Ian Edlund, founder and owner of String Instrument Specialists, is a nationally-recognized music educator who recently retired from the North Thurston School District in Lacey, Washington, after a distinguished thirty-five year career.

From 1970 until 1997, Mr. Edlund was Music Director and Conductor of The Olympia Symphony Orchestra, developing this organization into one of the most repected community orchestras in the Northwest. His work with the Olympia Symphony and his leadership in the South Sound arts scene was recognized by Washington Governor Gary Locke in 1997.

Mr. Edlund has been secretary-treasurer and president of the Washington String Teachers' Association and president of Southwest Washington Music Educators. He has served as both organizing chairman and local chairman of Washington All-State Orchestras, and is a busy adjudicator and clinician throughout the Northwest and Canada. He is a national artist clinician for the Scherl and Roth string instrument division of Conn-Selmer Corporation.

Since 1990, Mr. Edlund has directed the Birch Bay String Workshop, a comprehensive week of activities for string teachers. This unique workshop is held during the first week of August each year in Ferndale, Washington, enrolls over fifty participants from around the country each summer. It is the only workshop of its kind offered in the western United States.

Outside the business, Mr. Edlund loves golf, has built two houses (and still had the desire to live in each of them), has restored a 1956 Chevrolet, and likes to hit the trails in the Olympic mountains as often as possible. But his favorite activity is spending time with his wife and two grown daughters.