Members of Harris County Department of Education’s (HCDE) Marketing & Client Engagement division recently traveled to California to attend the event that helped set the stage for the first-ever conference in Texas designed for translators and interpreters in education.

MCE Director Stephanie De Los Santos and Coordinator Lanette Gonzales-Tonsul attended the Orange County Department of Education’s Ninth Annual Interpreters and Translators Conference, held Oct. 3-4 at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, Calif. The two-day conference featured numerous sessions and opening and closing keynote speeches from Ewandro Magalhães, conference interpreter and former chief interpreter in the United Nations system.

HCDE served as platinum sponsor and De Los Santos and Gonzales-Tonsul exhibited a vendor table to showcase the Department’s many services.

Translations Coordinator Wendy Utterback found the conference in 2024 while seeking professional development and did not find any local conferences designed for translators and interpreters in education. That sparked the idea to create one in Texas and the inaugural Professional Translators and interpreters Conference (PTIC) this past July was born.