Flying a Waco

A bit about me

I was born in Grahamstown, South Africa, and grew up there.

I attended Oatlands Primary School, St Andrews Preparatory School ("Prep"), and St Andrew's College, from which I matriculated in 1984.

Between 1985 and 1988 I attended Rhodes University in Grahamstown, from which I graduated with a B.Sc in Computer Science and Physics, followed by a B.Sc (Hons) in Computer Science, with Distinction.

I encountered the Steeldrum/SteelPan/Pan in about 1982.  My Dad had joined the Andrew Tracey Steelband, and I got hooked for various reasons.  From 1982 onward I experimented continually with how to make pans.  By 1993 I was making and selling a few pans a year; Andrew Tracey very generously sponsored me to visit Trinidad & Tobago, and I spent 6 months studying informally there between November 1993 and April 1994.

Between 1994 and 2000 I ran a company called Panmaster Steelband Services, which supplied instruments to a growing Steelpan community in South Africa.

In 2000 I joined Panyard, Inc in Akron, Ohio; I worked there until 2007.  During that time I was a key player in the very rapid evolution of the pan, and was responsible for correctly determing the note sizes required to tune the 2nd Octaves on pan notes.

In 2007 I left Panyard and moved to Denver; I worked for 2 years for Common Knowledge Technology as an IT specialist, in a vain attempt to get away from the then highly polarized steelpan world.

In 2010 I moved back to Akron, and I started my own company, Pantuner Inc., which I run today (.

My passions include Roller Coasters, Aviation, WWII History (or any history), Photography.

In 2020, right as the Covid Pandemic started, I met Faye!  More about her later, suffice to say for now that we got married online in December 2021 and are starting the huge adventure of  our lives!