Last year, our name changed from Alfonso Interpreting & Transporting, Inc. to Archway Safety Consulting & Language Services, Inc. Although this might come as a surprise to many, gradual adjustments have been occurring in our business.
In the mid-1980s, I worked on scaffolds in New York City. In the 1990s, I operated Atlantic Painting and Wallpaper, a painting business in the South Carolina Low country. Eventually I made a radical change, went to New York International Beauty School, and became a hairstylist. On September 11, 2001, I was a hairstylist at Lance Lappin’s salon, a few blocks from the Twin Towers. My dust exposure revealed that I had chronic lung disease, resulting in my unhappy resignation from the salon.
Next, I became an interpreter. In 2007, I relocated and incorporated my interpreting business in South Carolina. Alfonso Interpreting & Transporting was born. My wife Emily became my business partner. My focus was on medical interpreting. I became a CCHI nationally certified healthcare interpreter. Emily had a long background as a legal secretary; she focused on legal interpreting as a South Carolina State certified court interpreter. Further, it contributed to her offering legal translation services.
We worked with many workers’ compensation carriers and provided transportation services for injured workers to and from their medical appointments, and then serving as interpreters for limited English proficient patients.
Almost as soon as we were established as a business, we began to receive calls to interpret for safety training. Because I had worked in safety in New York and in my South Carolina painting business, I was familiar with the terminology necessary to serve as an interpreter. This demand led me to attend Georgia Technical College and become an authorized an OSHA® Outreach Trainer. Little by little, I continued studying and taking more courses in safety. My company added more safety offerings to its services. At first, we provided Spanish-language safety for other safety companies.
In time, without even realizing it, bilingual safety surpassed all our other services. Legal interpreting has continued to grow steadily over the years. Medical interpreting has held steady. However, safety has exponentially exploded for us.
For this reason, I have been developing my team of Avengers, I mean bilingual safety professionals. The demand for work is greater than I can deliver alone. Also, the fact that we are a translation company specializing in safety has opened many opportunities to translate safety materials. In the meantime, the rise of Uber and Lyft has caused a dramatic decrease in demand for our transport services for our interpreting patients.
My company has transformed into something new, highly specialized solutions that fill important needs. Therefore, I decided to eliminate transport services which was unprofitable and irrelevant. In fact, I just recently became an OSHA® Disaster Safety Trainer.
For me, the name Archway evokes an image of a bridge. I have always attempted to bridge the communication gap for our interpreting clients, and we have always tried to bridge the language and cultural gap for our safety clients. Now, I am also creating a connection or bridge between interpreting, translation and safety, blending our strengths. For this reason, after much agony, we are happy to announce the new name Archway Safety Consulting & Language Services, Inc.
We still provide quality professional legal and healthcare interpreting services. For the complete list of interpreting services follow our link. We also still provide legal translation, but our specialty is safety translation. Our safety services continue to expand and so does our team.
