Our Instructors

In 1987-1990, she was the elected Chair of the Chesapeake Bay Branch of the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association (EUSPBA) representing Southern Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

In 1995, she was named to the EUSPBA Judges Panel for Tenor and Bass Drumming.  In 2000, she was the first female EUSPBA judge to judge at the North American Championships, Maxville, Ontario. She judged at the North American Championships again in 2012.

In 2015, she was awarded the Dorothy Penders Spirit of Scotland Award from the St Andrews Society of Mid-Maryland for her 29 years of dedicated service as the drumming instructor and director of the Rockville High School/Maryland Youth Pipe Band and her continued education and promotion of Scottish drumming.

She came up with her own tenor drumstick design and along with good friend and fellow tenor drummer Linda Williams, Lisa developed an instructional video for Beginning Tenor Drumming that included unique symbols to represent flourishes in tenor drum music and has been honored to teach tenor drum workshops across the United States.

After graduation from Peary in 1977, she joined the Denny & Dunipace Pipe Band of Washington, D.C. in playing tenor drum with them until a serious accident in 1982 sidelined her. After recovering, she joined the Clan Campbell Pipes and Drums in Columbia, Maryland where she ran a large tenor drum corps and started studying with EUSPBA judge Matthew McConnell. She later served as Mr. McConnell’s assistant at the North American Academy of Piping and Drumming in North Carolina from 1987 – 2000. 

In 1990, she played tenor drum with the Denny & Dunipace Pipe Band of Washington, DC.  The next year the band changed their name to City of Washington band and Lisa moved to bass drum. 

With City of Washington, the band won: best bass section at Alma, Michigan; 1st at Santa Rosa; California and 1st at the North American Championships in Ontario, Canada including best drum section. In Scotland: 1st at Bridge of Allen; 1st Perth; 1st Dunfermline; and came in second at the World Pipe Band Championships in 1996 in Grade 2.

During that time Lisa competed and won individual tenor drum competitions in the United States and Canada, including:  Alma 8 times, Cambridge, Montreal, and was EUSPBA champion 6 years in a row, two of those seasons undefeated. 

Leaving City of Washington in 1997 she played bass with Carnegie Mellon University Pipe Band and joined Delmar & District Pipe Band winning Best Drum Corps in 2000 at the North American Championships in Grade 3.

In 2001, she helped found the MacMillan Pipe Band and played bass drum with them until 2007.

Lisa has worked as a Senior Building Information Modeler with Thornton Tomasetti, a Structural Engineering firm, in their Washington, DC office for 27 years and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.