We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mark Turley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mark below.

Hi Mark, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Summer School Electronics was a hobby during the 2020 shutdown that turned into a new growing business. I have been a musician for the last 20+ years, and public school teacher for the past 11 years. Prior to the pandemic, I was a math AIS (Academic Intervention Services) and Special Education teacher at Lyncourt School in Syracuse, NY. On weekends I would often be playing gigs with one of my bands (Bridge Under Fire, My So-Called Band, and Against The Giants). When the world shutdown, I began teaching remotely and live performances were put on hold.

With my new-found free time, I was looking for a new hobby. I ordered a BYOC (Build Your Own Clone) guitar pedal kit. I spent hours building this pedal and testing and problem solving as I built it. Once completed, I bought another kit to try, and a friend from a band who I had played a gig with, who had the same hobby, reached out to lend some advise to building. Over the next year I would build 100 clones for myself, and for friends who wanted special orders. I began selling some pedals online to fund more projects, all the while researching and reading about the science behind circuits.

In the Summer of 2021, I took my first steps at modifying designs to create my own circuit. This lead to my first release the Gus-Drive, named after my dog Gus. I called this new venture Summer School Electronics as a play on me being a teacher and pedal building being my Summer job. over the next year I would build and release more designs that would get sold in stores as well as online. Industry publications began to reach out and word quickly spread. At the end of 2022, one pedal, The Science Fair was awarded top 10 pedals of the year on a couple review lists. In April, we are going the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) in Anaheim to display our products and network. That brings us up to about where we are right now.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I have been a musician for the last 25 years (wow, that seems long). I have always been a gear-head, and researched new products for guitar, bass, drums, recording gear, live sound etc. While always being a gigging musician, I became a teacher a little over 10 years ago, and currently teach math AIS grades 2-8 and special education. During the summer of the 2020 shutdown when I had no gigs, and school was out, I began building guitar pedal kits and researching how they work. This led to modifying and going down the rabbit hole to eventually building my own designs. As live performances restarted, this provided an opportunity to test new models and explore new problems that needed fixing as i released new guitar pedals.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We do manufacture our pedals, however our supplies come from a variety of suppliers from around the globe. When I first began building, I was using pre-made kits that included all of the necessary materials. A friend of mine from another band told me that he had been building pedals on a small scale for himself, and provided me with some suppliers I hadn’t heard from. Once I started exploring these options, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities and ways to save money by buying in bulk. many of the manufacturing lessons were learned along the way through trial and error, and reverse engineering other companies pedals to learn why they were assembled in the ways they were. This provided insight into way to save time, money, and allow for repairs when needed.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I built clones of popular pedals and sold them as an initial hobby. Once I decided to start the business, I bought $300 worth of parts to build 12 pedals. I wanted one for me, and assumed the other 11 would sit on a shelf and be a funny story one day. Initially we got 13 orders, so naturally more had to be made. Since then the business has been self-sufficient with steady growth.

Contact Info:

• Website: summerschoolelectronics.com
• Instagram: summerschoolelectronics
• Facebook: summerschoolelectronics
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@summerschoolelectronics527

Image Credits
Photos by Mark Turley and Krystal Turley