Strings

Jim Ransom is the Chairman of the Board for United Wire Technology, which is located in Cleveland, New York.  The company was established in 1938, during the Great Depression.  United gained early success for creating kitchen scrubbing products, but soon ventured into several other industries providing a wide range of wire products.  For their music wire products, United provides nickel plated copper; silver plated copper, brass and phosphor bronze, among others.  Jim was on hand during the 2013 NAMM Show to receive the NAMM Milestone Award for United Wire’s 75th year in business.

Maryann Sfarzo has always loved singing! She is fondly remembered in the Baldwin NAMM booth alongside Lowell Simpson as Mr. & Mrs. Baldwin. The two entertained attendees with songs as Lowell played the latest Baldwin product. With her husband, Ron, the couple opened a music store in San Francisco and currently own Nicola Strings along with their son Chris. Maryann and Ron proudly perform together whenever they can, creating a cabaret act that they started before the 2020 pandemic, and have since resumed!

Ron Sfarzo may be the only interviewee within the NAMM Oral History collection who served as a police officer in California!  Ron has been involved with music his entire life, with both his father and brother involved with music retail.  While working in his brother’s San Francisco store, Ron was asked to provide demonstration for the Wurlitzer Company.  He worked with Wurlitzer and Baldwin Piano before serving on the police force in Menlo Park, California.  After his retirement from the force, Ron, along with his wife, returned to keyboard retail in the Bay Area.

Rick Thompson worked in a metal stamping company before learning of the opening at Ken-tron Mfg., Inc. in Owensboro, Kentucky. The company has two divisions, the metal stamping side and the wire side, which developed into making the wire for musical instrument strings in the 1980s. Rick came on board in 1987 as a quality control manager and later moved into sales. It was there that he took an interest in both sides of the business. In 2012, the owner of Ken-tron, Bob Hudson, asked Rick if he would become the company’s president, and so he did. Under his leadership, the string divi

Otto Werner grew up surrounded by music. His dad, a violin maker in Schönbach, produced violins at home and sold them in Markneukirchen while his aunt worked at Junger Company, the main producer of strings in Schönbach. After 1946, she resettled first in Tennenlohe, then in Bubenreuth once the Junger Company was able to reestablish production in West Germany following WWII. A young Otto went to visit his relatives in Bubenreuth when his Uncle Josef Glaßl, who had established a business producing tuning pegs, suggested he could stay with them and learn the craft of wood working. Af