Creative roots and a positive impact
When Kevin Gilbaugh first met Tom Ribbecke, he was a 14-year-old Healdsburg High School freshman. He had been in trouble for setting fires and urinating in public.
“When I first saw him,” Ribbecke recalls, “he was a skinhead.”
Gilbaugh’s mother was desperate for help when she called the respected Healdsburg guitar maker. She told him her son had shown an interest in guitars, and she hoped he would be the answer to her prayers.
Ribbecke agreed to meet Gilbaugh in 2000 and hired the young man to sweep his custom guitar studio in Healdsburg, paying him $5 an hour. Eleven years later, they’re still together, a living example of what can be accomplished with patience, hard work and a little bit of faith.
Now 26, Gilbaugh has an Associates degree in electrical engineering and clocks 70-80 hours a week on two full-time jobs.
As a project manager at Voodoo Labs in Santa Rosa, he oversees nine others and as head of the setup department at Ribbecke Guitar Company in Windsor, he fits bridges, strings and tests the final products.
But the transformation didn’t happen overnight. Ribbecke was willing to weather some rough spots, including the time Gilbaugh and a coworker were arrested for stealing a golf cart in Disneyland. The charges were eventually dropped.
“They were so afraid to tell me,” Ribbecke said, “but besides being incredibly stupid, I told them at least they didn’t desert one another. At least they learned something from it.”
Another time Gilbaugh’s parents suspected him of using dangerous drugs, so they sent him to a Mexican self esteem camp for a year. Ribbecke was waiting for him when he returned.
“When he came back he looked like a regular kid,” said Ribbecke, 59. “That was when he really became open to a better path.”
Building a guitar by hand can take 125 hours, he said, “and you can lose yourself in the process. That’s why I think people who have a hard time concentrating really become enamored with it. It is almost addictive.”
Gilbaugh was fascinated and distracted by the work, he said. “I loved the stuff he was doing here. It was nice to have something to focus on that took me in a positive direction.”
In the early days, he said, “I still kept slacking off and getting in trouble, but it was less severe.” Ribbecke and his crew provided guidance and a supportive atmosphere that made him feel at home.
“We all have pet peeves that we hate about each other, but we all come together on a common goal,” he said.
Since Gilbaugh, Ribbecke has hired about 10 other troubled teens, generally recommended by his colleagues. He teaches them his craft, how to hold down a job and, when it’s time, helps them leave the nest.
“What we did here is create an environment where these guys could create their own culture and flourish in it and not feel like they are being pooped on in terms of who they are,” he said.
(See more photos of the Ribbecke Guitar Company)
When Mike Gutsch arrived at Ribbecke Guitar Company, he had trouble holding down a job. In retrospect, he said, “I think he was crazy for hiring me. Luckily, it worked out for him, but he didn’t know a thing about me.”
Gutsch now works as the company’s foreman and Ribbecke credits the familial environment with helping him thrive.
“The guys take a real pride in their work. They don’t want to let each other down,” said Daniela Ribbecke, who manages her father’s guitar company.
Getting fired is almost impossible, Ribbecke said, but in a few cases he has let people go who had deeper issues than he could help with. “We can’t have a crew where everyone is troubled at once,” he explained.
Kevin was able to turn his life around because the other guys on the crew had enough of him, Ribbecke said. “If I say to him and if everyone around him says, “it’s not okay” it really confronted him.”
Chip Norton focuses on sanding the base of the neck at the Ribbecke Guitar Co. in Windsor. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Ribbecke’s work with troubled teens attracted the attention of filmmakers John Bidleman and Thomas Harrigan of Guitar Planet Productions. They are now filming him as he works with his crew, hoping to produce a TV docu-reality show.
Bidleman met Ribbecke years ago when he had his Les Paul guitar repaired.
Now Bidleman studies the way Ribbecke teaches his crew by example.
“I have never seen Tom come in the room and tell someone not to do something,” he said. “They see Tom and he is just like them, but he is not causing trouble for himself. They think, ‘I don’t have to cause trouble for myself.’”
Ribbecke said he went to a Jesuit Catholic high school where he learned the importance of serving others. He thinks of his work as “a church for my spirituality.”
“At the end of my life, what have I done to change the planet? Not much, but I have creative roots and I can do something positive with that.”
“If you are lucky enough to know why you are here on the planet, then you have a certain blessing, and I have that gift. I could go and know that I was blessed to do what I was here to do.”
NOTE:
Tom Ribbecke is best known as a long-time Sonoma County luthier. He grew up in Brooklyn, and then joined his brother in San Francisco after graduating from Syracuse University.
He built his first guitar in college and, after years of performing in San Francisco clubs, he decided to move to Healdsburg to start a guitar making business with his friend Todd Taggart.
“I thought to myself that I probably put a million notes into the Cosmos in these clubs, and it would be nice to do something that I could leave on the planet after I am gone,” he said.
Ribbecke has since become world-famous, selling custom guitars to the likes of Seal, Bobby Vega and Bruce Foreman. His Blue Mingione guitar, named after friend Andy Mingione, was showcased in 1998 in the Smithsonian’s Chinery Collection.
At his Healdsburg studio, he still builds instruments for custom clients that cost as much as $30,000. He also has a public company in Windsor at which his crew builds a more affordable model of his patented high-end design, usually priced at $4,000-$6,000.
For more information about him and his companies, visit www.ribbecke.com.
Ribbecke also helped found a show for guitar makers that was originally held at the Villa Chanticleer in Healdsburg. The first year it attracted 60 makers and potential buyers who wanted to play and compare their creations.
Since 1995, the Healdsburg Guitar Festival has grown to nearly 140 craftsmen and now includes live performances. It is run by Luthiers Mercantile International, with the next event planned for Aug. 12-14 at the Hyatt Vineyard Creek in Santa Rosa.
contact me
