The many languages heard from the offices of InterPro Translations Solutions may give one the feeling of being on the floor of the United Nations, but at the firm’s Lombard location, heated political debate is sparked only during World Cup soccer.

On any given day, employees at InterPro may be heard speaking in Italian, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese and occasionally a spattering of English.

Staff members will ask questions in one language and frequently receive answers in another. For InterPro employees it is just another day at the office.

“I don’t really get into the soccer thing, but to my employees it is a big deal,” said Ralph M. Strozza, president and CEO of InterPro, a Chicago native and die hard Bears fan. “During the World Cup last summer I had to get a TV in here and rearrange work hours so everyone could follow their home team.”

Strozza grew up in Chicago’s Italian neighborhoods a second generation American of Italian decent. However, many of his relatives in the neighborhood were from Italy and to communicate with them he had to speak Italian on a daily basis. Thus, his love for languages was born and he eventually went on to become fluent in French and Spanish as well.

“I knew from a young age that I wanted to be in business and that I wanted to travel around the world and speak different languages,” said Strozza.

Strozza received degrees from Northern Illinois University in French and marketing with an emphasis in international marketing and then went on to receive master’s degrees from Northwestern University in Italian and French. While at Northwestern he taught conversational French and the school wanted him to stay on as a doctoral candidate, but Strozza choose to enter the business world instead.

“Northwestern was an amazing experience, but I learned that I didn’t want to be in the academic world and that I really wanted to get into business,” he said.

From there Strozza began a series of jobs that would directly pave the way for his founding of InterPro in 1995. He found frequent work as a translator for software companies that needed to translate their product information and instructions for foreign audiences.

“I thought this was great because I was learning about computers and getting paid to do it,” said Strozza. “This was around the mid-1980s when American companies began to realize that the entire world did not necessarily speak English.”

While English has become the international business language, that does not account for everyday consumers in non-English speaking countries and many American companies were beginning to lose that market, said Strozza.

“American software companies had the advantage for a long time because they had no overseas competition and they could produce everything in English,” he said. “Eventually, though, European companies began to rise and they produced products that were in their native country’s language. American companies had to quickly change their tune to compete.”

Eventually Strozza began working for Systems Software Associates (SSA), which was the largest software developer for IBM’s biggest selling product to date, the AS/400. Now known as the System i, the AS/400 is a mid-range product, much more powerful than a PC but much smaller than a large operations computer.

SSA was so swamped with work that it only had time to do base translations for the software and would not do custom translations for companies that had since tweaked the product to fit their needs. Strozza saw that his company was turning away a lot of money.

With that knowledge Strozza started InterPro with the idea of engaging this neglected portion of the business. Since then the company has experienced steady growth and Strozza has expanded his business model.

“Since 2002 we have seen steady 5-10 percent growth each year,” he said. “2006 was our fifth straight year of profitability growth.”

Known as a multi-language vendor, Strozza’s 12 person staff is equipped to handle seven different languages in-house, making it a one-stop shop for any company that wants multiple translations. However, InterPro maintains relationships with single-language vendors all over the world and when it encounters languages that it does not specialize in it can transfer the work to an overseas partner.

The firm has also moved away from solely being a software translator into HR and Web site translations.

“Companies like Portillo’s hire a lot of Spanish-speaking employees,” said Strozza. “We will translate their HR videos into Spanish for them.”

Strozza said that Spanish is the language the firm deals with most frequently, followed by Mandarin Chinese and then Japanese.

“Despite all of the economic problems in Japan the country has continued to invest in technology,” he said.

The majority of companies that InterPro translates for are U.S. or England-based, but it has added offices in Argentina, where it may acquire more work from foreign-based companies.

Because of the nature of its business, InterPro has customers throughout the U.S. and around the globe. Strozza said that he wants to concentrate on the Chicago area in the near future because there are no other multi-language vendors such as his in the area.

“We have come a long way in this country,” said Strozza. “Companies now realize that the products they develop have to be translated to be brought overseas. They take that into consideration now when they are developing the product.”