Partnership for Success: Public Health and Health System Collaboration | 4:00–5:30 PM
Jace Norton discovered a love for languages while volunteering as a missionary for two years in Guatemala from 2010-2012. During that time he learned Spanish and Q’eqchi’ (Kekchi), a Mayan language from Guatemala, fluently. He later went on to major in Arabic at Brigham Young University and spent considerable time studying and working in Amman, Jordan. Although he never expected to work in the field of language access, his life experiences and circumstances seemed to propel him towards it. He was eventually recruited to work as a Q’eqchi’ interpreter where he began to understand the considerable demand for Q’eqchi’ and other indigenous languages like it in the US. Not long after becoming an interpreter, Jace felt compelled to do more for indigenous language access than he could do on his own and founded Maya Bridge in 2021. Since then, he and his team have worked towards filling the niche need for language services in indigenous and other lower-diffusion languages and have worked virtually every state and across all fields. Maya Bridge now provides services in over 90 indigenous languages and other lower-diffusion languages from around the world, along with other widely spoken languages like Spanish, French, and Russian. Jace lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with his 8-year-old son who both keeps him young and makes him feel very old, and he enjoys rock climbing in his free time.