Vacation Spanish

Eric Dondero Rittberg is an Interpreter and Certified Language Instructor in Houston, Texas. He speaks fluent Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese. He also speaks all other major world languages including Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, and German. He has learned basic skills for many smaller languages, as well.

Dondero has traveled to 25 nations worldwide in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He has also traveled extensively throughout the Caribbean and Mexico. He taught English as a Second Language at Normal Superior in Tampico and at the Worldwide Teachers Institute in Guadalajara.

In the early 1980s he served in the US Navy (Hon.) on both the USS Kittyhawk CV-63 and the USS Luce DDG-38. He then graduated with a BA in Political Science from Florida State University.

In 1988, Dondero was a travel aide to Libertarian Presidential candidate Ron Paul, visiting over 40 states. He went on to found the Republican Liberty Caucus in 1990, a nationwide organization that helps to elect libertarian Republicans to office.

In 1996 Ron Paul won election to the US Congress from Texas District 14 which runs from metro-Houston to San Antonio. Rep. Paul serves on the International Relations in the House. Dondero worked in his campaigns and served as his Senior Aide from 1995 to 2003.

In his off time Dondero is a landscape artist, a world music enthusiast and enjoys backpacking throughout Europe, the United States and Mexico.

Christopher Paul Hurtado is an English and Spanish translator, interpreter and instructor with more than 22 years of experience. He is president and CEO of Linguistic Solutions, a Houston-based language service provider. He also speaks fluent Portuñol (see chapter on Brazilian Portuguese), French and Arabic. He is currently studying Brazilian Portuguese, French and Egyptian and Jordanian Arabic.

Hurtado was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a New Yorker and a Venezuelan. At the age of eight his father took him to his native Maracaibo, Venezuela where he stayed with an “aunt” (a good friend of the family) for six months while his father searched for employment in Caracas and his mother and two sisters joined him there. After having heard his parents speak Spanish to one another all his life, six months of immersion is all it took for Christopher to become fluent in the language.

Having toured much of the United States, Venezuela and Spain, as well as parts of Mexico, Colombia and Puerto Rico, Hurtado has observed first hand the many dialects of Spanish spoken throughout the world.

Hurtado served the American Marketing Association’s Houston Chapter as a member of its board of directors and the founding chair of its Hispanic Marketing special interest group (SIG). He is an associate member of the American Translators Association, and an individual and corporate member of the Houston Interpreters and Translators Association.

Hurtado is married to children’s book author Alysia Gonzalez. They have a blended family of nine children and live in Houston, Texas.

In his spare time, Hurtado enjoys reading, listening to baroque and Latin music, audio books, writing, and digital photography.