About My Company, D. Rickert Musical Instruments
My company, D. Rickert Musical Instruments, formally established in 2008, is based in Hiawassee, Georgia, USA. It grew out of my design research consultancy, Don Rickert Design. Both are DBAs (“Doing Business As”) of Wiederholt & Rickert Partners, LLC, a Georgia Limited Liability Corporation, established in 2006. We are an established and well-known maker of high-end bespoke stringed instruments, primarily of the bowed variety (violins and fiddles, octave violins, violas and violoncellos da spalla) to date. We have also made a number of mandolin family one-offs in the past 15 years.
In anticipation of our full-throttle entry into the mandolin family and related instrument space described below, I have teamed up with Dr. Randy Hale, an up-and-coming builder of high-end custom guitars. Randy, who guitars are branded “J. Hale”, is also a song writer and publishing agent for a number of fiction writers. Before becoming a professional luthier, he had a long career as an educator, whose service included Principal of Towns County (Georgia) High School and Superintendent of Schools, Savannah, Georgia (USA).
Our Hiawassee, Georgia (USA) workshops, which are located literally 1/3 mile from each other, sit on the edge of the Southern Nantahala Wilderness. This is part of the Appalachian Mountains. In other words, we are in the heart of the Southern Appalachians, the birthplace of Old-Time music.