[2] He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts.
He was five credits short of graduating when he left Stanford to work as an apprentice to a Norwegian boat builder.
In 1972, he founded Windham Hill Builders in Palo Alto while playing music for Stanford theater productions and performing impromptu concerts in town.
During that year, the label received national attention via the success of a piano album by George Winston entitled Autumn.
He then discovered guitarist Michael Hedges at a concert in Palo Alto and immediately signed him to the label.