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Dan Roberts and his crew at Manhasset Specialty Products aren't musicians.
Roberts, the company's president, has dabbled in trumpet, guitar and drums, and he's learning saxophone. A couple of the 20 or so other employees of the company mess around with an instrument from time to time, too.
But Manhasset, which distributes its industry-leading music stands on six continents, doesn't hire people for their musical skills; it hires people who care about manufacturing quality products.
"None of them are musicians to speak of at all," Roberts said. "But they take tremendous pride in our products. They take tremendous pride when they see them in movies or on television or in pictures of symphonies from Boston or Tokyo or wherever they may be."
Manhasset Specialty Co. was established in 1935 in Manhasset, N.Y., but it's been in Yakima since its founder moved here in the early 1940s. As the story goes, Otto Lagervall, an inventor and...