Behind a closed door in the privacy of his bedroom, Gary sat for hours transfixed by the music so loved by his parents. In particular, Gary was held spellbound by the voice of pop/ operatic tenor, Mario Lanza—Lanza was the vocal sensation in the 1950s, who possessed an electrifying voice inspiring many young singers, including Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Jose Carreras.

In junior and senior high school at Ridley High, Gary followed in his brother Fred's footsteps, and became an outstanding varsity wrestler. Little did anybody know, that when Gary was not competing or in wrestling practice, he was often at home listening to Mario Lanza, wailing on his high Cs, and Gary along with him. The desire to become a singer steadily grew in him.

A daring move in that direction took place when Gary joined the chorus as a senior and sang two Latin songs in the yearly concerts. More surprising still, was that Gary demonstrated an excellent voice. After great encouragement by chorus director Lee Lynn, Gary began studying voice. Over the next ten years, Gary tried to realize his dream of becoming a singer. The experience of studying voice was an unbelievably frustrating one, and Gary found himself moving from one teacher to the next trying to improve his voice.

Gary's devotion to his many teachers resulted in a great loss of time and money. To make matters worse, the mutually conflicting ideas and techniques from his teachers caused enormous confusion in Gary's mind, and ironically his natural singing voice, the one much admired when he was in high school, had been reduced to a weak, thin, and nasal sound.

Despite these disheartening setbacks, Gary would not give up. While attending Penn State University, and earning a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and a master’s degree in philosophy, Gary continued to study singing. After graduate school, Gary moved to Los Angeles to reevaluate his goals.

In 1980, Gary moved to Austin, Texas, as the university there was one of the country’s centers for vocal instruction. After giving formal study one last try, he decided to try to discover on his own what his teachers were unable to teach.

It was his great fortune that the libraries at University of Texas, Austin, offered a wealth of information about all subjects related to the voice. Gary began studying voice anatomy and discovered that the vocal mechanism was composed of specific muscles in the voice box (where the vocal chords create sound) and the throat (the area where the vocal sounds take final form).
Gary realized that the muscular foundation of the vocal mechanism must mean that all vocal sounds correspond to specific muscular actions and configurations. This simple insight pointed to the need of an exercise regimen as the real source of vocal improvement.

Gary then turned his attention to exercise physiology, and discovered the ideal kind of exercise program that corresponds to the fatigue-resistant muscles of the voice: isokinetics. With isokinetic exercising, maximum resistance is applied to muscles throughout their full range of motion, while keeping the movement of the motion constant.

Bringing together all that Gary learned about the voice, together with a basic knowledge of isokinetics, Gary began experimenting on his own voice. Through this difficult and often discouraging process, Gary began laying the foundation to his voice building system. During this time, he lost his voice completely as a result of a misconceived exercise experiment, and spent one year recovering his voice. This experience illuminated many important aspects of how the voice functions and contributed significantly to his voice building system.

When Gary noticed his voice becoming stronger, he began taking on students. Although his techniques were still in an unrefined form, his students began reporting startlingly vocal progress. Before too long, Gary's reputation spread through the musical community of Austin.

A breakthrough occurred when a one-time popular country singer, Johnny Bush, began taking lessons. Bush had lost his speaking voice fourteen years prior because of a vocal disorder called spasmodic dysphonia. One form of this condition causes a choking off of the voice due to spasming vocal chords. It is generally believed that at present there is no effective long-lasting treatment for this condition, although surgery and botox injections are sometimes used for temporary relief.

When Bush's voice returned after only ten sessions, it caused a sensation in Texas and Gary's name began spreading nationally. Gary's work was discussed in a Billboard Magazine article describing Bush's vocal recovery. Gary soon had a thriving voice practice in Austin, working mainly with singers, but also with damaged voices. Gary's enormous success with all voices forced him to reconsider his vocational direction. It became clear that he was not just another voice teacher or voice coach, but rather an innovator: he had discovered a system that was a veritable breakthrough in both voice teaching and voice rehabilitation. His system, in fact, was in many respects antagonistic to all traditional approaches to voice improvement. For instance, rather than treating the voice as a delicate instrument, requiring delicate treatment, Gary's system, by contrast, operates on the opposite premise: that the vocal musculature is tough, requiring aggressive muscular exercising.

With a great sense of mission, Gary decided to forgo his own career as a singer, and instead champion his revolutionary “voice building system.” He resolved to focus all his energies on taking his discoveries to the world.

Working first in Nashville, and then in Los Angeles, Gary quickly established himself as a maverick and revolutionary. During this time, he began contacting a number of noted voice professionals and scientists and made presentations and tried to enlist their interests in documenting what he had discovered. Response in all cases was indifference and even scorn, in some instances. He was accused of being a charlatan, and he was told by a number of professionals that his system was very dangerous and that he was in jeopardy of being sued.

The one exception to this general dismissal was Dr. Warren Line. He was a presiding surgeon at St. Joseph's Hospital in Los Angeles, when noted jazz guitarist Larry Carlton was rushed into the emergency room. Larry had been shot in the neck by a prowler at his Hollywood home and against the odds, survived with only a paralyzed vocal chord as his only permanent disability.

Through a mutual contact, Larry learned about Gary's work and began studying with him to rebuild his voice. Once again, against the odds, Larry recovered from another disability, and his voice returned. Dr. Line, startled by Larry's vocal progress, became an associate of Gary's.

In 1992, Gary, along with Dr. Line, presented a medical paper in Santa Barbara to the American Triological Association, which described the results of Gary's work with a number of people with spasmodic dysphonia. After the presentation, there were no questions and no comments from the audience.

Gary now fully realized that an honest review of his work seemed unlikely, that the academic approach to presenting his novel ideas would not bear fruit.

To circumvent the road blocks in the established singing and voice rehabilitation communities, Gary decided upon a two-pronged approach: to continue to produce outstanding results and to attract high profile personalities who would speak publicly about the effectiveness of his system.

Fortune struck when Gary was given the opportunity to teach a number of Hollywood celebrities: Shirley MacLaine who needed a stronger voice for a singing tour, singer ; producer, Babyface who was having problems with vocal endurance: and American TV legend, Jack Klugman, recovering from throat cancer treatment, were some of Gary's first celebrity students. In all these cases, Gary did exceptional work. Before too long, Gary had, almost exclusively, a celebrity clientele. The press began spreading Gary's name and work worldwide; for instance, he had featured articles in publications such as The Los Angeles Times and People Magazine.

Gary's work continues to spread as he edges up closely to realizing his dream of transforming the way people understand and improve the singing and speaking voice.