Terry Row began professional life as a musician. An outstanding oboe player, he attended the Juilliard School and the California Institute of the Arts. Early in his career, he performed throughout the United States and Europe in orchestras, chamber ensembles, and as a soloist. He made a dozen recordings and toured North America during five years as a member of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. 

At the age of thirty, he chose a new direction for his life, returning to school and becoming a computer consultant and expert on relational database design, living and working in San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles. 

Now living in Santa Barbara, he remains a lifelong avocationist, pursuing independent studies in writing, literature, poetry, bookbinding, history, cinema, photography, music, travel, eclipse-chasing, astronomy, chess, numismatics, gardening, and bird watching. Untarnished Reputation is his second full-length work of fiction.