LSL Instruments

LsL was founded in 2008 by husband-and-wife couple Lance S. Lerman and Lisa S. Lerman in the garage of their home. Lance taught banjo in Berkeley, California in 1978. This would lead to Lance’s introduction to the guitar making business at Saga Musical Instruments in San Francisco as their first employee. He would later move to a position at a music store called The 5th String as an instrument repairman. A few years later he would start D&L Instruments with his partner, Joe Deetz where they made electric guitars and basses for a few years until Joe left the company. Eventually the company would be put out of business due to a burglary. Lance moved to Los Angeles in 1983 and start... (view more)

LSL Instruments - LsL was founded in 2008 by husband-and-wife couple Lance S. Lerman and Lisa S. Lerman in the garage of their home. Lance taught banjo in Berkeley, California in 1978. This would lead to Lance’s introduction to the guitar making business at Saga Musical Instruments in San Francisco as their first employee. He would later move to a position at a music store called The 5th String as an instrument repairman. A few years later he would start D&L Instruments with his partner, Joe Deetz where they made electric guitars and basses for a few years until Joe left the company. Eventually the company would be put out of business due to a burglary. Lance moved to Los Angeles in 1983 and started California Wood Products with the few tools that were too heavy for the burglars to steal. This led to 16 years in business with around 200 employees at what became Sequoia Wood Products until December, 1998. It was during this time that Lance and Lisa met each other at a woodworking convention in 1992, while Lisa was working for Cerwin-Vega as design director. After establishing a family with Lisa and his daughters in Los Angeles he made the difficult decision to go to China to continue manufacturing. He figured that if you can't beat them, you should join them, so he then went there with the intention of producing some furniture designs he had. It became apparent that if you were going to manufacture a high-quality product in China you had to be there to control the entire process and watch it closely. He spent eight years both building factories and running large furniture and woodworking operations in Shanghai and Dongguan. (view less)