Tom Scholz

Donald Thomas Scholz (born March 10, 1947) is an American musician. He is the founder and only constant original member of the rock band Boston. A multi-instrumentalist, Scholz plays guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums and has also performed backing vocals live.

Scholz is an MIT-trained engineer who designed and built his own recording studio in an apartment basement in the early 1970s. A fan of rock music throughout his teen years, Scholz began writing songs while earning his master's degree at MIT. The first Boston album was mostly recorded in his basement studio, primarily using devices he invented. After the success of Boston, he founded Scholz Research & Development, Inc. to develop and market his inventions, many under the Rockman brand. Scholz holds several patents related to his work at SR&D over the years.

He was described by AllMusic as an "un-rock n' roll" figure who did not enjoy the limelight of being a performer, preferring to concentrate on music, production, and inventing new electronic equipment. In more recent years, he has dedicated much of his money and time to charitable work.

Tom Scholz was born in Toledo, Ohio, and raised in the suburb of Ottawa Hills. His father, Don Scholz, was a homebuilder who became wealthy from his designs of prefabricated luxury houses and founded Scholz Design, the forerunner of Scholz Homes Inc.

As a child, Scholz studied classical piano. He also had a penchant for tinkering with everything from go-karts to model airplanes and was always building or designing. A top student and a member of the varsity basketball team, he graduated from Ottawa Hills High School in 1965. Before his musical career, Scholz received both a bachelor's degree (1969) and a master's degree (1970) in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked for Polaroid Corporation as a senior product design engineer.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.