Caroline Wojan grew up in a small town on Beaver Island, near Mackinaw Island, before she went to the University of Michigan. She got bit by the travel bug during a semester abroad in Spain.
It was a sequence of events that sent her around the world, skipping graduate school to work for a local English as a second language company after college. A few years after that she started her own business, Language Link.
"I decided I wanted to travel the rest of my life and make as much as I could," says Wojan, owner of
Language Link. "Every place I went to I realized how big the world really is."
The Ann Arbor-based business will turn 10 years old in September. Wojan's company employs 15 people (all on a part-time basis) today after hiring four in the last year. The company can do that thanks to a 25 percent jump in revenues from expanded service offerings.
Language Link started out helping families of visiting scholars at the University of Michigan overcome language and culture barriers. It has since expanded those language and cultural services to families of foreign employees at major corporations, like the Big 3 and other automotive firms. It now offers tutoring services for students and cultural and language training for foreign nationals in local businesses.
"I call it the Dale Carnegie course for foreign managers," Wojan says.
Source: Caroline Wojan, owner of Language LinkWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at
SEMichiganStartup.com.
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