School of Industrial Design Faculty
Tom Matano
Director Emeritus
School of Industrial Design
Mr. Matano has almost 30 years of experience in the automotive industry, holding design positions at General Motors in Detroit, Michigan, GM Holden’s Ltd. in Melbourne, Australia, and BMW in Munich, Germany. In 1983, he joined Mazda’s North American studio as a Chief Designer. From there, he went on to become Executive Vice President of Western Operations for Mazda R&D North America, Inc., and Executive Designer & Director of Mazda North American Operations. From 1999 to 2002, Mr. Matano worked at Mazda’s headquarters in Japan as an Executive Designer in the Global Advance Studio, overseeing efforts for Japan, Europe, and North America; and eventually he was named General Manager of Mazda Design in charge of all Chief Designers. His accomplishments at Mazda include the 1989 Miata, 1993 RX-7, in addition to many other projects produced by the design teams he built and managed. Since 2002, Mr. Matano has been committed to becoming an educator, using his diverse knowledge and experience to enhance the Industrial Design program at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA, constantly ranked Top 10 in the Red Dot World Ranking of Industrial Design schools.
Industry Credit:
- Established Mazda Design Philosophy as part of the Corporate Philosophy.
- Developed series of car designs based on the strategy of the Design Philosophy such as
- Miata (Design and concept development), FD RX-7 (Timeless Design), 929, MX-6 and many concept cars and production cars that followed.
- Designed the R & D building in Irvine California, started a creative advance design studio
- Trained and educated succeeding Key Designers for Mazda Design management.
- Speaker in many key conferences including The Automotive News World Congress as well as many international events in Europe, Australia, China and Japan.
- Served as an Honorary Judge for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance (sine 2009).
- Juror for the IDSA’s IDEA awards.
- Juror and a founding advisor for the SPARK Design Award.
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