Mary Lynn Landgraf

Senior International Trade Specialist,
U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA)

Mary Lynn Landgraf has served as a Senior International Trade Specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA), since September 2002. Ms. Landgraf is responsible for opening and cultivating new markets in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East for contract/hospitality and specialty/technical textiles to include military textiles. She brings 20 years of private sector experience to the position, spanning the spectrum from fiber extrusion to yarn spinning, fabrics and finished products.

Most recently Ms. Landgraf worked with the United States Industrial Fabrics Institute (USIFI) and supported, co-developed and co-lead a trade mission to Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Abu Dhabi and Dubai in October 2007.

For the past 28 months Ms. Landgraf has been on special assignment to the Afghanistan & Iraq Investment and Reconstruction Task Force of the US Department of Commerce. In this role Ms. Landgraf helped orchestrate visits and training for Afghan hand-woven carpet manufacturers and spearheaded the Afghan Rug & Cultural event at the January `07 Atlanta Rug Market and the January `08 Las Vegas Carpet show. Ms Landgraf traveled to Afghanistan in preparation for the Atlanta January ‘07event and the Las Vegas January `08 carpet. She continues to work with the Afghan Task Force on marketing and branding Afghan carpets and instructing best business practices to the Afghan carpet business community.

Ms. Landgraf served on four different DECs (District Export Councils), to include North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland/District of Columbia, for 19 years, as well as serving on various other international committees such as ETAC (Exporters Textile Advisory Committee).

Ms. Landgraf completed her undergraduate studies in political science and history at East Carolina University. She received a Master’s of Science in Linguistics & German from Georgetown University and did post-graduate work at the University of Innsbruck (Austria).