Music Manufacturing
George Kirkwood joined the Rodgers Instrument Corp. in the engineering department just five years after the company was formed by Rodgers Jenkins and Fred Tinker. Beyond his fourth year with the company, George became Product Engineer on a number of key innovations and product lines for the...
Conrad Sundholm is the founder of Sunn Amplifiers and Biamp Systems, which revolutionized the music industry with several key design innovations, designs, and products. Although Conrad was building amps for his brother as early as 1961, Sunn became a big influence, especially on bass amp makers...
Cal Perkins was the product engineer for a number of innovative products over his long and successful career. Cal's background and training on early amplification and audio technology resulted in his involvement with several key products for JBL, Mackie Design, and Biamp Systems, among others. ...
Dick Schalk began working for the Rodgers Instrument Corp. in the 1970s when the Hillsboro, Oregon company was independently owned, then sold to CBS Musical Instruments. He remained with the company, within the engineering department, through a few different owners and presidents until his...
Rodgers Jenkins is the founder of the Rodgers Instrument Corp., based outside of Portland Oregon. Under Rodgers leadership, the company developed a strong engineering team that created many firsts for the church and home organ, as well as holding dozens of patents for their innovations. While...
Toni Buffa and her husband, Jerry, purchased Lemur Music from the founders in 1995. The fun name of the business comes from the first names of the couple who started the store in 1964, Leah and Murray (Lea-Mur) Grodner. Toni and Jerry grew the business to include more accessories as well as their...
Stephan Peus started out his career with the Georg Neumann GmbH in Berlin in 1974. During his time with the company he developed numerous innovations in microphone technology including the first shotgun microphone that Neumann produced. When Sennheiser purchased the Neumann Company in 1991 Stephan...
Herschel Blankenship’s love for music all began when he saw Buddy Holly on the Ed Sullivan show as a kid. It sparked his interest and led him down a path filled with performing and touring. After working for many years in the music industry, he became a founder of Schecter Guitar Research – a...
Steven Ambrose first started liking country music after hearing Johnny Cash through headphones during a recording session. This prompted him to develop a toll that could be used by all musicians to get the same sound. The result was the first set of in ear monitors – something that the music...
Bill Rickard is the founder of Rickard Banjos – banjos featuring a classic design with modern innovations. In the early parts of his life, he fell out of touch with music. Following a tragic motorcycle accident, which took an arm and a leg from Bill, he reevaluated his whole life. He began...