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My name is Phil Henderson. I am a retired high school science teacher who has always wanted to create things with my hands, in addition to helping students improve their minds. Now that I have retired, I have an opportunity to do the former. My ukuleles do not have a Hawaiian name, because I am not Hawaiian. I have however, lived in Southern California all my life and my initials are PCH. Since PCH is also the initials of a famous California highway, I thought it would make a good name for a ukulele that was made in Southern California.

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I have been playing the guitar for over 40 years (although not very well). Several years ago my wife went to a wedding in Hawaii and brought back a Costco ukulele for me. I began to enjoy playing the uke much more than playing my guitar because I could sit it next to my computer and just reach over and grab it anytime I wanted. After buying a couple slightly more expensive ukuleles, I decided to make a bigger upgrade and took a road trip to Hale Ukuleles in San Diego. After playing the brand I was looking for, my wife asked Ric (the owner) about one of the ukuleles behind the counter. Well, I was hooked. It took a couple weeks for me to decide to pull the trigger on the much bigger upgrade so I got in touch with the luthier who had created the "behind the counter" ukulele. It turned out that he was nearly finished with a couple new ukuleles for Ric and he sent me some pictures. I fell in love with a tri-color Koa tenor uke and it was mine a couple weeks later.

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The reason for this story is because when I went to pick up my ukulele at Hale, the maker of the uke just happened to be there. His name is Hank Johnson and he makes Kimo Ukuleles. We became friends and after I retired from teaching, I asked if he would help me to start making some ukuleles myself. He agreed. So, if you are a Kimo Ukulele fan, and you notice that my ukuleles look a little bit like Hank's, there is a reason for that and Hank is OK with it so far. :)

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Although I plan on mixing in  a few Curly Koa ukuleles now and then, I think the market for Koa ukes in the $1000 to $1500 range is pretty crowded. I would instead like to concentrate on building ukuleles in that price range with woods from the West Coast of the USA, focusing on woods like Oregon Myrtle, Walnut, Sycamore, Cedar, Spruce and occasionally some lesser used international woods like Black Limba, Curly Mango, Primavera (white mahogany), Tasmanian Myrtle and others.