Next time you’re in a recording session with Tera make sure you wish her Happy Anniversary. She’s celebrating 6 years at SunSpots Orlando recording studios this month.

How many sessions has she recorded over the past 6 years at SunSpots? “I just looked on our database and I’m almost at 5,000 sessions. That’s got to be thousands of spots!”, Tera says. Radio and TV commercials, long form industrials, web 2.0 audio and every application you think of where a voiceover is needed has been recorded from Tera’s studio near Orlando.

Tera, who graduated with an A.S. in Audio from Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida came to SunSpots looking for a foot in the recording studio door. “What I liked about Tera when she first came to us was that she was really eager to learn about the business. I loved her positive, even-keeled attitude”, says Thomas Rohe, founder and co-owner of SunSpots Productions, “She started off answering phones, then doing voiceover talent booking/scheduling and eventually running the day-which involves making sure voice talent have scripts, clients are dialed and every session starts on time. When she had the opportunity, she was sitting in with Zak Miller learning the “SunSpots Way” of audio engineering and commercial production. She picked up everything quickly. Now she’s running sessions with talent and clients across the globe.”

SunSpots Florida studio Manager, Zak Miller, says, “Tera has turned into one of the best engineers I know. She has a great attention to detail, and a sense of humor that keeps you on your toes.”

When she started six years ago, being a woman in the audio engineering/producing field was uncommon and still is today. “I do find that other women notice it (being a female engineer). Like, sometimes, the female voice talent and female creative directors will mention it in sessions, especially if it’s all women together. One of our voiceover talent, Nancy McLemore, recently wrote me saying how ‘proud of me she is because I’m the only female engineer she knows.’ I never really felt like I was an exception, but I have felt like I had to prove myself with others in the business. So, I made sure no one could criticize my skills by working extra hard to be the best I can.”

Tera says her most memorable moment in session was, “Once when we connected with a voice talent via ISDN. We were in the middle of recording when all of a sudden, I heard this big, crashing sound, the talent yelled out and he told me his homemade studio had collapsed on him! He was ok and a little shaken up. It was funny at the time though.”

Her hobbies include photographing her cats, Fraglie and Eugene “The Vampire Slayer”, hanging out with her circle of close friends and family and being a rock guitar god on “Rock Band”. Marty MacNeill, SunSpots daily coordinator, describes Tera’s wit,”It’s as fast as her Rock Band guitar trigger finger!” 

If you wish to send her an anniversary present please make sure it’s in the form of some sort of candy. She’s a freak for the candy cigarrettes, hot tamales and zebra cakes. We guess that’s slightly better than a diet of doughnuts and french fries. Just slightly.

View Tera’s personal web site at: www.teraparks.com