Wendell Shoberg died a couple years ago. His daughter Linnea worked with him for many years, but once Wendell was gone she decided that she wasn't up to running the organ business by herself and became a dental assistant.

Wendell owned the San Diego Pipe Organ Co. and built a number of instruments with that nameplate in the 70's and 80's. Wendell was originally the crew chief for the Organ Stop Pizza chain, overseeing the installation of the instruments they had in their restaurants, including the Foort Moller in the Pacific Beach restaurant.

Wendell apprenticed with Gene Ginder, who was the Moller representative at that time. About the 1990's Wendell started using "W.N. Schoberg and Co." on his name plates. Wendell was also very good at restoring reed organs and that was a substantial portion of their work. Wendell restored the three-manual Mason and Hamlin reed organ in the Rancho Guajome Adobe, which was shipped around the horn and brought up from San Diego in a horse cart in the mid 1800's - it surely must have been the first three manual organ in San Diego County.

We were never "in business" with Wendell, but we worked with him on a number of projects, including the Organ Stop Pizza Foort Moller installation (well, my Dad and Grandfather did, I was about 10 years old and just held screwdrivers and drop lights). If we needed extra help, Wendell and some of his technicians would work for us as independent contractors, and if Wendell needed extra help, we would work for him as independent contractors. Wendell was a "Moller guy", and he thought that the way Moller did anything was the right way to do it. The pitman and unit chests he built in his shop were copies of Moller chests. (We were "Murray Harris/Robert Morton guys" and thought that way Murray Harris and Robert Morton did things were the right way to do it, which caused friction at some times - however, whoever's job it was got the final say.)

--Information received via email from Robert Knight, June 19, 2026.