Instrument Repair Technician
Larry Miletich along with his father and brother began playing music together as a group when they moved to Kalispell, Montana. As they continued to play gigs in and around town, they kept seeing a need for a store that provided lessons and repairs. In 1981, the three decided they would open a...
David Hosler had a friend in school whose father had a wood-working shop. It was in that small shop where David built his first guitar and where his passion for making instruments began. He opened a shop in Florida and later established The Guitar Workshop in South Carolina where he sold guitars...
Tim Luranc grew up in San Diego with his father, an educator, playing music in the house all of the time. His dad wanted to play a guitar with some of the popular music of the day, such as folk music. His dad didn't play the guitar as much as he had hoped but young Tim took a liking to the...
Wayne Tanabe is a pioneer in the band instrument repair field who has helped create and improve several methods for instrument cleaning using ultrasound and cryogenics. Looking towards ways of cleaning band instruments without harming the horn, Wayne began experimenting with deep freezing the...
Bill Mathews is the Executive Director of the National Association of Professional Band Instrument Repair Technicians (NAPBIRT). In that role Bill has expanded the organization’s meaningful education sessions offered during its annual conference, regional clinics, and unique hand-on training at...
Craig Anderson is the General Manager for Allied Supply in Elkhorn, WI. Allied is the largest supplier of parts, tools and cases to the band instrument repair business and has been a cornerstone for the National Association of Professional Band Instrument Repair Technicians (NAPBIRT), which was...
Chip Owen is the product specialist at Fox Bassoons who helped engineer a series of instruments for Fox over the years including the Fox Model 900 Contrabassoon, which was first introduced in 1971. Chip supervised the development of many of the Fox products since that time and has played a key role...
Frank Kilgard worked for Streep Music in Florida before opening his own band instrument repair shop in Georgia. His strong interest in quality repair led to a life time of learning new tricks and methods for cleaning and repairing school band instruments. Frank was one of the first members of...
Dick Waldron came to music in a most unusual way. His father was a house painter who completed a job only to find out the house owner did not have enough money to pay so he offered a cornet, to which Dick took a liking. He played the horn during school and served in the US Navy at the tail end of...
Denny Lawson began learning and playing instrumental music while in college. He soon found he had a great interest in playing music and switched his major to music education. While he was a band director, a music store had an opening on its repair bench and Denny took the job to learn basic...