Roland Corporation
Bob Bailey has a big gig to oversee each year, the annual Sweetwater Sound Gearfest! This is no small task as anyone of his friends on the NAMM staff can tell you, but Bob heads a strong team who are all dedicated to creating a fresh and exciting event for their customers each year. Back in the...
Carlo Lucarelli graduated with an electronics engineering degree in 1963 and after three years with GTE in Milano, he joined the music products industry first working with Farfisa Organs. Farfisa was located in the Ancona area of Italy and Carlo worked there until 1976. At that time, he joined...
Giuseppe Vecchietti, known throughout his career as Beppe, primarily worked for three companies over his long career. All three were located in the same Italian Marche region by the Adriatic Sea, the first being Farfisa, then Siel, and finally Roland Europe. Along the way, as Marketing and Sales...
Luigi Bruti was an accordion champion as a teenager and was asked by the Siel Musical Instrument Company to demonstrate their latest products. It was the beginning of his life long career in the music products industry. Luigi became a product engineer helping with several noted instruments,...
Jun-Ichi Miki joined the Roland Corporation in 1977 right after graduating from university. After working in research of sound synthesis and analysis for electronic musical instruments, in 1994 he joined the Board of Directors. In 2013, Jun-ichi was named Roland’s new CEO and his background in...
John Egan was working for Ford Motor Company when his old friend and former colleague, Peter Hayward called him. Peter had formed a music wholesale company, which was expanding by the late 1970s and John joined the company as it brought on several key product lines including Ernie Ball Strings,...
Glenn Dodson played bass for a band he started with his schoolmates called Purple Haze. The band was high class, right down to their purple shirts! It was a fun experience that provided an entry into the music industry when Glenn took a “real job” at CBS Musical Instruments to supplement his...
Keith Huxtable worked for Rose Music (now Yamaha) in Melbourne for 13 years beginning in the early-1970s. Starting in the service department and moving into product management, he witnessed the rapid development of electronic keyboards, MIDI, and synthesizers during that era. A special memory was a...
Tony Fenelon cut his teeth on the Theatre Organ and became the artist in residence at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne in the early 1960s. He recalls performing demos at the NAMM Shows beginning in the 1970s for companies such as Lowrey and Roland. Tony was on hand for the big unveiling of the...
Jay Wanamaker found his passion for music as a member of a drum and bugle corps and eventually honed his skills while attending the Crane school of music at SUNY Potsdam University in Potsdam, New York. After completing a graduate degree program at the University of Kansas, Jay took a job at Alfred...