The Origin Story

I never set out to have my own store.

In fact, if you had mentioned it to me six months before I made the decision, I'd have told you, "no way in hell!". It seems that a lot of the turns in my life path have been...not impulsive, but certainly sudden. You can see the path that led there, but it's not unlike walking down a hallway lined with doors. An obstacle presents itself, a door opens, and I'm n the next room. Or, I poke my head in an open door, step in, and it shuts behind me, perhaps. I became a band director not because I pursued the career path, but because someone suggested me for the job without my knowledge. I began writing columns for The Music and Sound Retailer, one of our trade publications, not because I applied and submitted an article, but because I wrote a letter to the editor. Adam Remson liked my writing style and asked me to do a guest editorial...and over a dozen years later, I still write a monthly column.And, thankfully, get paid to do it.

I would have been completely happy to be part of a successful team. I liked retail, I liked music gear, but I wanted to gig and play, not own a brick and mortar storefront. Working at a now-defunct store called Music City (later Ohio Guitar), I was introduced to the industry and liked the combination of customer contact, selling, gear, promotion, and music. It was multi-faceted, and I soon devoted far more than the hours I was paid for to help the store. It was a tough time in the mid-80s, lots of transitions, corporate dismantling, rapid technology shifts, etc., and the store struggled. The owner of that store wanted to make a pile of money, collect Corvettes, and work a less-than 40 hour week. I was a good fit for that, because I was happy to help and his relatively relaxed management style gave me freedom to experiment and inject my personality into the store.

Until things got tougher and he felt I was a financial drain on the store. I was a different kind of salesguy, too, and for a number of reasons he distanced me from the store and cut me off from day-to-day decision making. However, teachers in his store were unhappy with the way teachers and students were treated. One of them, Cheryl Fitiak, was done with it, and also angry on my behalf because it seemed as though he had me doing all the work of running the store for minimum wage. She said, "You should start your own store." I told her that was ridiculous. She pushed the issue, and said, "If you open a store, I will teach for you and bring my students with me."

That was the moment that began Skyline Music, some time in October, 1986. Whatever reservations I might have had (and honestly, I was too naive to really see all the challenges and pitfalls) was trumped by the fact that she believed in me enough that she was willing to risk her livelihood to follow me into the venture. With the exception of my wife, only one other person has had that level of belief, and I didn't meet her until almost 20 years into the project.