Marty Albertson began working at the Guitar Center in San Francisco when the small chain’s founder, Wayne Mitchell, was still active in the business. Marty was there to see the store loca...
Barry Andrews has seen it all. Barry helped take a fledgling amp company, Quilter Sound Things, from a small shop to one of the most successful companies in the music industry, QSC. Along...
John Andrews, along with his brother Barry and co-found Pat Quilter, formed the core that grew QSC into an incredibly successful company. Barry brought John into the business in the early...
Fred Bernardo was repairing and teaching guitar in his local music store when the idea came to him to open his own shop. In 1972, with one guitar and a set of strings he was given as a pr...
Jon Bormann attended his first AES Show in 1973. Just two years later, at the age of 25, he formed his own pro audio dealership, AVC Systems. Soon Jon began designing and building studi...
Dave Firestone joined the pro audio industry, thanks to his friend Greg Mackie. Greg asked Dave to help him with his mixer products and in fact was on the ground floor of Mackie Designs ...
Roger Hart has developed many friends throughout his career in the music products industry. Those friends will likely tell you the two things Roger enjoys talking about the most are music...
George Hines began his music retail store, George’s Music, outside of Philadelphia, PA, in 1977. Since that time, he has been devoted to the industry that he entered out of passion for mu...
Kevin Jarvis began working for Gelb Music in Redwood City, California in 1966 as a guitar teacher. The store was established in 1939 by Sydney Gelb, who was still running the store when ...
Charles Kitch formed Sound Productions, Inc. in Irving, Texas in 1973. With the slogan, the "the Soundman's Connection," Charles has helped pioneer the pro audio industry from the early ...
Ted Kornblum has a long legacy in the music industry. His grandfather started St. Louis Street Music and his father started Crate amplifiers and Alvarez guitars. Not content to rest on hi...
Alberto Kreimerman opened Hermes Music Stores in the United States with branches in Mexico beginning in 1982. His goal was always to serve music makers with quality products and service a...
Joe Lamond has been a music maker since he was a young boy. After touring with several bands and rock performers, Joe became the manager of Skip’s Music in Sacramento, California, before ...
Greg Mackie is the engineer who created a number of audio products that came at the perfect time to start a whole new era in sound production. Mackie Designs helped define the pro audio ...
Skip Maggiora has revolutionized retailing within the music products industry. With his Weekend Warriors program a whole new segment of the population was being targeted to become music m...
Brian Majeski is the editor of The Music Trades Magazine and has lived and breathed the music business since the day he was born. His grandfather and father both ran the magazine, which ...
Bryan McCann is the president of Instrumental Music stores, with three locations in 2014 in and around Ventura, California. Bryan’s career began when he teamed with a friend to purchase ...
Hyman Peller, in 1975, left a corporate job in NJ and moved to upstate, NY. Once there he found employment in a music store, a job for which he says he was unqualified. The owner set abou...
Dave Phillips met his wife in a band he created in high school. They have been making music ever since and as of 1977 when they opened their retailing business, they have assisted countl...
Marcus Ryle began his career in the industry as an engineer for Oberheim while he was still a teenager. In those pre MIDI days, Marcus designed a series of sound controllers as well as pr...
Paul Reed Smith began playing guitar as a teenager. He soon designed his own style of guitar, which he built. At first he did not think about selling the instruments he was designing, but...
Stuart Spector’s creation of the Spector Bass is recognized around the world. As Stuart explained, little has changed in the design of the Spector guitar since it was first created in 19...
Mark Terry always dreamed of being a recording engineer, even as a kid when he first discovered his love of music and technology. In time he would become just that, but along the way he d...
Larry Thomas is the current CEO of Fender Musical Instrument Company. He also served as CEO of Guitar Center during the company’s early growth period. He worked closely with music educat...
