ABOUT US

Producing the highest quality German ↔︎ English translations for over 40 years

Founded in 1979, GLS provides premium German and English translations and interpreting services for clients throughout the United States and Europe from our offices in Seattle and Cologne. Having offices on two continents means that we can help clients on their time, while also being able to extend our working day nearly around the clock. Over the years, we have honed our translation expertise in a wide range of industries and areas, including life sciences and pharmaceuticals, corporate communications, manufacturing, and more.

We have built our reputation on our commitment to quality and on our accurate, well-written translations. Specializing in only one language pair sets us apart from other multilingual agencies, and allows us to offer the highest quality translations in almost any subject matter. With our in-house teams in Seattle and Cologne, we can personally guarantee the quality of each translation we handle. GLS is certified to ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 17100:2015.

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Meet Our Team

U.S. TEAM
Maia Costa
CEO

maia@germanlanguageservices.com

After completing her bachelor’s degree in international studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, Maia lived and studied in Cologne for six years. She earned her degree as a certified translator (Diplom-Übersetzerin) specializing in legal translation from the Cologne University of Applied Sciences. Upon returning to the States in 2000, Maia immediately began working as a translator and editor for GLS and bought the business five years later. With over 20 years of experience translating texts for the life sciences industry, she is now an expert in the field. She also taught advanced German translation at Bellevue College for 10 years. Maia is a certified member of the Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer (BDÜ) and the American Translators Association (ATA), and is a grader for the ATA German to English certification exam.

Mandy Olson-Tabor
Mandy Olson-Tabor
Senior LANGUAGE SPECIALIST | production lead DE>EN

mandy@germanlanguageservices.com

Mandy came to GLS in 2010 after completing her certificate in German to English translation from the Translation and Interpretation Institute at Bellevue College. Originally from Wyoming, Mandy attended Pacific Lutheran University and earned her bachelor’s degree in German, Anthropology and Publishing & Printing Arts. She spent her junior year abroad in Freiburg, Germany and taught English in Salzburg, Austria for two years as part of the Fulbright program. Mandy has been a certified member of the American Translators Association (ATA) since 2014 and served as a grader for the ATA German to English certification exam. She has over 10 years of experience translating texts for the life sciences industry and was the 2017 recipient of Gutekunst Prize of the Friends of Goethe New York.

Jim Cohen
Jim Cohen
HEAD OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT | NYC OFFICE

jim@germanlanguageservices.com

After a stint working for publishers in Boston and New York, including Oxford University Press, Jim has worked in the translation industry for nearly two decades. He started out on the agency side before moving to the client side at Credit Suisse, one of Switzerland’s two major banks. Following his time at the Swiss bank he decided to start his own business translating and editing German and Spanish documents for financial and legal clients before joining GLS in 2022. Jim studied German literature, history and philosophy at Heidelberg University and then completed a master’s degree in German literature at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he also taught undergraduate courses. He has also taught German translation at New York University, where he obtained a certificate in Spanish translation. He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.

Karolin Neubert
Karolin Neubert
TERMINOLOGIST | production lead EN>DE

karolin@germanlanguageservices.com

Karolin grew up outside of Berlin. She earned a BA in International Technical Translation from the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. She spent a year abroad in France and later an Erasmus year at the University of Chester (UK). After graduation, she did two internships at GLS in Seattle, totaling eighteen months, before joining GLS as a terminologist in the Cologne office while she completed her MA in Terminology and Language Technology from the TH Köln. She relocated permanently to Seattle in 2018. Karolin’s expertise extends beyond terminology to include project management, translation and editing technical documents.

Elena Wiese
Elena Wiese
LANGUAGE SPECIALIST

elena@germanlanguageservices.com

Elena grew up bilingual (German and Italian) near Frankfurt, Germany. Following two internships at GLS in Cologne and Seattle, she joined the Seattle office as a translator. She holds a bachelor’s degree in translation studies from Leipzig University in Germany and earned her master’s degree in translation studies at the University of Portsmouth (UK). Her studies included a year abroad at the University of Salamanca, Spain, where she worked as a language assistant. She also spent semesters abroad in Italy and in Argentina. Elena is also a qualified medical interpreter and teaches German language courses at a local university.

Mary Hurlburt
Mary Hurlburt
LANGUAGE SPECIALIST

mary@germanlanguageservices.com

Mary was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and attended the University of Washington in Seattle, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Spanish, with additional coursework in German. She participated in a semester-long independent study at the University of Tübingen, and went on to complete her master’s degree in translation studies at Heidelberg University in 2018. After returning to Seattle, Mary joined GLS in the spring of 2019 as an intern before starting as a full-time translator.

Jamie Lucero
Jamie Lucero
IT and Translation Tools Consultant

jamie@germanlanguageservices.com

Jamie is a translation tools expert who started out as a French to English translator. After receiving his master’s degree in translation from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in 2001, he worked as an in-house translator and translation tools administrator in Quebec City, Canada. He has served as GLS’s IT and translation tool specialist since 2006.

Europe Team
Richard Patrick
Richard Patrick
Senior Language Specialist

richard@germanlanguageservices.com

Richard grew up in England and studied German, French, and Swedish at the University of Sheffield. After completing an MA in Interpreting and Translating at the University of Bradford and a six-month internship at the European Parliament in Luxembourg, he began his first job as an in-house translator at an agency in Cologne in 1995. With many years’ experience as an in-house translator and project manager in both the pharmaceutical (Boehringer Ingelheim) and legal sectors (Linklaters, Noerr), Richard is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. He joined GLS in 2015 and is based in the Cologne office.

Agathe Depta
Agathe Depta
Project Manager | Editor

agathe@germanlanguageservices.com

Agathe was born in Poland and raised in Cologne, where she completed a BA in English and Slavic Studies at the University of Cologne. She then studied conference interpreting in the department of Translation, Language, and Culture at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, earning an MA, which she put to use as a freelance translator and interpreter in Essen. Agathe came onboard with the GLS team in Cologne in 2020.

Mascha Dayal
Mascha Dayal
Project Manager | Language Specialist

mascha@germanlanguageservices.com

Mascha grew up in Cologne. During high school she spent a year as an exchange student in the US, where she discovered a love for the English language. She studied Linguistics and American Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin before deciding to pursue a more hands-on approach to language. She then completed a BA in Translation and Cultural Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Mascha joined the GLS team as a project manager in March 2022.

Melanie Williams
Melanie Williams
Language Specialist

melanie@germanlanguageservices.com

Melanie grew up in Chicago and attended the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has been working as a German to English translator since 2003 and completed her professional certificate in German to English translation at the Translation and Interpretation Institute at Bellevue College. She spent several years living and working in Switzerland, including an internship as an in-house translator for Swiss Federal Railways in Bern. Melanie started at GLS in 2002 and moved to Cologne in 2009, where she worked as a full-time in-house translator with Deutsche Post DHL in Bonn, before returning to GLS in 2013.

Doris Gabriel
Doris Gabriel
Bookkeeping and Administration

doris@germanlanguageservices.com

Doris studied Social Management at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne, which also included psychology, administration, organization, and a basic grounding in law. After graduating as a certified social worker, she co-founded and spent six years running a non-profit association. In the years that followed, Doris worked both as a freelancer and as an employee and gained extensive experience in networking, customer service, human resources, and administration, as well as in accounting and finance. She has been part of the GLS team since 2017 and is responsible for bookkeeping, accounting for the European side of the company, office organization, and human resources in the Cologne office.

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