Maria Terada

Maria Terada has spent 16 years in the eyewear wholesale manufacturing industry, where she currently leads product development and design efforts from her office in Shelton, Connecticut. Born and raised in Japan, she came to the U.S. as an exchange student, initially majoring in English before switching to aviation. After college, she began her career as an administrative assistant at a New York eyewear company, advancing quickly to key account manager and then product development manager over eight and a half years. She later joined a firm with factories in Japan and China to deepen her expertise in titanium and Japanese quality standards before moving to her current company, where she started in marketing and expanded into running the full product and design department. In this role, Terada designs licensed products, supports private label projects such as those for major retailers, and gathers customer feedback through international travel. She is also a Japanese-English translator with 18 years of experience and an interpreter who passed her certification during the pandemic, reflecting her lifelong commitment to language and cross-cultural communication.