them. They were with me before Be Moore was Be Moore. In 2006, when I was still a single woman building a freelance language practice, they trusted me with their Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese work. Over the next twenty years, they watched me get married. They watched me become a mother. They watched me take the leap from independent interpreter to the founder of a company. Through all of it, they stayed. When Be Moore officially launched in 2016, our transition was seamless. The relationship simply continued, just now under a new name, and now with every language they needed instead of two. Twenty years in, TLC is family. They are a part of me, and I am a part of them. Thank you, TLC, for building a career alongside me without ever once making it feel like a transaction.

The second is Brown University. Ten years of trust. Ten years of interpretation and translation across their departments, their events, and their moments that mattered. Thank you, Brown, for taking a chance on us when we were still figuring out our own name. We would not be who we are without you.

They are family. They are a part of us.

What Ten Years Has Taught Me

There have been awards along the way. Rhode Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year. Recognition as an MWBE. Speaking invitations. Sponsorships. All of that is beautiful, and all of it matters less to me than the interpreters and translators who tell me they can pay their rent because of the work we send them, and the families who tell us they finally understood their doctor because of an interpreter we put in the room.

That is why we exist. That is the whole thing.

To my team, past and present. To every interpreter and translator on our roster. To every client that chose us and stayed with us. To the community that helped shape this company. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The Next Ten Years

I am not sure exactly what the next ten years look like. I know we will keep growing. I know we will keep training the next generation of interpreters through Bridging the Gap. I know we will keep pushing for equitable pay and language justice. And I know we will keep doing the work the way we have always done it, with heart, with excellence, and with a Latina at the helm.

Here is to ten years at Be Moore. Here is to twenty years with the clients who have made us who we are. Here is to what comes next.

With so much love,

Shirley X. Moore

Founder & CEO, Be Moore Interpreting

Creatively Bridging Communication.