Music Manufacturing
Bill Hesterman has always been fascinated by the pipe organ. He studied piano and organ as a child, and with the good fortune that one of his teachers was an organist for the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, young Bill was exposed to extravagant organs at a young age. With his technical...
Robert Yates is known as Uncle Uke for a very good reason - he plays, builds, and sells ukuleles. Robert opened his own store, HUG Ukulele, on the big island of Hawaii with his wife Patricia which began as a handmade jewelry store with a few ukes and has evolved into primarily a ukulele store with...
Pablo Ortega was interviewed during the Summer NAMM Show in 2021, just as Magma Strings was launching their American distribution branch. The show was both Pablo’s first as well as the first NAMM show in 18 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Being a longtime friend of Sebastian, the son of the...
Terry West started playing in bands at an early age and continued throughout his twenties and thirties. He was always one to maintain a day job, and his many roles at an outdoor advertising company combined with his experience as a working musician turned out to be the perfect training path for his...
Floyd Toole recalls that when he was a child his father purchased a large amount of World War II surplus supplies, which contained a generous assortment of electronic gadgets and components. Access to these items ignited his passion for electronics, and he later earned his electrical engineering...
Augustin Patino is well known within the Harman headquarters in Northridge California as Auggie. The Patino family has roots within the Harman company (and its brands such as JBL) going back to 1923 when his uncle was hired. Since then, several cousins as well as his father and his sisters have...
Vanessa Mering took a summer job at Alesis while studying at UCLA. That position was her introduction to the music industry for which she has been a vital part of ever since. With a focus on marketing campaigns for a wide range of innovative products, Vanessa worked at M-Audio and Line 6 before...
Mike McCarthy has a very interesting perspective on the NAMM Show. As the designer and engineer for the Harman booth at the show, Mike knows first-hand the best way to create a booth that engages the attendees while showcasing the new and innovative products his company has to offer. Since he...
Alex Voishvillo is the mastermind behind many of the innovative products at Harman, mostly based on his passion and knowledge for all things related to transducers. Born and educated in Russia, Alex was brought to the United States by Gene Czerwinski to work on the loudspeaker products for Cerwin-...
Sean Olive received a Bachelors in Music from the University of Toronto, and his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Sound Recording from McGill University in Montreal. He was hired as a research scientist at the National Research Council of Canada where his research focused on the perception and...