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About Tom

Hedden Information Management

About by Thomas Hedden

Thomas is a Ph.D. linguist with extensive knowledge of resources and practices in the translation field. He has excellent translation, computer, and people-management skills.

Memberships: American Translators Association, New England Translators Association

Localization management experience

Senior Project Manager, SimulTrans
Supervised and checked work of teams of translators and desk-top publishers working
on software localization assignments.

Accomplishments
- Localized Windows application into French and German, including resource files, online
help with SHG, screen captures.
- Localized Macintosh communications application into French and German, including executables, online help, screen captures.
- Localized Macintosh paint application into French, German, and Spanish
- Gave lecture at M.I.I.S. on electronic delivery of translations.

Translation management experience

German Quality Assurance, Consilium
Senior Project Manager, SimulTrans

Assembled teams of translators for each assignment, wrote proposals and estimates,
served as liaison with clients, prepared billing for accounting department.

Supervised and coordinated teams of in-house and outside translators and desk-top publishers
working on large projects. Recruited, trained, and evaluated new translators. In addition to
profit-center responsibilities, advised other departments concerning estimates, scheduling,
selection of translators, etc. Conducted seminars on various issues in the translation field.

Accomplishments
- Started and successfully built in-house translation resources.
- Built company's terminology resources.
- Trained several recent college graduates to become highly professional Translation Coordinators.
- Coordinated translation and typesetting into French, German, Italian, and Spanish of user's
guides for Macintosh graphics cards.
- Doubled volume of repeat clients in one year by improving client satisfaction.
- Member of team which translated user's manual and installation guide for major CAD software
into five languages within tight deadline.
- Coordinated translation of highly confidential 300-page report on LCDs for
leading foreign think tank. Report was translated on time, client was satisfied
with quality, confidentiality was maintained, and profitability targets were met. Coordinated translation of manual for computerized biomedical instrument into European languages and Japanese.
- Coordinated translation project of 120 biomedical research articles into English from seven European languages and Japanese for prominent East-Coast law firm. Completed work on schedule. Met profitability targets.
- Successfully coordinated translation of marketing materials and technical inserts for state-of-the art products in the field of flow cytometry, from English into five languages. Managed work through typesetting stage in each foreign language.

Computer Skills

Programming Languages
UNIX (Korn) shell scripts - excellent knowledge
Perl, php, awk, sed - good knowledge
C (ANSI C)- good knowledge
C++ - good knowledge
Java - good knowledge

Operation Systems
UNIX - Solaris, HP-UX
SYSTEMS: Linux - Red Hat 6.1, SuSE 9.0
Windows XP, 2000, NT, 9x - thorough familiarity
Solaris 2.7 - some knowledge
Macintosh - thorough familiarity

Networking
Internet - familiar with commonly used tools (web browsers, command-line ftp, telnet, etc.)
Web - maintain own web site which can be viewed with any browser
LANs - run small Ethernet (10/100) network at home; use Microsoft networking, UNIX networking, TCP/IP, have used Netware, NFS, NIS, AppleTalk networks

Applications
Wordprocessors, spreadsheets, and other office applications: Microsoft Office, StarOffice, OpenOffice
Publishing an layout - FrameMaker
Graphics - Visio, some knowledge of Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.
Communications - Mozilla, Konqueror, Netscape, Explorer, etc.,
Database management- MySQL, Access, Paradox/Windows, Oracle
UNIX editor - vi editor

Education

Certificate in UNIX, University of Massachusetts - Lowel, 2000
Certificate of proficiency in UNIX, Foothill College, California, 1999
Ph.D., Slavic Languages, University of California - Berkeley, 1988
M.A., Slavic Languages, University of California - Los Angeles, 1979
B.S., Biochemistry and Russian, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1977

Foreign study and travel

Germany - four times, including two one-month stays, most recently in 2007
Russia - full year 1983-84, two weeks in 1993
Poland - 6 months, then one week in 1993
Also: Switzerland, Austria, France, Province of Quebec, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Italy, and the Netherlands.