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847-882-4487 (phone)
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Short version:
Bob Hall & Company is a professional ergonomics and design firm located
in Schaumburg, Illinois, with a wide-ranging commercial, institutional,
and government clientele. Founded in 1983 to address the need for greater
safety in water purification, we turned our full-time attention to workplace
safety and ergonomics by 1989. Commercial furniture design followed shortly
thereafter.
This experience, along with some significant back pain and a deep love of all instrumental music and most of the people who make it, inspired us to develop the world’s most advanced ergonomic music chairs.
Longer-winded (but informative!) version
from Bob Hall:
Welcome to our website! I’ll do my best to help you—and so will the “& Company” part of my business.
I think if you’re planning
to invest in a product making exceptional claims—as most of our products
do—you have a right (maybe even a responsibility!) to know how that
product came into being.
Many talented people have made up the “Company” over the last
two decades, and I’m grateful to them. They have worked with courage
and intent to bring our many commercial clients sometimes extraordinary
answers to their most dumbfounding questions. Each time we’ve been
praised as “the very best supplier [they’ve] ever had—period!”
by an industry-leading client, or when we’ve been told our chairs
are simply the most comfortable our clients have ever experienced, I’ve
been reminded that Bob Hall & Company has never been a solo effort.
But since the story of our products is, to a large degree, *my* story,
and *my* name and reputation have accompanied everything we’ve ever
sold, *I’ve* got some explaining to do.
It all started with a boy, a banjo, and a bad back. . . .
I absolutely *loved* playing
the 5-string banjo when I was a kid. Sometimes on weekends I would sit
in some ergonomically terrifying position and pick all the live-long day.
Nothing ever hurt, of course: I was a teenager, and nobody I knew had
ever heard of ergonomics.
After teaching banjo in a local music store for a couple of years (with a few attempts at flatpick guitar and mandolin during that time), I was off to college, and the instruments started collecting dust. I wouldn’t seriously play again for twenty-five years.
After graduation, I had the very good fortune to find challenging, absorbing work in my first socially responsible job, in the solar heating industry, where I invented, developed, and marketed efficient new turbulent-flow technology. In 1983, I started Bob Hall & Company to pursue another bio-friendly opportunity: non-chemical water purification. We created a lot of good products, helped a lot of people, and had a lot of fun. Some of my original employees and corporate dealers are still in that industry today, but I needed a break. I had developed a bad back, and it was just killing me.
Some doctors advised surgery; some said no; and one (my favorite) warned I might not walk again without it! (I *did* manage to walk out of his office!) There was much disagreement about my CT scans and exact number of prolapsed discs. Some medical professionals said I had two, others said one, and still others seemed to think the first two groups were just guessing. After too many different doctors and too many different diagnoses, I realized I had to learn everything I could about back pain.
This was certainly not a *small* task, but it has been an interesting and satisfying one. I had to first lose (find?) myself in a comprehensive study of biomechanics. Biomechanics led to ergonomics; ergonomics led naturally to my chosen occupation. Still, I had no idea of the extent to which my ergonomics education had just begun.
Starting in 1989, we provided ergonomic supplies and consultation across the country, and to clients as far away (from Chicago) as Poland and Japan. (Pre-Internet!) As involving as all of that was, what really inspired me most were our clients’ own peculiar stories. Most were willing to help us help them; so, with their enthusiastic input, we began addressing their musculoskeletal disorders in original, practical, and cost-effective ways. Then we designed and built ergonomic furniture for them.
We learned a lot over the next ten years; and, though our clients were unanimously happy with our products and designs, we never stopped trying to improve. Fortunately, I had been blessed with a bad back—this was a nagging incentive to do even better for my clients. Through our collaborative experience, we got smarter, the chairs got smarter, and almost all of my back pain went away. Once again, I set out to help them, and they wound up helping me.
Freedom from back pain and the Onset of Mid Life conspired to put a banjo in my lap again—this time with a proper chair supporting us both. But what constituted a “proper” picking chair? It didn’t take me long to realize I had to use what I’d learned to develop my own—a chair that would just “disappear” and let me focus on my music. After several years, inspirations, and refinements, I arrived at a most practical, cost-effective design. I think it’s *just about* perfect; others tell me it’s *absolutely* perfect.
The pure, simple, beautiful comfort of our Softrock™-action music chairs is absolutely without equal—both in terms of “first-sit impression” (where many chairs can fool you), and the deep, meaningful, long-term comfort you normally only get with superior ergonomic design. When it comes to relaxing in my MusiComfort™ chair and playing guitar, I really don’t know which part I enjoy most—the sitting or the playing—but all that comfort, encouraging all that practice, has surely made me a better, happier picker. I have sat in my MusiComfort-Softrock™ and played guitar for *more than 14 hours* straight and still felt pretty good. After 14 hours, pretty good is *pretty amazing!*
Notice the talk about playing *guitar* and not *banjo*? While I still love the banjo, my ability (finally!) to pick guitar points out my own favorite features of our advanced ergonomic music chairs: stability and supported position. Without my MusiComfort™ chair, I’d be tenser, subtly unbalanced, and using my hands to *position* and not *play* my guitar. I could never have accomplished what little (admittedly!) I have on that (deceptively difficult!) instrument in a less-stable or less comfortable chair.
This strange and wonderful coming together of professional ergonomists, musicians, and herniated discs has resulted in a truly functional product that’s just too useful not to share with our fellow musicians. We have a responsibility to get out there and help as many people as we can—and we are.
Well, that’s the story
of Bob Hall and his little company—so far. I hope it’s given
you a better understanding of the purchase you’re considering. No
matter which of our products you decide to try, let me know how you like
it and what we can do to make you happier. The “& Company”
part of my business includes each and every one of our customers!