In 1989, at the age of 15, I began attempting to built my first banjo neck, in my Grandfather’s shop. With pine lumber and copper wire as the available materials, it was a banjo neck in appearance only. But it was good enough to catch my Grandfather’s eye and gain his support. He bought me my first piece of mahogany hard wood to experiment with, and gave me full reign of his shop. As life goes on and takes its turns, and needing a career path, my pursuit of instrument building took a back seat to the craftsmanship of construction trades. But 30 years later, in 2019, I refocused my efforts on handcrafted banjo building, and have dedicated my home shop in Mesa Arizona, to their creation. I’m proud to say that I’ve recently begun building my banjos using rims created by my friend and mentor, Mark Hickler. And I’m looking forward to sourcing the majority of my hardware from Balsam!