The Auto Glass Replacement Safety Standards (AGRSS) Council Inc. recently decided to assess the possible development of a foreign language program, in an effort to make the AGRSS Standard and other tools available to those for whom English is not their first language.

Though the Council recently began working on this, the importance of this program was brought to the forefront recently when a Texas business with a Spanish-only-speaking technician came up for a third-party validation review and Equalizer Industries’ Gilbert Gutierrez stepped in to help.

Gutierrez, a fluent Spanish speaker, volunteered his time to translate and also drove five hours from his home of Round Rock, Texas, to Harlingen, Texas, near the Texas-Mexico border, to help out with the validation review. Just three days later, he helped out with a second validation in San Antonio.

“The challenge is, you can’t use a translator from the company being validated for obvious reasons, and you can’t use a translator from a local university, because they’re not going to know how to say things like ‘pinchweld’ in Spanish,” says AGRSS Council Inc. president Debra Levy. “We really appreciate both Gilbert and Equalizer’s willingness to help out with this effort as we work toward a more-permanent solution.”

The committee assessing the need for foreign language translation is chaired by AGRSS Council Inc. vice president David Rohlfing of Glass America.