NSA seeks linguists at BYU to staff Utah center

PROVO — National Security Agency recruiters were at Brigham Young University this week, spreading the word that linguists are needed to staff a national-security center in Utah that will specialize in foreign-language translation.

Just where those linguists will be working in the department that NSA plans to open in Utah remains under wraps, but a recruiter visiting BYU on Tuesday indicated to students it will likely be in the Salt Lake area.

The recruiter invited students who specialize in Mandarin, Korean, Tagalog and Arabic to apply directly to the Utah office.

NSA works alongside the code-cracking Central Security Service.

"NSA recruits students nationally that possess sophisticated foreign language skills and has a history of recruiting at Utah universities," according to an NSA statement issued to the Deseret Morning News. "Utah universities have traditionally produced high-caliber foreign language graduates. Coupled with the density of Utah residents with foreign language skills, NSA/CSS presence in the state makes sense."

The Utah office will be a specialty department focusing on a few selected languages, and the hiring process will be slightly different from the traditional process, officials said. Those applying to the Utah office will be required to take a proficiency exam and be fluent in their language from the beginning of their employment.

The process used in national recruiting does not necessarily require applicants to be fluent or proficient because they are generally placed in specialized NSA training programs once they are hired. NSA headquarters are in Fort Meade, Md.

Applicants apply online by submitting resumes to www.nsa.gov.

Linguists hired by NSA, which was created by President Harry Truman in 1952, can qualify for cross-training in an alternate language after being tested to determine their ability to adapt their thinking process between languages.

Cross-training usually involves languages that are similar, such as Spanish and Portuguese. The recruiter at BYU this week noted, however, that European languages are not currently in demand at NSA, which has come under fire recently for its role in the Bush administration's warrantless domestic-spying operation.

The agency's need for specific languages is determined by current events and activities around the world.

"If you see it on CNN, if it's happening in the news, we're interested in it," the NSA recruiter said.

Language is an area of particular interest to many federal agencies right now.

NSA is offering a $7,500 signing bonus to linguists because of that demand.