Ray Gerlich

Ray Gerlich is the long-serving production engineer at Hammond Suzuki, and began playing the organ when he was ten years old. While in high school he was given the opportunity to apprentice with an organ builder, who encouraged Ray to attend technical school and study engineering. After school, he worked for Petersen’s Electronics as a technician building circuit boards. On January 3, 1976, Ray began his career at Hammond as a repair technician. When he joined the company, the factory workers were still using the same assembly techniques from World War II. Needless to say, Ray witnessed and took part in many changes and developments at Hammond over the years. Among his many career highlights was working with Don Leslie in 1980, testing the prototype for the Hammond B3000, which included a Leslie Speaker.