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SALT LAKE CITY -- Thousands of people are attending the annual USANA convention in Salt Lake City this week. This gathering has been a mainstay in Salt Lake for years, attracting people from all over the world, and a small South Ogden company plays a big role in that.
Day one of the 2010 USANA convention: Distributors of the company's nutritional and personal care products are here to find out what's new.
Helping to spread the word are a few dozen linguists from U.S. Translation Company in South Ogden.
"We have 20 interpreters there, so there are a lot of linguists there from all over the country. We have loads of equipment; there's 1,200 receivers," says Niki Tonks, marketing director for U.S. Translation Company.
Many at the convention are from foreign countries and do not speak English. In order to understand what's being said at the podium, the voices of the translators are broadcast over special head phones to those in the audience.
It's just one of several services that U.S. Translation Company's president and CEO, David Utrilla, launched in 1995 -- and business is booming.
"The last three years we have grown 150 percent," Utrilla says. "The majority of that growth happened in 2009: We grew 100 percent."
As a result, Inc. magazine has just included U.S. Translation Company in its list of fastest-growing private companies in the country. At a time when flat revenues are difficult enough to achieve, Utrilla says the future for his company looks even better.
Speaking in more than 100 languages, the company's 1,500 linguists will play a huge role in this global economy.
"I think it's because of many corporations -- not only in America, but in other countries -- are looking for other markets," Utrilla says.
Whether it's a live event with interpreters or printed documents that need translation, if it has to do with language, this small South Ogden company will deal with it.
"Our specialty is finding the right linguist for the right project," Tonks says. "So if you have a nuclear engineering manual, we're not just going to hire ‘Joe Blow' off the street that speaks Spanish, we're going to hire a nuclear engineer."
U.S. Translation Company is just one of several Utah companies recognized by Inc. magazine -- it is ranked #1808.
In all 81 Utah companies made the top 5000 fastest growing companies in the country generating $1.724 billion in revenues.
14 of the 81 Utah businesses made the top 500; combined those 14 firms generated combined sales revenue of $247 million.
E-mail: kmccord@ksl.com
