Fran Blanche

Fran Blanche is the owner of Frantone Electronics, founded in 1994 as one of the world's very first boutique guitar effects companies. Fran is a completely self-taught electronic engineer, artist, musician, published photographer, space technology researcher and historian, mechanical engineer, woodworker, and YouTube vlogger. A former professional AM and FM radio DJ and videographer, Fran has spent most of her life producing music and video projects going back to the 1980's. Working to preserve and rediscover forgotten technologies, Fran has worked on the restoration of the one of a kind Maillardet Automaton at the Franklin Institute and worked on vintage Apollo flight hardware at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Fran's work on reverse engineering components in the Apollo Saturn V LVDC computer got her an article in Popular Science Magazine in 2014. Fran has also been interviewed for the Lena Dunham blog The Lenny Letter and had a cover story in Tone Report in 2016, as well as a feature interview in She Shreds Magazine in 2015. Fran currently operates FranLab, producing educational science content for YouTube. Fran was also made a Senior Member of the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers in 2021 (SMIEEE).