David Goettee: Bio

He has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland, College Park with:

• A double major in:
  • Statistics; and
  • Economics.
• Plus, a minor in voice.

He also has:

• A Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Quantitative Methods;
• A Master of Arts (MA) in Economics with concentrations in Econometrics and Multi-regional forecasting; and
• A Master of Science (MS) in Telecommunication Management.

David had various careers in:

• Public Health research;
• Teaching computer science; and
• At the Department of Transportation, in various administrations he was:
• Economist;
• Operation research analyst;
• Information systems specialist;
• Rulemaking specialist; and
• Research project manager.

While his double majors in college, subsequent masters' degrees, and professional careers were in technical areas of statistics, business, economics, and telecommunications, etc., he always remained involved in singing, which is the catalyst that led to formation of TortoiseClimbing™. He sang in school choirs since elementary school (when public schools had music.) As a chorus member in College, among other things he had opportunities to sing at:

• Casals Festival in Puerto Rico;
• Carnegie Hall in New York City;
• Baltimore Symphony at Lyric Theater in Baltimore;
• On tour around Maryland with the Baltimore Symphony; and
• Numerous concerts at the University of Maryland, College Park and locations in New Jersey and Florida for Christmases, Easters, religious conventions, etc.

After minoring in voice in college, he continued studying voice privately, and continued singing both in choirs and as a soloist. His continuing interest in singing led over the years to singing at a number of public service functions in Washington, DC metro area and Annapolis, MD, including:

• Solist for many years for University of Maryland basketball games;
• Soloist for Takoma Park, MD Independence Day patriotic exercises for many years;
• Hexagon (an annual political satire in Washington, DC to have fun entertaining and to raise money for local charities);
• Soloist with multiple Christmas Messiahs;
• Then Redskins Singers (football games);
• Choral groups such as the:
  • Southern Maryland Choral Society, now the Maryland Choral Society;
  • Alexandria Singers;
  • Etc.
• Churches, weddings, accompanying vocals on recordings of others, and now with TortoiseClimbing's productions.

He began recording with friends at Bias Recording Studio in 1990, and completed recordings of a number of songs. He followed that up with the private solo album, Solo Collection, with Bias then partner, Bill McElroy, as audio engineer and Associate Producer.

In 1993 Ms. Gerber-Salins became his audio engineer/producer. They began working on an album of romantic duets. In 1998, David's mom asked TortoiseClimbing™ to record their favorite hymns and songs. So, the duet album was on hold and work began on Hymns and Songs of My Mother, with Ms. Gerber-Salins as producer/audio engineer at Bias. That was followed shortly after with beginning drafting the companion book, History Through 27 Hymns and Songs in 1999.

In 2001, David moved to working with All Access Audio to continue working with Ms. Gerber-Salins.

Then, when things in the lives of Ms. Gerber-Salins and David preempted their ability to continue working on the album Hymns and Songs of My Mother, TortoiseClimbing™ entered a multi-year hiatus.

The hiatus ended in 2019, when David became available for completing the album Hymns and Songs of My Mother. (That is referred to as the Phase II of the project.) He chose to work with Mr. Bill McElroy, now at Slipped Disc, with David as the Producer for Phase II. For details see Producer Phase II. They successfully completed the Hymns and Songs of My Mother recording. He continues working toward completion of companion multiple projects, including the companion history book.

David was able to return to completing the Hymns and Songs of My Mother project became in 2019 he retired from being manager of research projects with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, thus providing the opportunity to turn full attention to TortoiseClimbing's™ multiple and expanding activities. These experiences have thus far enabled David to:

• Return to working with Mr. Bill McElroy, now at Slipped DISC, Ashland, VA. for TortoiseClimbing™'s' recording and mastering services. (David originally worked with Mr. McElroy when he was a partner at Bias in Springfield, VA.);
• Obtaining additional production analysis/critique from Ms. Gerber-Salins that made the final album much better, plus she added a duet harmony to another hymn;
• Finalizing production of the audio album, Hymns and Songs of My Mother;
• Work is still ongoing for:
  • Other recordings in the pipeline;
  • Working with his editor refining the the draft of the companion History through 27 Hymns and Songs. (Writing that book took David on a trip into a discovery of histories, and applying his years of writing experience to crafting the 27 different hymn history stories, and the summary appendix of historical events over the past 2 millenia impacting evolution of the hymns in the Christian church.);
• Researching options for publication for the book, including ebook:
• Creating a home recording capability to produce podcasts of the chapters, and finally the audio book version of the histories;
• Learning more technical skills in HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, and PHP7 and develop this website;
• Learning technical audio software details for performing post production audio processing using Adobe Audition;
• Researching whether to learn the layout and page design software, Adobe InDesign, to possibly use for the history book;
• Upgrading and publically releasing for sale, recordings made years ago with friends;
• Restored and mastered 1959 recording from High School, offered as a free digital download;
• Etc.

TortoiseClimbing's™ near-term plans after completing the Hymns and Songs project include: updating, mastering and restoring previously recorded albums for public release, and possibly writing companion publications to acompany them. A list of those projects is found at Recordings.

How to contact David

David can be reached via the TortoiseClimbing™ Contact/Comments form on this website. You can click on the link at the bottom of this page and it will take you to the comment form. TortoiseClimbing™ will deliver the contact information and comments collected on that form to David.

If you wish to comment on contents of this webpage, Clicking the button below will both transfer you to the Contact/Comment page, and pass along that you were on this webpage when you decided to comment.