My education in woodworking began at a very early age building and designing remote control model airplanes. I was quite fortunate that my father worked for Heathkit during much of my youth, and as a result, I was building color TV kits and remote control systems for my models before I learned how to tie my shoes.Another bit of good fortune was that I lived very close to Elderly Instruments in East Lansing, Michigan, and after buying my first mandolin there, it became my favorite place to spend my free time. This was back in the early 70's, and there were always lots of interesting instruments to explore and play.I became friends with Elderly's head technician Bart Rieter (who is also a very notable luthier and banjo maker), and purchased a lot of old Gibsons from him that were deemed 'too far gone' to be affordably repaired. The extremely poor condition of these instruments didn't bother me a bit because I had lots of time on my hands to bring them back to life. After doing that, I'd plunk around on them for a few months and usually sell them back to the store.

The event that sealed my fate as a luthier was the opportunity to work for Steve Klein for about a month when I was 15. I didn't do any instrument work for him, but I did insulate his workshop and tried to absorb everything I could from him. He was a great inspiration for me, and also took time away from his work to introduce me to Hideo Kamimoto (author of Complete Guitar Repair), and Rick Turner at the Alembic factory, among other notable people in the field.

While in college, I had a job as the senior jig man at a custom tandem bicycle factory, and then worked at Charvell Guitars for a few years. My schooling included lots of art, architecture, tool & jig design, education, mechanical drafting, and electrical engineering. Soon I moved to Boulder, CO, and became the head technician at Robb's Music (repairing literally everything that came through the door). During this time, I also owned a recording studio, a live sound company, continued building instruments on the side, and developed a lot of custom pickup and electronic systems for guitars and 'world' instruments.

Many years of doing repair work taught me what to avoid when designing and building musical instruments, and it also put me in contact with virtually every type of instrument in the world. In my own designs, I try to take a completely fresh approach, while retaining the best of the 'tried & true' technologies that have been developed over the years. My intention is to build instruments that are one of a kind and will last at least a lifetime or two.

I tend to build instruments that I would like to play myself, then someone usually comes along and buys one. All of my designs incorporate the best current thinking about structural integrity, ergonomics and playability, and also employ the highest quality pickup systems, woods, and hardware components available.

Thanks for visiting, and let me know if you'd like to discuss building something special, or if you find anything interesting on this site. We'll be working on capturing some sound samples over the next few months, as well as completing a few new instrument designs.

Thanks for visiting & best to you!