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INTERNATIONAL ENTERPRISE HAS A `VOICE' IN MANCHESTER
Nine years later, Pagano decided she wanted to spend more time at home with her two sons. She quit her state job and began Interpreters and Translators, Inc., from the home she shares with her husband, attorney Anthony F. Pagano.
When Pagano was first setting up her own business, she got invaluable help from the American Translators Association, based in Virgina.
In the beginning, however, business was really slow. "So slow, I had time to have another baby," she said, and laughed.
In the last five years, however, the business has really taken off, thanks to increasing referrals from satisfied clients, a global economy fortified by the Internet, and a boom in international trade, Pagano said.
"She's awesome," said one of Pagano's longtime clients, Laura Sprague, human resources manager for Automated Waste Management in Berlin.
The company has a large number of Polish-speaking employees, many of them from the Polish neighborhoods of New Britain, and there was a need for such things as employee manuals, safety information and insurance policies to be translated.
"We discovered her services about six years ago. She was the only one we could find that could provide Polish interpreters." Sprague said.
"The people she sends to us are wonderful. She's reliable, she's prompt and her pricing is very fair," she said.
Fees for translation services can range from $45 for a one-hour conference call to about $1,000 for a week's worth of service.
Pagano's business is one that lends itself well to today's on- line world. While she has more interpreters and translators working for her than she can count, she said, she rarely sees them face-to- face.
"I have a network of people I call on, all over the country -- and overseas, in countries like Poland," she said.