Small Business Today Magazine JUN 2014 MASTERWORD SERVICES INC | Page 8

Ludmila Golovine

– MasterWord Services, Inc.
Connecting People Across
Language and Culture
By Barbara R. Davis

“Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people
come from and where they are going.”
-Rita Mae Brown

T

here are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world
today. Each of us talks, listens, and thinks in his/her
own special language that has been shaped by our
culture, experiences, profession, personality, customs,
and attitudes.The chance of us meeting someone else
who “talks” the exact same language is pretty remote.
Building effective communication skills and relationships within a single culture is often challenging. Bridging the gap between different cultures makes building communication skills and relationships even more difficult. How fortunate
it is that MasterWord Services, Inc. is a company that exists with a
mission to connect people across language and culture.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the world was going through
many changes. Communism began to falter in Poland, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia in 1988 and then suddenly, almost overnight, November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. Also in 1989, a wave
of revolutions began that led to the overthrow of all of the Communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe. In August of 1991,
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union lost control. This, in turn,
led to the formal dissolution of the USSR in December of 1991
and the collapse of Communist regimes in other countries such as
Mongolia, Cambodia, and South Yemen. As a result of these major
events, many people who had known only Communism their entire
life were going through changes as well that included opportunities
to leave their homeland and freely explore other societies and their
ideologies. Ludmila Golovine was one of those people.
6 SMALL BUSINESS TODAY MAGAZINE [ JUNE 2014 ]

Growing up in Moscow, Russia, Ludmila (Mila) Rusakova
Golovine was a very competitive student, always striving to be the
best in her class. Even so, her education was limited to the subjects allowed in a Communist society. There were no words in her
vocabulary for market economy, free enterprise, and democracy.
Due to the fall of Communism, opportunities opened up for students to study in the United States. Graduating at the top of her
class, Ludmila, who was 19 at the time, was offered a scholarship to
attend the University of Houston. Excited with the opportunity to
learn about a new culture, Ludmila planned to study in the United
States and then return home with her newfound knowledge.
After arriving in Houston, Ludmila began her studies and chose
finance as her major because she was fascinated with international
finance. Even though she was fluent in Russian, French, and English,
a lot of the accounting and business terminology that Ludmila was
learning in college was new to her. The words didn’t exist yet in
the Russian vocabulary especially since the market economy was
still a new concept in Russia. Needing one more elective to get
her degree, Ms. Golovine chose the Entrepreneurship class only
because it was offered at a time that conveniently fit in with her
schedule. The funny thing is that she had no idea what the word
“entrepreneur” really meant and little did she know that the class
would change her life in such a major way!
“It’s not what you tell them…it’s what they hear.”
-Red Auerbach
The Entrepreneurship class was brand new in1991 and being
taught at the University of Houston’s C.T. Bauer College of Business by William “Bill” Sherrill who was not only the professor but