Meet the Crew

Sara and Matt

Brass & Woodwinds

Sara is a graduate of the Band Instrument Repair program at MN State Southeast Technical College in Red Wing, MN. She enjoys making instruments sing!

Matt has a Music Education degree from South Dakota State University, and a Band Instrument Repair degree from Redwing Technical College. He has been behind the bench repairing instruments since 1998. Prior to coming to Willmar, he worked in Minneapolis at Midwest Musical Imports as a double reed and clarinet repair technician. He has been a shop manager at Whitney Music since December 2018.

Andy

Orchestra Strings

Andy received his violin certification from Southeast Tech, Redwing, MN with honors recognition. Following graduation, Andy worked for master violin maker David Folland for 13 years, and 9 years for Nechville Musical Products of Bloomington, MN. In addition to his work at Whitney Music, Andy currently works as a traveling technician for Cadenza Music of St Paul, MN and All Strings Attached of Golden Valley, doing instrument setups and repairs. For a hobby, Andy makes 5 string open back banjos. He lives in Hutchinson with his wife, son and 3 cats!

David

Electronics

David's father taught him that you should never throw away anything until you have taken it apart to see how it worked and why it stopped working. David attended night classes in electronics technology and machine design at Purdue University while working days at International Harvester's Motor Truck Division. His job was to design machines to test the reliability of components used in their production, make improvements, and then re-test the improvements. After retiring from a long career in engineering, he found that he missed being active in troubleshooting. The chance to help Bob on his electrical item repair team has given him a new and interesting opportunity to tear things apart, find out how they work, make repairs, and put them back together again.

Bob

Guitar & Bow Repair

Bob and his wife Jeanne have been owners of Whitney Music, now Whitney Music Service Center LLC, for 26.5 years. Over the years, Bob has acquired many skills in the repair shop, including guitar setup and repair, strings setup and repair, bow hair replacement, piano tuning, adjusting and repair, and woodwind adjustment and repair. He gladly relinquishes many of those tasks to the excellent Whitney Service Center team. Bob loves to troubleshoot a variety of instrument problems, and truly enjoys making music on them, from Classical to Country Western, from Jazz to Bluegrass—when he’s not repairing something. Please stop by sometime for a quick tour or tell Bob about your musical experiences. He likes to compare notes!