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The Piano Technicians Playground

We will have workstations available for attendees to practice and refine regulating and repair skills. We will also have a "string breaking" station with a real piano to work with.

Jim Busby

Jim Busby has worked as a concert technician for Snow College in Utah, for over 26 years, and simultaneously at Brigham Young University for the last 13 years. Receiving extensive training from Yamaha, Steinway and Kawai has given Jim a unique perspective that few technicians have been afforded. He has taught music as an adjunct teacher at Northland Pioneer College in Arizona, then at Snow College for nearly 30 years. Jim also has a large clientele of private customers and runs a small rebuilding shop

Jim’s experience in education, coupled with his high level piano technician skills, have helped him become a sought after instructor at Piano Technician Guild conventions, Master Piano Technician conventions, regional PTG conferences, and local meetings, Jim believes the Piano Technician Tutorials and eBooks are an effective way to disseminate correct techniques and methods to those who, like Jim, continually seek to improve their skills and better serve their clients.

David Stocker

David Stocker, RPT is a lifelong resident of the Olympia, WA area. After studying music theory, David moved to Europe to work for five years with Youth With A Mission in Switzerland, France, and Germany, learning French and German. He served as a musician and a cabinet maker.

Returning home to Olympia he began studying piano technology as an apprentice with John Grace, RPT in 1982. John was a graduate of the Emil Fries Piano Hospital. David immediately joined PTG and became an RPT in 1984. Tuning, rebuilding, moving, buying and selling pianos are all parts of his business.

He has served in chapter offices and helped run regional conferences in various capacities. At the encouragement of former RVP’s and past PTG presidents, David made himself available to serve as PNWRVP in 2017 and served for five years. He is currently the president of the Puget Sound chapter of the PTG. David opens his shop one day a week for those wanting to learn more about piano technology and how to run a business.

Ryan Sowers

Ryan joined PTG in 1992. In 1997 he became a CTE and is currently an active tuning examiner. He has completed Yamaha's Little Red Schoolhouse, five Steinway factory seminars, a week with Shigeru Kawai, and two weeklong seminars with Steinway at Oberlin Conservatory. Full service is his passion and he loves making everyday pianos awesome!

Starting in 2021 Ryan began teaching at the PTG Annual Conventions and will be Teaching "Voicing Every Day" at the 2025 Annual Convention in Des Moines, Iowa.

"My emphasis is incorporating regulating and voicing into everyday piano service. This can add tremendous value to your appointments, as well as put you on a path of mastery through every day practice of these skills.".

Nathan Jensen

I am a Registered Piano Technician in the Seattle Chapter of the Piano Technician Guild and head technician of Prosser Piano and Organ in Shoreline. I began piano tuning while in high school in Southern California where my parents, both Lutheran pastors, knowing I would be majoring in music, bought my first tools and said, “You'd better learn a trade.”

I went to college at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma in the late ‘80’s with a major of musical composition, graduated at The Evergreen State College in Olympia in ‘92. Moving to Olympia in the summer of ’89, I stopped at John Grace's piano shop and asked if he could use an apprentice. “No, I've already got an apprentice,” he said while assembling the action of an upright in front of me. “Besides, I'm thinking of retiring.” (Thirty years later John gave a presentation on piano moving to the Seattle PTG Chapter!)

After moving to Seattle in 2000 I happened upon what would turn out to be my apprenticeship in piano tuning and repair. In 2005, upon going from being a full time church musician to a half time church musician, I decided to take a leap of faith and become a professional piano technician.

I joined the PTG, Seattle Chapter, in 2010, much later than I should have. This dramatically increased my learning and understanding in piano technology. In 2014 I became RPT. In 2015 the Seattle PTG Chapter newsletter editor. In 2022 the chapter president.

In addition to this, I play violin in two different orchestras, ring tower bells at the University of Washington, conduct choir and play organ for St. John United Lutheran Church in Seattle. I compose crossword puzzles, write Christmas Pageants, pen short stories and novels, and I love puzzles, especially in the form of pianos and instrument repair. And my pandemic instruments are the cornet, the clarinet and the Celtic harp.

Jordan Cook

Jordan is currently the Treasurer of the Seattle Chapter and a welcome addition to The Piano Technicians Guild. Jordan began apprenticing as a piano tuner with Loren Kelley in 2017 and as a piano technician with Phil Glenn in 2018 after acquiring a 1925 Steinway Model L that had been in a house fire and subsequently doused with salt water from a Puget Sound fire barge.

From that time until 2023, Jordan worked with Ed McMorrow to restore the piano with new strings, bridges, pin block, custom-fitted WNG carbon fiber action, and Ed’s LightHammer Tone Regulation. The lid, still charred from the fire, remains to be finished. Jordan is currently restoring a Steinway World War II Victory Vertical under Ed McMorrow’s mentorship. Thanks to Dan Skelley, a second Victory Vertical project, the Piano of An Unknown Soldier, awaits in queue.

Jordan is an internationally known gouache watercolor artist who has been painting since she was two years old. A prodigy in art, her work has been featured on television, radio, and in American Girl Magazine. Her work is hanging in the Children’s Holocaust Museum at Terezin in the Czech Republic, Prague, and has been shown at the Matterhorn in Switzerland, in Israel, Morocco, Africa, China, at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv, Ukraine, and across Europe. Locally, at age nine, she had a joint gallery showing with the late Fred Oldfield at the Western Heritage Museum Art Gallery in Puyallup, WA, and was interviewed at age eight by KMPS radio personality Ichabod Caine and the Waking Crew. At age 12, she participated in a concert of the late classical pianist Kim Clement at King David’s Tower in Israel, and at age 17, taught a workshop on The Art of Creativity at a conference held at the vacation home of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Currently, Jordan makes her own paint from foraged minerals, lichens, clays, and plants.

Aaron Heppler

Aaron Heppler has been a piano technician since 1999, when his wife Elizabeth convinced him to leave the IT industry and pursue piano technology. She provided not only the inspiration but also the training! Over the years, Aaron has built extensive expertise in moving, servicing, rebuilding, and selling pianos and owns a thriving piano retail and service business.

Aaron has held multiple leadership roles within the Piano Technicians Guild, including serving as President of the Montana Chapter (twice) and Pacific Northwest Regional Vice President from 2022 to 2024. He has also actively contributed to the National Institute Committee, working on the piano moving team at over 12 conventions.

Certified as a PianoDisc installer since 2002, Aaron is passionate about blending technology with traditional piano craftsmanship. In addition to modern player systems, he has a deep interest in troubleshooting and maintaining older electronic player pianos, even those for which parts are no longer available.

Max Biggs

Max is currently a Registered Piano Technician his time between the Yakima Valley and the greater Portland, Oregon area. He is a self taught technician who has had many influential mentors in his career: Tim Nixon (Graduate of New England Conservatory now Bennet Street School), Joe Garrett (Co writer of Randy Potter School of Piano Technology), Taylor Mackinnon (past present President of Piano Technician Guild), Michael Reiter (head technician at UO), Dahr-Wynn Blakemore, Linda Scott.

Max currently is one of the few technicians in the Pacific Northwest that works on historic instruments as well as modern instruments and is actively delving deeper into harpsichord and historic forte-piano building and maintenance.

Max continues to grow in his skillset as he’s taken on serious piano rebuilding (excluding replacing whole soundboards) and historical piano reconditioning/conservation work over the last 5 year period working with Joe Garrett. Max works as a first call technician for the Portland Columbia Symphony orchestra, Yakima Symphony Orchestra, as well as smaller concert series organizers, theater productions, and music companies. Max has worked with Yakima Valley College, Most Yakima Schools, Longview Kelso School District, the Beaverton School District, and collaborated tuning and repair work on pianos for the Hillsboro School District with Taylor Mackinnon. He also worked on pianos for Central Washington University and collaborated on pianos at Pacific University with Linda Scott.

Max is often hired by a handful of independent tuners in the greater Portland area to solve and complete complex repairs and take on projects that others are less enthusiastic about (e.g. birdcage pianos, square pianos, trapwork rebuilding, touchup work, bridge repair, oddity work, ...). All to say he's a technician who loves what he does

Loren Kelley

Loren is an RPT and a member of the Puget Sound Chapter, and has been servicing pianos in the South Puget Sound area since 2008. He has built two harpsichords, and servicing harpsichords is one of his specialties. He learned the trade from Steve Brady. Loren sings as a tenor in the Puget Sound Revels, which produces a Christmas musical every year at the Rialto Theater in Tacoma, among other events.

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