I came to be in this field entirely through chance and by putting in a ridiculous amount of time and money into skills and knowledge that most people would consider inconsequential.  My dad is a carpenter and electrician with a great love for music, especially classic rock and Motown.  This collection was always playing while we were working on or around the house.  Since we didn't have much money, we also had to fix a lot of things as opposed to replacing them.  My dad always took time to show to me what he was doing and why.  This gave me a good understanding of how to work with my hands and a great love for music.  When I finally got a guitar, it was a beat up Korean import that had probably been sitting in a second-hand shop for ages.  The neck had a twist in it, the tuners were stiff, and the action was so high I could use the thing to slice fruit.  My dad starting helping me fix it up and we managed to get it into playable condition.  I kept at it and started reading all I could about not just music, but also gear and how it worked, sounded, and was put together.  I started hanging around a local music store that had a part-time repairman who had gone to Roberto-Venn School of Lutherie.  For some reason, the guy seemed to like me and always answered any questions I had.  Over time he showed me a lot of cool stuff and even let me do some stuff around the shop.  Eventually I built another electric, but it didn't come out well at all and I'm still a bit embarrassed by it.  That failure, coupled with my desire for a nice guitar and lack of funds, led me to keep researching and trying to perfect my failures.  Eventually I came to have a great respect for two things my dad and my grandfather (Also a wealth of technical knowledge) routinely told me:  “Measure twice cut once” and “Always use the right tool for the job.” 

By the time I got to college I had managed to build a better instrument, but still far from great.  I was going to college to play football and to either become a lawyer or a football coach.  I sold my electrics since I needed money and did not anticipate having any free time to play.  So aside from a couple of physics, engineering, and business classes, I didn't do much to further develop my resources.  Early into my second year of school I had to retire from the gridiron, suddenly leaving me with a tremendous amount of free time.  I got a beat up old acoustic from a Memphis pawn shop and started taking lessons.  I also started tinkering with the acoustic and applying some of the stuff I had crammed into my head during those 8 am physics and engineering classes.  Soon I had acquired a couple of cheap pawn shop specials to work on and started putting together a specialty tool collection.  I had a friend who played in a local band who came across me working on something and asked me to take a look at his rig.  I made a couple of adjustments and soon he was having several of his friends bring their guitars to me.  As into doing all this as I was, I don't think I ever really thought of the prospect of somehow doing it for a living.  At the same time, I was acquiring more and more technical books and videos regarding instrument engineering and trying to apply more and more of what I was learning to my work.

When I finished school, I decided to stay in Memphis with my friends for a year so that we could plan and finance a long trip abroad.  In order to finance this trip, I took a job working in sales and analysis for a shipping company.  Long story short:  Corporate cubicle work is awful and boring, albeit well paying.  After a year of saving, four of us settled on spending our year abroad in China teaching English as a second language.  China was decided on because it had the best exchange rate to modern civilization ratio and because English teachers have flexible schedules and great pay.  I was also really excited about it because China is home to a large number of guitar manufacturing plants and some excellent Luthiers, who I spent a lot of time observing and learning from.  Seeing how materials were graded, selected, and processed was an incredible experience.  I also picked up a lot regarding how to efficiently use your time when trying to produce quality instruments, especially if you are unwilling to compromise on quality or methodology.  It was a great contrast to the books and personal experience I had gathered on my own.  China was also where I really started diving into the electronic side of things and putting my dad's soldering lessons to use.  It was during all this that I started to truly imagine a scenario where I could do all this for a living.  I started looking into getting a job with one of the major manufacturers in the U.S., but quickly realized that getting the kind of job I wanted from them required going to Luthier School.  Not having enough money to pay for school and survive the six months of unemployment it would require, I decided to move home to Louisiana and take a job teaching high school English and coaching football. 

During my year teaching there, I added some classes from small local colleges on instrument building and continued researching on my own.  I was also lucky enough to find that several of my old friends had two successfully gigging bands locally and my skill set was quickly able to be put to good use.  This led to working with several other bands and eventually being paid to work exclusively for an 80's cover band.  My primary responsibility was to make sure everyone's gear worked reliably and was as easy to play as possible.  This quickly grew into re-building their gear and sound from the ground up and working their rigs during live shows.  Despite being an incredibly intense and time intensive job, it was a ton of fun.  Finally I had enough stashed away to hit Lutherie School and formally accumulate what I had learned and not yet learned.  During my time there, I would say I averaged about five hours of sleep a night and $3.00 a day on food.  When I finished, I knew I had finished my best work so far.  I also knew that it was still nowhere close to the ideas for design and execution that I had in my head.  I returned home and sold all the guitars I had made at school to finance more advanced tooling and quickly received several more deposits on custom guitars while continuing to do gig work and repairs. 

After doing an extensive amount of research on the business side of things, I determined that the best way for me to continually grow and improve my work was to do repair work full time and focus on building custom instruments to order that provided real solutions to the individual player.  Shortly following this, my wife and I relocated to Little Rock and opened up the shop.  While repairs keep me very busy and custom work even more so, I will be starting to take contract work from local bands and adding custom pickups & pedals to the menu as well.