Craig Leerman, a 40-year veteran of the professional audio industry, passed away on Saturday, December 24, 2022. A native of the Baltimore area, he had a lifelong love of music that propelled him to a career as an audio technician, mix engineer and production company owner who was also known for a great sense of humor as well as graciously sharing his knowledge with the professional community.

At the age of 10, Craig asked his parents for a full drum kit — and not just any kit — it had to be a Pearl Pink. Drums weren’t his only instrument — he also taught himself to play guitar, keyboards and trumpet, learning and playing by ear, and he even played the xylophone in high school. In fact, he missed his own high school prom because his band was playing at the prom of a different school, and later skipped his high school graduation ceremony to play a gig in another town.

A graduate of Randallstown (Maryland) High School in 1978, Craig joined the U.S. Navy to play in the band, but instead was redeployed to Beirut, Lebanon for combat duty. He loved serving his country, and after finishing his four-year commitment to the Navy, began working in music stores, eventually combining the technical skills he was learning with his passion for music, and a career as an audio professional was born.

Craig worked with Maryland Sound (MSI) before founding his own firm, Harbor Sound Ltd., serving the Baltimore-Washington D.C. region and serving everything from charity events to presidential inaugurations. During this time, he met Kelly, his wife of 26 years, at a dart tournament and they went on to become tri-state champions in soft tip darts.

Craig and Kelly relocated to Las Vegas in 2005 (and to Reno several years later), where he renamed the company Tech Works and developed a solid clientele of corporate event planners that included the U.S. Department of Energy and trade shows at the Las Vegas Convention Center. He also found the technical community on the Live Audio Board (LAB) and became a forum moderator, and based on his contributions there, Live Sound Magazine/ProSoundWeb editor Keith Clark reached out to him about becoming an author.

Thus began another interesting chapter marked by a steady stream of editorial based on Craig’s many years of hands-on experience. The bottom line is that he really knew his stuff, and many of his articles about running a company, gear maintenance, on-the-fly gig strategies and much more remain reference resources to this day. (See his archive of well more than 100 articles here.)

Along the way, Craig also shared his passion for collecting vintage microphones, authoring 20 articles detailing some of his favorite models, with plenty of interesting history in the mix as well. (See the Microfiles archive here.) He also served as a trusted product reviewer, always making sure to deploy any gear he was evaluating in the field on actual working gigs to make sure it was up to par.

More than a dozen years ago, Craig co-founded the popular Live Sound Loudspeaker Demo events, serving as the hands-on technical director in helping to get the concept off the ground and also proving to be a very effective emcee who engaged the audience with both knowledge and humor. The events were created as an alternative to the loudspeaker “shoot-out” format in presenting the opportunity to evaluate and compare a dozen systems or more in one location and on a level playing field.

Craig’s life took a major turn in 2010, when he and Kelly met Stevi and John, a sister and brother they adopted from the foster care system. Much of Craig’s work was at night and on weekends, so he became the nurturing, if untraditional, be-at-home parent. Craig was so proud of Stevi’s academic accomplishments and John’s athleticism. He showed them that each of us can overcome more than we ever thought.

Craig Leerman is survived by his wife Kelly, his children Stevi and John, his mother Rosalie, his sister and brother-in-law Mindy and Fred Poorman, his niece Meghann (Jeremiah) Dayhoff and nephew Eric (Karyn) Lieberman and many grandnephews. He was predeceased by his father Benjamin.

Read and comment about the life of Craig on the LAB here.