Randi Lou Franklin started her own business for lots of usual reasons. She was tired of working long hours to advance other people’s companies and wanted to share in the fruits of her ideas to make money.
So one day, 25 years ago, she decided her daily grind of working for someone else was "ridiculous" and launched her own firm,
Inter-Lingua. The Grosse Pointe-based language and cultural services firm chugged along nicely for its first two decades. Then the double-whammy of the Great Recession and a sick mother hit Franklin and nearly ended her business.
Franklin and her core team of two stuck it out and have rebuilt Inter-Lingua over the last two years. It has watched its workload increase thanks to the likes of MDOT, the Oakland County Circuit Court and local universities, such as Wayne State and Michigan State.
"We're doing a lot more translation work," Franklin says.
Inter-Lingua now employs three people and regularly gives work to a stable of 500 independent contractors. It has recently expanded its team to include more Arabic speakers to meet the growing demand for Arabic language services.
"Our pulse in the Arabic community has gotten stronger," Franklin says. "We have added three Arabic translators that we call on quite frequently."
Source: Randi Lou Franklin, CEO of Inter-Lingua
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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