Entrepreneurial Linguist photo shoot, in the desert surrounding Las Vegas, 2009. Photo by Ulf Buchholz.
Judy and Dagmar Jenner are identical twins with a multinational, multicultural, and multilingual background who together run a successful boutique translation business, aptly named Twin Translations. They were born in Austria and grew up in a trilingual household in Mexico City. Judy has lived in Las Vegas since she was a teenager. She came to the U.S. after being recruited to take tennis scholarships to many universities. She chose Vegas and has never regretted it. Judy received her MBA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2001. She’s active in her community and has served on the board of directors of CLASS, a bilingual newspaper for high school students, for 10 years. She’s the current Vice President of the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association. A veteran of Spanish-language online media, Judy was in charge of the launch of the nation’s first fully localized Spanish travel website, www.espanol.vegas.com (not responsible for current content!), where she served as Content Manager and spearheaded all of its operations, including translation, localization, content strategy, software testing, site design, categorization, etc. for more than five years. As a writer and copywriter, she’s contributed to many national and international print and online media and is a long-time Vegas restaurant reviewer. She lives by the Red Rock mountains in Las Vegas, NV.
Dagmar received the equivalent of a master’s degree in French and Communications from the University of Salzburg in 2000. She lived and studied in Tours, France, where she perfected her French language skills, and frequently returns to France to hone her French accent. Since 2001, Dagmar has successfully run the European side of Twin Translations out of Vienna, Austria. She’s pioneered many of the strategies Twin Translations uses today, including the five-step quality assurance process. She was the driving force behind establishing the company and winning its first clients, which include Sony Net Services, Red Bull, Austrian Post, Roche Diagnostics, etc. Dagmar is the assistant secretary general of UNIVERSITAS Austria, the Austrian Interpreters’ and Translators’ Association and the editor of its print newsletter. She’s an expert on the new German spelling reform and frequently gives workshops and presentations on this complex subject. In her spare time, Dagmar is getting a master’s degree in conference interpreting in French and Spanish and is getting her Ph.D. in Romance languages. Her dissertation focuses on feministic discourse in Isabel Allende’s work. Dagmar lives in Vienna, Austria.
