"I have been tuning organs since I was 20 years old, and I started the business in Orange 15 years ago. Mainly we tune, service and maintain tracker organs, like this one we are servicing today in St. Joseph's Chapel (at the College of Holy Cross). This organ was one of the first jobs I had in Massachusetts. We come here at least six times a year to maintain it. The other part of the business is rebuilding organs. The last big job we had was finished last October where we added a third manual (keyboard) to a 2 manual Steere & Turner organ in Willimantic, Connecticut. That was a 10 month job, and we basically enlarged that organ by 30 to 40 percent."

What is a tracker organ?

"Trackers are quarter-inch wooden pieces, that can be anywhere from a few inches long to 15 feet long that connect the keys of the organ to the valves that release air to the pipes."

How big or small are the pipes?

"Pipes can be a couple inches high up to 30 feet high."

How did you enter this field?

"I discovered this by accident although I am following the family tradition of woodworking. At the time, I was working for a church in Germany and was asked to pick up a display cabinet that a member of the church had made. He was an organ builder. I walked into the factory and there was an organ ready to be shipped. I was very impressed with that."

Skills, training needed?

"In Germany, an organ builder is a professional trade, like hairdresser or mechanic, and I signed an apprenticeship contract with a company for 3-1/2 years. Apprenticeship includes 12 weeks per year of schooling. It was low wages but good training. At the end we had exams, theoretical and practical, where you had to build something. I made a small organ with 7 pipes. Then I moved to the U.S. to Eugene, Oregon, where there was a very good organ builder. Other skills you need-woodworking, sheet metal, metal fabrication, low voltage electricity, acoustics, music theory, mechanical engineering and leather working."

Leather working?

"The bellows in a pipe organ that are needed to produce and regulate the wind pressure need flexible joints, therefore the leather. Leather is also needed to make tight seals and leather is the part of the organ that deteriorates the fastest. In the cities, you might have to replace the leather parts every 30 or 40 years, in the country, 100 years or more. Templeton has an organ that has the original leather from over 100 years ago. If they don't feed the church mice they will pay dearly for that!"

Strange things you have found in organs or pipes?

"One of the peculiarities of this organ (at St. Joseph's Chapel) is the moths that make their way into the pipes. I find them only in this one. When somebody plays, they try to fly away, but the air vibrations makes them flutter down to the bottom and I have to pull them out. Also, birds, they get into a church and fall into the pipes. We did take one out alive, but most of them are not by the time I get to them. One time we opened the door up in the steeple and out flies an owl, he must have been as scared of me as I was of him!"

Old or famous organs that you have worked on?

"We service the organ at Old North Church in Boston. It still has some of the original parts, but it is mostly casework. The Mechanics Hall organ in Worcester has a lot of the original parts and I believe it was installed in 1863. It's a big one, 4 manuals and I estimate about 85 percent is still the original. The biggest enemy of organs is fashion. If a church wants a different sound, they throw away a perfectly good organ, but if a church is poor they keep the one they have for a long time. There is an organ I worked on in Europe that was built in 1688 and it was all original, maybe one or two parts had been rebuilt."

Best part of your job?

"There are always new challenges. It's never the same each day."

Worst part of your job?

"Working on old instruments that haven't been cleaned in 50 years, with no lights, no space to move, that can be irritating. Sometimes you have to work on an old organ and have to slide past mouse skeletons and work by feel."

What have you learned from this job?

"The longer we do maintenance on an instrument, the better we get to know it. Each instrument is custom built and different. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. The better you get to know an instrument, the more efficient it's tuning and service work will be."

Compiled by: Correspondent Lynne Klaft

To be featured in or to suggest a job profile, send information to Bob Kievra, Telegram & Gazette, Box 15012, Worcester, MA 01615-0012, or send an e-mail to rkievra@telegram.com.

ART: PHOTO

CUTLINE: Stefan Maier of Orange, who tunes and maintains organs, holds one of almost 3,000 reed pipes from the tracker organ at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester.

PHOTOG: T&G Staff/CHRISTINE PETERSON