Sherman spent most of his growing up years as a missionary’s kid in Sri Lanka and then Southwest Michigan. His dad is a trumpet player, graduating from WSU. But he spent most of his life as a Christian minister and missionary. His mother was an elementary school teacher.
Sherman started piano lessons when he was 6 years old. But that was only because his father insisted he play the piano before he would start trumpet lessons. At age 10, he was finally able to start learning the trumpet. Sherman’s father was an orchestral player and from the very first exercises, he had to play in every single key signature. To his dad, there was no such thing as a hard key -- only unfamiliar ones. By 7th grade, Sherman added an interest in classical guitar.
Sherman studied Electrical Engineering at Walla Walla University and then attended graduate school at University of Washington. But music was always a passion. He split a lot of his time between the design labs and the music practice rooms.
After leaving college, his playing time was off-and-on. Prior to joining our band, Sherman played with the Eastside Symphony Orchestra for 6 years. He hasn’t played a lot of solos lately with a live backup, but he does enjoy playing for churches and worship services. Sherman works as an embedded firmware engineer for Microsoft where he designs high-speed computing chips. His daughter and her husband live in Malawi, Africa. His son and his wife live across the Sound in Poulsbo, WA. So it is just his wife, Shirley, and Sherman at home now, where they enjoy hiking, photography, and good music. When asked about interesting facts about himself, Sherman states, “I seem to have unintentionally developed quite a collection of vintage trumpets.”
