I was born in Pasadena California, and grew up in Arcadia, next to Pasadena. When I was 12 years old I learned to play guitar, and it became my passion. I had a music group made up of a few local friends and neighbors during Jr. High, and High School. We played music by the Beatles, Traffic and the Stones. We used to play at parties and school events. I really enjoyed playing and writing songs. We weren't the best rock band in the world but we had a good time.
Just down the street in Pasadena lived some friends who also had a rock band. They were pretty darn good, even back then when they were playing for free in the park in Sierra Madre. The two brothers Eddie and Alex and a bass player called themselves Van Halen. Eddie borrowed my amp one time when his Marshall half stack blew up in the middle of a school dance. He plugged in his gold top Les Paul, turned it up all the way, and said, "Is that all???" with a disgusted look on his face. Eddie and his brother Alex used to fight all the time, cursing at each other and calling each other names.
On another occasion Van Halen came to listen to my band as we played in a "battle of the bands", to check out their local competition. We were just kids back then, trying to play like the great guitarists from England, Eric Clapton, Richie Blackmore, and many others. I didn't know that they would become so famous.
After High School I went to study architecture at the University of Southern California, and Van Halen went to Hollywood. I also studied classical guitar, and had a jazz guitar class with Lee Ritenour, the great jazz guitarist.
One summer I went to Spain and lived with a family in Madrid. At the end of the summer I could speak Spanish, mas o menos. Upon returning to L.A. I worked briefly at Paramount recording studios, and worked on the design of their new recording studio.
After this I moved to Mammoth Lakes California where I worked in design and construcion for 7 years. I also played guitar with a number of bands, including the country group the "white Buffalo Band." I played electric guitar, and pedal steel guitar.   We played outdoors that summer, on the patio of the Paradise Lodge restaurant, next to the stream that flowed along and under the restaurant.
It was during my time in Mammoth that I met Sam MacDuffee, a 73 year old carpenter who looked like Moses in a hard hat. The first time I met Sam he pulled up in a cloud of dust, got out of his old pickup and said, "Praise the Lord!" He handed me the cord to his skill saw and said, "Plug me into Hoover Dam!" While he worked he talked to me about the Bible, and about God. He really knew the bible well, from cover to cover, and he gave me biblical answers to any question I put to him. As time went on our friendship grew, and I began to see the truth of what he told me. After a year or so of Sam's friendship I also considered myself a Christian, and began the adventure that a relationship with God brings.
I began to feel the call to pursue my musical gifts and began taking correspondence classes from the Dick Grove School of Music in Studio City, California, close to Hollywood. After a year of correspondence classes I was admitted to the Composition and Arranging program at DGSM so in 1994 I closed my architecture office, and moved to L.A. to attend full time classes.
After much intense study and late nights I graduated with my degree in Composition and Arranging.The next few years I spent learning about recording, working on a number of personal albums. I also met Mike Post, a well know TV composer who was doing a whole slew of shows such as Magnum P.I., Hunter, and many other detective type shows. I used to go their recording sessions at very large recording studios in Hollywood and Universal City. Mike had the best musicians in the world playing in his orchestra, including Lee Sklar and on bass and guitar. A typical orchestra had around 40 musicians in it, including strings, woodwinds, drums, percussionists, and two guitarists and up to three keyboard players. They would record the music in two or three takes.
In Arcadia I was part of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. We were a fun group of zealous young believers anxious to serve the Lord. I played on the worship team, and went on ministry trips to England, Scotland, South Africa, South Carolina, and finally to Ecuador, in South America.
I arrived in Ecuador in April of 1988 with the pastor Tom Griner and a team of missionaries. We taught a seminar at a local bible college where I met a nice young Ecuadorian lady named Zulay. I came back to Ecuador in August, and we were engaged in December of 1988. We were married in Quito in April lf 1989, and went to live in Sierra Madre, Ca.
I built a house in Arcadia, and recorded an album of Christian music with arranger Smitty Price and guitarist Marty Walsh. After two years in L.A. Zulay and I decided to move to Quito in april of 1991.
We packed our bags and landed April 11th, exactly two years after we left. After 6 months in Quito I got the vision of doing a recording studio, and record company. Our church in Ecuador, Iglesia Verbo, gave me some space in their building in Quito, and I designed and built a two room recording studio there. This was a real convergence of my experience and gifts- music, design, acoustics, business, Spanish, composition, recording, administration, and Christianity. I called my record company Arbol Records. Arbol means tree in Spanish.
Arbol grew and after a few years we had a top-notch team of recording engineers, an arranger, secretary, bookkeeper, and graphic artist. We also did cassette tape duplication. I produced and recorded dozens of Christin artists, and we duplicated hundreds of thousands of cassette tapes. (I closed down Arbol in the year 2000)
In 1994 I went to visit a missionary friend of mine who lived near us in Quito. He told me he was going back home and gave me an exacto knife, a tiny exacto saw, and a book called "How to Make an Acoustic Guitar." I read the book and began to think about making guitars. And I began to pray about it too.
The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.
I began to put out word that I was going to make guitars and when I arrived at my office on the 2nd of January 1995 there were two guys waiting for me outside. Hernan Bermeo, and a young fellow named Milton. We began with a few hand tools to learn how to make fine guitars, and have been on a constant program of self improvement since. Fortunately Quito has favorable conditions for making guitars, a dry stable climate, and fine tropical hardwoods. We were the only company making electric guitars in Ecuador.
We began making solid body electrics, then branched out to bass guitars, and finally to classical and acoustic guitars. Hernan likes to experiment, and we have been on a constant quest to improve the sound and appearance of our instruments.
Today we have a pretty complete wood shop, with standard woodworking machines, jigs, and tools. We have a trained team of luthiers who love what they do, taking pride in every guitar they build. If you look inside one of our instruments you may find Hernan's signature, or perhaps that of Cergio, Stalin or Wilson.We have also had the priveledge of working with some fine South American musicians, such as Claudio Duran, Hugo Idrovo, Hector Napolitano, Juan Fernando Velasco, Ivis Flies, Wendy Lopez, the Pop Stars, and many more.
It's kind of like a dream to grow up and have a guitar factory. I am amazed at what God has done in my life. I give Him all the credit for what we have accomplished. Of course, we wouldn't have been able to do it without the labor of love of many people, among them Hernan Bermeo, Sandra Mora, Gonzalo Ochoa and many others who have shared the vision of building fine guitars in Ecuador. It has been a privilege to work with such fine people.

Blessings,
Bob Vogel