> Ralph wrote: > >I would be very interested in a poll taken directly from this list, > >including the factory technicians that sometimes contribute information, to > >learn how the majority learned their craft. It could prove to be very > >revealing. I'll begin with myself and let others add their source(s) for > >learning. I started out tuning, servicing and rebuilding pipe organs nearly 25 years ago, at the age of 19. On the side, I fixed up my own old upright piano--a Nordheimer, if I remember right. After 4 or 5 years, I realized that the future with the small company I was working for was limited (they had just hired the boss's future son-in-law at almost the same wage I was making after 5 years). I took a college diploma in woodworking, worked on my own in wood for about 3 years, and then decided to go to university because my girlfriend already had a B.Sc. and was going to graduate school--I was afraid of being left in the intellectual dust. Turns out I was good at it--they kept giving me money so I kept going. I studied forestry and plant biology, mostly, and after several degrees, worked mostly in "soft money"-funded research in university labs, in forest/plant ecology. When the governments and universities gave up on a lot of research in the early nineties, I tried contract work for a while, but there was not enough of it. I managed a geophysical exploration camp in the tundra of the Northwest Territories for a year (we discovered North America's first diamond mine), and then I had a mid-life crisis. I had been involved in music all that time as an avocation--I have always sung in choirs. I decided to switch vocation for avocation, and enrolled in the 2-year piano technology program at George Brown College in Toronto. I used my contacts thru two chamber choirs I sang with in Kitchener and Hamilton, Ontario, as well as a relationship with a dealer who was a member of the [enormous] Mennonite community in the Waterloo county area to build up a clientele of 200 or so in my first year. The Mennonite connection was great for networking, and I had contacts with many churches and schools through the members of the chamber choirs. I was doing some concert tuning, as well as repair work (hammer replacement, key rebushing, recovering, etc). The business was just getting well established when my wife finished optometry school (she had quit being a genetics prof) and we decided to move to remote Northwestern BC, where I am starting all over again. I sold my client list to a colleague in Ontario before I left. Having no contacts here, I am expecting to take a lot longer to establish a clientele. I've been here 8 months, and am joining everything in sight in an attempt to get known. I joined the music festival committee, and did the 100+ page program (there are some 4000 entrants). This enabled me to develop a data base of all the music teachers and many of the students within a 100 mile radius, which I am using for a direct-mail campaign as we speak. As for continuing education--I've attended conferences at George Brown, and the Northwest Regional at Banff this spring. I am trying to join PTG, but the paperwork seems to be a long time coming--there were no kits at the Banff conference. The closest chapter to me is the Calgary chapter (1000 miles away), so it is a bit of a chore to get to meetings, and Lord knows when I will have the chance to do the exams. There are no RPTs within 500 miles of here as competition, but I would like to have it anyway. So that's my story (and I'm sticking to it). Tim Keenan Terrace BC
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