Publishers

Publishers and co-founders Stefan Mucha and Terry Tegnazian first shared their mutual interests in Poland’s largely unknown role in World War II via the internet before meeting and deciding to form Aquila Polonica. Both were experienced professionals in their respective fields before launching the company.

Together, they bring a wide spectrum of perspectives, knowledge, skills and contacts to  Aquila Polonica.

TERRY TEGNAZIAN

Terry Tegnazian practiced law in Los Angeles for twelve years. She specialized in complex transactions of motion picture financing, both U.S. and international, before leaving to pursue other business and creative endeavors.

She is a graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School. Subsequent to her professional legal career, Terry was Co-Executive Producer of a feature film, an experience which led to pursuing her own creative writing projects. 

Terry, who has no Polish background, became interested in the Polish experience of World War II as a result of research for a book she was working on involving a Polish airman in the Battle of Britain. Reading memoirs of key Polish Underground leaders, she was moved by the stories of the Poles’ incredible courage during World War II -- an aspect of the war she hadn’t been aware of before. Terry co-founded Aquila Polonica because she felt it was important that such lost stories be restored to history and the wider world. She has visited Poland several times in recent years. See Terry's guest blog "I Do This Because..." at No Map, No Guide, No Limits

Terry is an active community volunteer, and has been a founder and/or on the board of directors of several local nonprofit organizations, including most recently the Los Angeles Musical Salon. Terry is married and lives in Los Angeles, California.

STEFAN MUCHA

Stefan Mucha was trained in marketing communications and design for print, owns his own marketing and website design company in the UK, and has hands-on experience with the technical side of book production. With more than 30 years of marketing experience, Stefan specializes in business-to-business communications and has created numerous pan-European marketing campaigns for leading multi-national technology companies.

Stefan's interest in Polish history results from his late father, who was born in Warsaw and served as a soldier of the Second Polish Corps in Italy after being liberated from a German forced labor camp in 1945. His father's family were victims of the Nazi regime in occupied Poland—their final fate remains unknown to this day.

He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Polish Army (Złoty Medal Wojska Polskiego) on 1 December 2010 for his work on the team that created the Polish Armed Forces Memorial at the National Arboretum, Staffordshire, England.

Stefan is a keen collector of photographs of Poland during World War II, Polish militaria and period literature of the Second Polish Corps. Stefan lives in East Sussex, England.