Proposed legislation aimed at restricting the visa programs that are blamed for the loss of technology jobs nationwide could hamper efforts by businesses like Provo translation services provider MultiLing Corp. to hire the linguistic and technically-skilled talent it needs. The company, which translates English-language manuals in industries such as information and medical technology, automotive and pharmaceuticals into other languages and vice versa, requires its workers to not only have college-level linguistic abilities in their native language and English, but also technical knowledge.

But MultiLing is now finding ways to do more of its translation work overseas because of recent proposals by federal legislators to place restrictions on "guest worker" visa programs such as the H1B and L1 visas and because of the latest round of visa quota cuts.

H1B visas are intended to allow foreigners to work in the United States for up to six years, followed by possible one-year extensions. L1 visas allow multinational companies with U.S. operations to bring foreign employees with "skills" stateside for up to seven years.

"But because of the difficulty we've had in obtaining the H1B work permits, we're not going to have as many foreign workers based here in the United States," said company owner Michael Sneddon. MultiLing customers include Proctor & Gamble, Dell Computers, Caterpillar, General Electric Medical Systems and St. Jude Medical.

Founded in 1988 as a paper-based translation services bureau, the company has since evolved into a translation services specialist with teams of contracted workers overseas offering translation services in various languages as needed.

With 90 percent of MultiLing's workers at its Provo headquarters culled from South America, Europe, Russia and Asia, Sneddon is frustrated about recent laws that capped the number of H1B visas or "guest worker" visas this year to 65,000 annually from about 200,000 visas previously.

Sneddon explained his company's need to hire foreign-born workers in the United States.

"We have hired extremely competent workers that benefit our economy, oftentimes to the detriment to the country they leave," he said. "By restricting the H1B visa program, that reduces the brain drain to the United States, and in the long run, our ability to generate jobs."

"Companies like Proctor & Gamble and Dell could just as easily send their translation work to companies in Germany, Czechoslovakia or Japan. But we've succeeded in bringing and consolidating this work in the United States," Sneddon said.

Labor interests and some lawmakers allege that visa programs such as the H1B and L1 are abused by U.S. companies that replace American employees with visiting foreign workers at far lower salaries.

But Sneddon challenged these views, saying his company pays its H1B workers at levels above that of the prevailing wage. "Certification of prevailing wage is a requirement within the H1B application, and we're paying above that level," he said. MultiLing workers who are H1B visa holders typically make between $30,000 and $45,000 annually.

Sneddon also attributes his company's growth in part to computer-assisted translation software it developed. Called Fortis, the software helped increase productivity because it allows human translators to access translations previously recorded in the computer's database and reuse them. The software enables the computer to not only perform verbatim translations but also make these translations more accurate.

"Computer-assisted translation technology like Fortis wasn't available when we started this company. All the industry had back in the '80s was machine translation, which is where the computer does the translation verbatim, but it can't refine that translation," he said. Human translators were needed to further edit the computer-translated text.

Under Sneddon's stewardship, the company diversified its customer base that was heavily dependent on the tech sector to include automotive, instrumentation, medical and patent customers.

That move, which was made in 1999, proved prudent since the collapse of the dot.com sector in 2000 and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks hurt many translation companies nationwide, especially those dependent on translation work from technology companies.

"Patent and automotive industries tend to be more stable, even though they don't typically grow as fast as the dot.com companies," Sneddon said.

Owner: Michael Sneddon

Founded: 1988

Industry: Translation services for information and medical technology, patent filing, automotive and pharmaceutical industries.

Location: Headquartered at 55 N. University Ave. in Provo

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page E1.