I grew up in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a mechanical engineer, and the brother of a bassoonist in the Navy band.  After taking up the clarinet in the 4th grade, I transferred to the oboe in high school.  My first oboe teacher, Ed Bloedow, was a Cincinnati Conservatory graduate.  He encouraged me to learn some of my own oboe repair, because of the difficulty of finding good repairmen.

My Bachelor's degree in oboe is from Ohio University where I studied with Adrian Gnam and Jonathan Dloughy in the '70's.  My Master's Degree is from the University of Iowa, where I taught oboe to music education majors and repaired oboes on weekends for West Music Company.  Further oboe studies were with John Mack, Bob Sorton, Don Baker, and Mark Ackerman.

After playing principal oboe in 1980 for the Sinfonica Autonoma de Guadalajara, Mexico, I moved to San Antonio, Texas.  I perform throughout South Texas, sub with the San Antonio Symphony, and play principal oboe with two part-time orchestras; the Mid-Texas Symphony and the Corpus Christi Symphony.  My wife, Cynthia, teaches orchestra for the San Antonio school district, and is a freelance bass player.

I have repaired instruments for several music stores around San Antonio, and now own a repair business. I have studied repair with Pearl West (former owner of the Platz oboe factory) and Paul Covey, and have been repairing woodwinds for 25 years, with an emphasis on the oboe and clarinet.