Donald Thomas Scholz (born March 10, 1947) is an American rock musician, songwriter, inventor, engineer, and philanthropist, best known as the founder of the band Boston. He is also the inventor of the Rockman portable guitar amplifier. He has been described by Allmusic as "a notoriously \'un-rock n\' roll\' figure who never enjoyed the limelight of being a performer," preferring to concentrate almost exclusively on his music, and in more recent years, spending much of his time working with charities.\n', '

Tom Scholz was born in Toledo, Ohio and raised in the suburb of Ottawa Hills. His father, Don Scholz, was a homebuilder who garnered considerable wealth from his designs of prefabricated luxury houses and founded Scholz Design, the forerunner of Scholz Homes Inc.\n', '

As a child, Scholz studied classical piano. He also had a penchant for tinkering with everything from go-karts to model airplanes and was always building or designing. A top student and a member of the varsity basketball team, he graduated from Ottawa Hills High School in 1965. Before his musical career, Scholz received both a bachelor\'s degree (1969) and a master\'s degree (1970) in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked for Polaroid Corporation as a senior product design engineer. Scholz would then reside in Boston.\n', '

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