Jonathan Rudolf

1 cebolla picada, 6 libra tomates, 1 libra de apio, 3 libras de camarones.

These are a few of the ingredients for a traditional Latino recipe for shrimp soup. Much like concocting a savory dish, Jonathan Rudolf has blended his educational experience and personal interest into a profession.

After finishing his double major in Communication and Spanish and a minor in business, Jonathan traveled to Argentina where he taught English for $5 dollars an hour. The chance to immerse himself in Argentinean culture proved valuable personally and professionally, and was one of the many contributing factors that helped Jonathan land his current position as the Emerging Markets Coordinator at Regence, a health insurance firm.

Jonathan’s job is to help increase Latino membership in Regence, by planning the Latino media strategy and his skills in Argentina translate directly. For example, some companies use mail to reach audiences, however Jonathan says it’s not a very effective way to reach Latinos. “It is a very touch-and-feel, high-drama culture. It’s a lot more about personal relationships than establishing a product that’s valuable. The value is placed more on the relationships and entrance into the community than the actual specs of the product, or the price.”

Reaching out to the Latino community calls for innovation, and Jonathan’s most recent project resulted in a cookbook of healthy recipes. “We have a radio show in Spanish and a contest every week, callers phone in their healthy meal ideas and the winner received a $50 gift certificate for groceries.”

Jonathan used bilingual skills to translate the recipes from Spanish to English for the cookbook. Part of his job is also to determine whether translations can be done in-house or sent to a translation service. “All the translations for the company go through me and I see whether they can be done in-house. I do a lot of updating on forms which is probably the least exciting thing that I do. I’ll also send documents to a translation company for 17 cents a word, clean it up, and send it back to the department who requested it.”

Needless to say, Jonathan uses his writing skills daily. He handles the bulk of internal communications, including the department newsletter, and he’s the go-to-guy for verbiage. Jonathan credits Portland State for the emphasis on written communication; “The professors emphasized written communication and I am so much better for that reason.”

Looking ahead, Jonathan would like to have position where he can travel through South America and help communities. In the meantime he volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters: “My little brother and I have been matched for a year now.”

Jonathan can also be spotted in Southwest Portland burning rubber with his new cobalt blue 2003 Suzuki sv65. The motorcyclist is up for anything, whether it be another South American excursion or the next big bilingual project.

Story and photo by Melissa Shavlik