Dan Bowman is one of those rare and fortunate individuals who knew early on exactly what he wanted to do with his life. As a boy, Dan got into model building and by age 12 his highly detailed model cars, planes and houses were winning juried competitions. Dan was greatly inspired by the guitar playing of Chet Atkins.

After high school, Dan moved to Phoenix, AZ to study his craft at the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery where he built the first Bowman guitars in 1981. Feeling the need to expand his knowledge of woodworking, Dan went to work in a small Amish furniture shop handcrafting and carving solid wood furniture and later, a boat shop, building and restoring wooden boats.

Since then, Dan’s personal and professional life has revolved around the guitar, designing, building and repairing them as well as teaching and performing. Over the years he has built custom instruments for Chicago area manufacturers and many music industry veterans, taking on unique design challenges as well. Nearly forty years of experience have given Dan a great deal of knowledge and insight on guitar design and construction which he now shares through luthiery classes at GTR, a boutique guitar shop and school that he opened with Roger Lambrechts in 2015.

On most days you can find Dan in his favorite place; in his shop, working out the details of his latest guitar. “After all these years I’m still very passionate about my work. I can’t think of anything that I’d rather be doing other than handcrafting an acoustic guitar.”