Richard Hoover
Santa Cruz Guitars
San Francisco, CA USA
"If you do the right thing, you treat people really well, and you stick to your moral compass, then success will come."
Career Roadmap
Richard's work combines: Design, Music, and Working with Others
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Advice for getting started
More specialized training is available today to learn how to make guitars. Apprentice with a maker to learn the basic skills and hone your style.
Here's the path I took:
High School
Associate's Degree
College of the Sequoias
Life & Career Milestones
I've taken a lot of twists and turns
1.
Says he started playing guitar for "the same reason everybody starts playing guitar-to attract the attention of a girl or a boy."
2.
While looking at his guitar one day, realized he wanted to know how to make them; started taking his guitars apart.
3.
At one point, his guitar was stolen; when he went to a shop to get a new one, he took one of the guitar builders as his mentor.
4.
He'd study with the luthier every week; his mentor made him promise he'd pass his new knowledge on to other people.
5.
His guitar-building business initially wasn't doing well; he put the last of his savings into advertising his guitars.
6.
The ad caught the eye of Eric Clapton, who asked Hoover to build him a custom-sounding guitar-that became his big break.
7.
During the recession in 2008, people weren't buying guitars, and Hoover had to reevaluate his business.
8.
Realized he'd been focusing on profit over product; flipped that, focused on his product and his work ethics first, and gradually the business recovered.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Myself:
What are my friends and family going to think about my decision to build guitars?
How I responded:
A huge source of my anxiety in life is when I'm worried about other peoples expectations of me. I don't think I'll ever overcome that, but I have learned not to worry about it.