Hey everyone, and welcome to Episode number 3 of the Band Director Blueprint Podcast! My name is Taylor Smith, with co-host Eric Villalobos. We appreciate you for joining us today. For our listeners that are new to the community, the Band Director Blueprint podcast is a place for current and future music educators to contribute their thoughts on building and developing music programs, new teaching techniques, and just good teaching all together!

Todays guest is a mentor of mine, a colleague and more importantly I am happy to call him my good friend. In our discussion today, he tells his story of the difference between when to be a hero and when to be a teacher. We go over his transition from middle school to high school, and how he relates to his students to build culture within his programs. For the past 15 years Justin has transformed music programs throughout Orange County and Long Beach into thriving, positive, classroom environments. Acknowledged as Teacher of the Year in 2012 at Oak Middle School, 2014 Los Alamitos District Teacher of the Year, the 2014 Orange County Music and Arts Administrators Secondary Instrumental Music Teacher of the Year, and 2016 Orange County Music and Arts Music Educator of Excellence. His middle and high school jazz ensembles have competed at Monterey Jazz Festival, Reno Jazz Festival, and the Next Generation Jazz Festival. Being a VIP manager at a swanky night club, and a 3 stripe blue belt in Gracie Jiu Jitsu, Justin continues to inspire and motivate his students with modern and engaging teaching techniques and philosophies.