Vic Firth

Founded in 1963 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and is today the world's largest manufacturer of first quality drumsticks and mallets.

The company began when Mr. Firth, who had been performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 12 years, was asked to perform pieces which he felt required a higher-quality drumstick than those that were currently being manufactured. So, Vic decided to design a set of his own sticks.

Vic hand-whittled the first sticks himself from bulkier sticks and sent these prototypes to a wood turner in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The two prototypes that he sent would become the SD1 and SD2, the first two models of sticks manufactured by Vic Firth, Inc.

Vic said, "It came out of necessity, not of imagination or my ability to start a company." Although the sticks were initially intended for Vic's personal use, they gained popularity among his students and were eventually carried by retailers.