Those irons in the fire have always been there - even through my adult life." 

At the tender age of five, Gordon Wilson Holley began his piano studies in his hometown, Battle Creek, Michigan.  By the age of ten, he was studying trombone, and at age twelve, percussion. His appetite for music didn't end there. In high school, Gordon was drum major of the marching band, and was student director of the well known Battle Creek Central High School A Cappella choir, directed by Alfred "Pops" Richards. Obtaining a piano/voice scholarship, Gordon then attended Western Michigan University, majoring in music. 

Outside the scholastic scene, Gordon organized and directed the first marching band in the U.S. Air National Guard at the 172nd Fighter Interceptor Wing, at Kellogg Field in Battle Creek. He has directed several church choirs and youth musical groups, was pianist with the Elkhart County Symphony at Pops Concerts, and taught piano and music theory to area high school students. One of these students, Robert Spano, is now music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. 

"In 1957, after Sandy and I were married, I was working full time at the guard base, playing in bands two to four nights a week in local clubs in and around Battle Creek. But, from the time we left BC in 1969 and until our last move in 1972, I hadn't played in any bands - although, I did involve myself with the community arts and entertainments activities, such as little theater or high school summer school programs. 

"It wasn't until 1975, when I again became involved with local musicians and bands, playing piano in a 16-piece big band. I also played in small groups, directed by other leaders. Then, in 1980, I organized a 4-piece combo and played locally.

"In 1990, after Shelly (my daughter) and her husband moved from Bloomington (IU), to South Bend, Indiana, I finally organized my present 7-piece band." 

Family Man

Gordon married his childhood sweetheart, Sandra Louise Rozell, in 1957. They were blessed with three daughters - Cynthia Louise (Fred), now living in Elkhart, Indiana, married, with two girls and twin boys; Teressa Louise, who was killed in an auto accident at age 15; and Michelle Louise (Cowling), now living in Granger, Indiana, married, with one daughter and one son. Gordon lost Sandra to cancer in 1975. 

Finding love once again, Gordon married his present wife, Christine, in 1995. Between them, they have a total of seven children and fourteen grandchildren. The couple have been busily redecorating their Goshen, Indiana, home for the past seven years and share a love of gardening and landscaping. Attentive grandparents, Gordon and Christine are spectators at all of their grandchildren's various sports events and are called upon frequently as babysitters for their large brood. 

Christine was raised in Munich, Germany, along with two brothers and three sisters. She recalls vividly the bombings of her native city during WWII by both British and American armies. She followed her sisters to the U.S. at age nineteen. She and Gordon share many things in common, including the painful loss of their first spouses, who both died of cancer.
 
 
 

Businessman/Architectural Designer

Gordon's business career has taken him to Beijing, China; Mexico City, Mexico; London, England; three provinces of Canada; and from coast-to-coast throughout the U.S., where he has made presentations to upper echelon government officials on housing and development projects. Here's how it began: 

At age 18, Gordon signed up with the Michigan Air National Guard at Kellogg Field in Battle Creek. (Several other BCCH classmates also joined at this time. Gordon remembers two of them with certainty: Jim Sherman and Jerry Hull.) During the summer of 1956, Gordon applied for full time employment with ANG, and was assigned to the training section responsible for signing new recruits.

He was also responsible for enrolling personnel in educational programs sponsored by the Air Force. Through the ANG contacts, Gordon was able to investigate his own fields of interest, and enrolled in Architectural Design and several extended math studies courses with ICS, Scranton, PA. After completion of these studies in 1962, Gordon then enrolled in an ICS Business and Production Management course, which he completed in 1966. 

Applying his acquired skills, Gordon designed several homes that were built in Battle Creek in the 1960's. 

In February, 1963, Gordon began working as a draftsman at Divco-Wayne, Inc., a manufacturer housing company. He was soon quickly promoted to the position of Product Designer, which offered him the opportunity to focus on his specialty field: architectural design. In 1967, Gordon once more was promoted - this time to Engineering and Design Manager for a five-plant division, with offices in Union City. That same year, Boise Cascade Corporation bought the manufactured housing company from Divco-Wayne and began an ambitious plant expansion program. A new plant was established in Middleburg, PA, and Gordon was recommended as its production manager. 

Gordon, Sandy, and their three daughters moved to Middleburg, where they stayed until 1971, when another housing manufacturer enticed Gordon to move to Omaha, NE, as Manager of Special Products. This project was interesting and multi-faceted. Gordon took it from its inception, created the preliminary drawings, compiled the costs and quotations of the project, negotiated the contracts, then supervised both product manufacturing, as well as on-site construction of the final structures. These structures were varied: from a small hospital, to temporary housing for students at a college in Kansas that had been hit by a tornado. They included cafeterias, law library, infirmary, dorms, and administrative buildings. A similar project was done by Gordon for students at the University of Maine in Bangor. 

In the meantime, a scout from the manufactured housing industry was looking for someone to fill a desirable position as Director of Engineering and Design for a Goshen, Indiana, based operation. Gordon's reputation for workmanship preceded him, and he was offered the job. Once again, family in tow, Gordon returned to Indiana. 

The past twenty-eight years in Goshen have been fast paced, which is just what the doctor ordered for Gordon. Presently, he is Operations Manager of Hi-Tech Housing, Inc., in Bristol, Indiana. This requires Gordon to wear many hats - supervising Human Relations, Cost Accounting, Quality Assurance, and Safety and Environmental areas.

Keyword: VERSATILITY!

Not only is Gordon Holley an accomplished musician and designer, he is also an accomplished photographer. Twenty-six of his mounted and framed B/W photos of Jazz Greats have been displayed for audiences attending area-wide Jazz Festivals. 

Oh, and lest we forget: between 1958 and 1962, Gordon played a real-life role as a Private Investigator (a/k/a "gumshoe"), for The Fat Man Detective Agency, operated by Ted Grevers in Battle Creek, Michigan. 

........Mozart 007??

The Arranger Penning compositions and arrangements is truly a "lost art." Mozart and Beethoven both used a quill pen for their work, and the big band greats of the '40s used pens, pencils - whatever was at hand. Glenn Miller quite often "scratched" out his arrangements on a tablecloth or napkin, before transferring it into legible form for his band.  Gordon has returned to the classic method, by penning his arrangements with a calligrapher's pen. This example of "Serenade in Blue" illustrates his remarkably fine workmanship!

"When I'm writing music for my band, I can get totally wrapped up in a new arrangement, and some of the arrangements can take up to 30 hours. You know, sitting at a piano and working out the melody with the chords and then voicing the accompaniment with two horns, a guitar player, a bass player and myself on piano. After all the pencil draft work, I copy it all over with a calligraphy pen on manuscript paper. It's a bit of a lost art, as most arrangers today work at a computer and print the music off on their printers. It's just not the same. And, I believe that's what makes it worth all the effort. Other musicians, that sometimes sit in with the band, look at the music and comment on how neat it looks. 

I remember the first time, in the spring of 1990, I contracted an arranger in Chicago to write a special arrangement for my daughter to sing. The guy was working off a CD I furnished him, and I told him I wanted the arrangement to sound just like the music on the CD. Well, he took about eight weeks to write the arrangement, between a lot of other stuff he was doing, and when I got the arrangement and the bill for $670.00, I quickly told myself that I was going to learn how to write my own arrangements in the future.

Today, with the 30 hours spent on a special arrangement, it can mount up to $700.00 of my own time. In ten years, I've written over 700 arrangements. You could do the math on the investment in my music library."

Jazz Lift International was established and organized by Theodore "Ted" Grevers, for the purpose of sending jazz recordings to fans living behind the Iron Curtain. Individuals in photo (L-R): Henry Skorupski, vice-president; Gordon Holley, Battle Creek chairman; Pee Wee Hunt, jazz trombonist; and Ted Grevers, project organizer