Philip’s Story: Why I Started Auerbach International

Angry. Lonely. Misunderstood. Confused.

These four feelings dominated my childhood since my earliest memory at one-and-a-half years old. I remember holding myself up on my crib and mentally telling my parents No! as they argued yet again in the hallway outside my semi-open bedroom door. They separated shortly thereafter and officially divorced when I was 3 … an action unheard of in Philadelphia where I was raised in the mid-1950s.

For the first 16 years of my life, I felt incredibly lonely as the only divorced child I ever knew… a situation that no one else around me could relate to or understand.

From my earliest years, I perceived my mother’s family as being loving, unconditional and nurturing, while my father’s family was conditional, strict and rigid. How to navigate between two different mindsets, two different realities, and two different standards was baffling, especially because the rules were never clearly defined.

After most weekends with my father and his family, I would return to my mother and break down in tears. No matter what I said or did, my father seemed not to want to consider my feelings or value my comments. Amidst this psychological confusion, I longed for him to understand me and not to deny my thoughts.

In 7th grade, I was required to learn Latin and then I chose to study French voluntarily. Languages to me became openings to other ways of thinking and other mindsets. And I dreamt irrationally that if I could not communicate with my monolingual father in English, perhaps I could do so through some other language.

To his credit, he started taking me abroad on business trips and exposed me to the world … where other assumptions and ways of thinking and behaving were the norm.

After studying German in high school, Japanese in college and Chinese in grad school and after visiting many countries, I knew that I wanted to do something involving cultures, business and bridging linguistic gaps. An implementation of this desire since 2010 has been my leading a local Christian-Jewish-Muslim dialog group.

By establishing Auerbach International in 1990, I was able to fulfill two parts of my personal mission:

• through translating and interpreting, to communicate concepts clearly and accurately across cultures so as to avoid misunderstanding; and
• through our work, to create jobs at home and abroad from the benefits of global commerce.

I hope you will join me in this quest.

— Philip Auerbach