Everybody knows that I want to see a better guitar tomorrow than what we built today, says Chris Martin, CEO -- and the sixth generation of C.F. Martin & Company.

Actually, it's the guitar Martin is building today that Chris says is the most exciting thing happening at C. F. Martin.

It is Martin's one-millionth guitar.

Says Chris: "It is one of those eye-popping, works-of-art guitars that will make people go -- oh my God, how did they do that? "

In effect, that's the same reaction that has kept Martin at the top of its very own guitar-making mountain for 170 years.

C.F. Martin & Company was founded, in 1833, by Chris' great-great-great grandfather, C.F. Martin, Sr., a German immigrant. In the 1840's, Martin perfected X-Bracing, which to this day is regarded as the best way to give strength to a guitar top without dampening its tone.

In the late 1800s, Martin rode a mandolin craze to huge success, and in the early 1900s, it enjoyed a similar ride with the ukulele. And then during the Great Depression, in 1929, Martin designed a steel-string guitar, the OM-28, that is today's industry standard.

Not to detract from the company's many accomplishments in the intervening years, but what has happened at Martin since Christian F. "Chris" Martin IV, now 48, took over in 1986, is flat-out remarkable.

For starters, that one-millionth guitar is also the more-than-500,000th built under Chris' leadership, which has also logged a doubling of the Martin factory's size. Chris introduced aggressive development of "Signature" guitars, as specified by players from Eric Clapton to Paul Simon, and a "Vintage" series that brought back the brand's legendary pre-World War II designs.

Chris' tenure has not been without its controversies, however, specifically his experiments with non-traditional guitar-building materials -- even paper laminates. But by all accounts, the experiments have proved successful, even if some purists might still be griping about them.

I'd sit in my grandfather's den at night and he'd talk about what it means to run a family business from the heart, rather than just from the wallet.

Says Chris: "You know, I don't ever want Martin to become an elitist product. I don't think that's what my family's business is all about. Our guitars aren't cheap, but if you buy a plain guitar from us, it's money well spent. I'm not going to say it's a bargain, but it's money well spent."

When Chris was just a lad, he imagined he'd grow up to be a marine biologist. As the namesake of the family business patriarch, his path inevitably followed a more likely direction.

While enduring a detour as an unhappy economics major at UCLA, and working part-time in a music store (where customers and co-workers seemed to know more about Martin guitars than he did), he told his father he wanted to quit school and go to work in the family factory.

Recalls Chris: "He gave me this look like -- what do you mean work in the factory? You don't have to work in the factory -- you can work in the office. But I felt I needed to work in the factory to figure out how these instruments were made." He did just that, and after a brief hiatus to earn an MBA at Boston University (and much to the relief of both his parents) Chris joined the family business for good.



How is it that Martin has managed to maintain its reputation and its relevance so consistently for all those years?

Well, we're lucky in that the guitar has endured. Guitar-like instruments are actually traced back to Mesopotamia. In business, we talk about product lifecycles -- well, here's a product that, for all intents and purposes, has almost had an infinite lifecycle. It has been popular since the dawn of civilization. So, that helps.

And then there's the fact that I have had the opportunity to see some of my great-great-great grandfather's early work. The craftsmanship is impeccable. He set the tone: If you're going to make a guitar, there's a right way to make it and that's the way that we're going to make it. That's what we try and do -- make them the right way. People respond to that. They're like -- gee, these are very well made, and they're consistently very well made.

You don't seem to do much advertising. How would you describe your marketing strategy?

We can't afford any television advertising. But just this year, Martin guitars were on both the Grammys and the Oscars. That influences a lot of people. They're like -- hmm, there must be something to that guitar if Paul Simon is playing one.

Actually, we do some advertising in the very-focused guitar magazines. We run full-page ads that speak to the "guitar weenie." But one of the things that I continue to remind myself also is reinforced by the warranty-card question concerning the factors that influenced a customer's decision to purchase a Martin guitar. There's a check-the-box for dealer, the ad, and so forth. The box that gets checked more often than not is "friend." What a powerful endorsement -- my friend recommended I buy a Martin guitar.

You have all these different limited editions, special editions and guitars of the month. Why do you do that?

Because we can, and because it's fun. Also, at some point, if you want someone to buy more than one guitar, we've got to do something different to it. They don't need two D-28s, but they might buy a D-28 and a Bob Shane D-28 if they happen to be a Kingston Trio fan. And we know that some of our best customers are our repeat customers.

The first of what you call Signature Series guitars was done for Gene Autry in 1933. But then the idea of "celebrity guitars" was dropped for a time until you brought it back in 1994.

What happened was, when I took over the company, the salesmen, in particular, were saying: "Chris, you've got to do an endorsement deal." And I kept thinking -- oh man, everything I know about endorsements is sleazy.

The best example of a sleazy endorsement is a friend-of-a-friend of mine who had endorsed an amplifier. But the truth was the only thing he really was endorsing was the cabinet. He had the guts changed because the amplifier itself sucked.

But I had always wanted to see Gene Autry's guitar, and someone said -- oh, it's in his museum. Okay fine, we drive over there, we pay our $9.00 and we go in. And the cool thing was that not only is it a museum of TV cowboy kitsch, it's a real honest-to-God Western museum. They have a tremendous collection of early antique firearms and spurs. Gene was really into the real West -- not just the TV West.

Anyway, sure enough, down in the basement, there was his guitar. I was like -- thank God I finally get to see Gene Autry's original D-45. On the way out, we go in the gift shop. So, I'm looking at reproduction Gene Autry lunch boxes and reproduction Gene Autry penknives, and a light bulb goes off.

So I get home and I call the museum director and told her that I would love to make an authentic reproduction of Gene's original D-45 and donate the first one to the museum. And then, if and when we sell any more of the limited edition, I would like to give part of the proceeds to the museum. And she said, "Boy that's a great idea, let me call Gene."

So the museum director called me back and she said that Gene's wife wanted to talk to me. So I called Mrs. Autry and she said: "Gene thinks that's a great idea, but we both agree that you are not giving the museum enough money!"

But that's become the template for how we approach it, because -- I'm sorry -- Eric Clapton doesn't necessarily need more money. But when we approached him and asked him to consider doing an artist's model, part of the proceeds of which would go to the rehabilitation center that he sponsors in Antigua, his eyes lit up and he was like, "absolutely."

You also introduced a co-branded guitar with MTV?

Yes, because of the success of MTV Unplugged. That helped to fuel the revival and interest in acoustic guitars, definitely.

Would you ever consider doing similar deals with other brands?

We've had some conversations. The key very often is to find the "guitar weenie" in the other organization -- particularly if they have any influence in the organization. If you don't find the guitar weenie, sometimes you're beating your head against the wall.

But when you find the guy or the gal that's into guitars and they're like --I get it, let's go, let's do it. We're trying right now to find the guitar weenie at Harley Davidson.

Can customers design their own guitars?

Within the boundaries of our shape, yes. We do have a custom option, but you can't send us a drawing and say, "could you make me this shape?" But we will be glad to use different materials or particular ways of ornamenting a guitar and it's a nice, lucrative business for us.

You make a portable guitar for backpackers and the Jimmy Buffet Signature Guitar is for sailors. Are there other kinds of guitars that you might build with active lifestyles in mind like that?

One of the big challenges that guitar sellers confront is that the music business is a predominately male-oriented business. You go to the tradeshow, and it's mostly men. You go into a music store and it's mostly men. You go to where people play the guitar, and it's mostly men. That frustrates me. Only 10 to 15 percent of our customers are women.

So we actually formed a team here at work, made up mostly of women, who took a look at some of the ergonomic issues and came out with a guitar designed for women. So there was an opportunity for us to try to make some inroads. We also had a team of veterans -- or co-workers whose family member was a veteran -- who designed a veteran's model that's also been very successful.

Would you make guitars for kids or even ethnic groups, like Latinos?

We certainly would. Sometimes we need to know what it is we should do. In the Latino case, I'm not exactly sure what it is. We do make some smaller-bodied guitars that are good for kids, but no Martin Guitars are cheap.

It's a tremendous leap of faith for a parent to say to little Johnny -- great, you want to go learn to play the guitar, let's go buy you a Martin. Generally, little Johnny gets this cheap piece of crap and hopefully he gets over the fact that it doesn't really work that well and gets good enough that the parents say -- all right, we've got to get him a real guitar.

What does opening up your factory for tours do for Martin?

Giving the tours is a challenge because the tours and an efficient manufacturing operation don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. But it's something that we've always done and, in fact, we are just now committing to expand our museum visitor center.

We get 15,000 people a year who come through here and we would like to get more. Factory tours sell guitars. We get people half the way through the process, and they'll say: "Now I know why they're so expensive."

Pennsylvania Cable Network does this really interesting thing where they go into factories and they start rolling the tape without editing it. In our case, they came in and they said -- take us on tour. That particular segment is the most-watched factory tour segment on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

Anybody who wants to really get a feel for what we're doing should come and visit. We give tours every workday at 1:00, and we'd be glad to show them around.

Martin got big boosts during a mandolin craze in the 1800's and then the ukulele craze in the 1900's. What is the relationship between pop culture trends and Martin Guitars and how might that play out in the 21st Century?

The other examples are the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s and then the folk-rock boom -- you know, the summer of love and the Vietnam protest era and all that. They were also tremendously strong periods of demand for us.

I wish I knew. The demographics are on our side in that baby boomers are our core constituency. So they've got the money and the time. The thing that makes me feel best about the future of the business is, when I was younger a lot of people that I knew, when they wanted to play the guitar, their parents actually tried to discourage them.

They were like -- don't you want to learn the piano? Don't you want to learn the flute? Today, if a youngster says to a parent that he or she wants to learn the guitar, the parents are like -- cool, let's get two, and I'll take lessons with you. Hopefully, the kids won't rebel against that and say -- well, I'm not playing this stinking guitar because that's the guitar my dad likes.

How has Martin evolved as a global brand? Are there markets outside the U.S.?

We have an unbelievably strong market in Japan. It's crazy when you think about how well the Japanese have done in copying American products. But they still love American guitars and they love the high-end. It's a phenomenon that could be studied by someone who just wants to do a case study on American brands. It's not just us -- they love Fenders, they love Gibsons, and they love Martins.

We do well in Europe. England is a great market for us. It's not as big as Japan, but if you think about popular music -- with or without lyrics -- it basically comes from the United States and England. A little bit from Australia. And so much of the roots of American music can be traced back to England. Folk music started there and came over here, so the connection is extremely powerful.

Even when we sell guitars on the continent of Europe, very often the customers are playing British or American music. It's the same in Japan -- they're not playing Japanese music on Martin guitars; they're playing American music on Martin guitars.

The industry standard for acoustic guitars was created at Martin during the Great Depression. Are today's economic pressures spawning innovations that may have lasting value?

Well, one of the things we did do is we actually reintroduced one of those Depression-era Martins, and that's the all-mahogany guitar. It has proven to be extremely successful.

Over the past ten years, we've come out with more affordable Martin guitars, and I've gotten some criticism. People were like -- Chris, this is not a good thing; you're dumbing-down the brand.

But then I got a letter from a guy a couple of years ago that said, "Dear Mr. Martin: Always wanted a Martin guitar, now I'm in my mid-forties…" I figured the letter was going to go on to say that finally he bought the D-28 that he always wanted.

But he said, "Now I'm in my mid-forties, and I've got a wife, two kids, a mortgage and a car payment, and I'm so glad you're making Martin guitars that I can afford." That was the letter I needed to get, because that justified in my mind that it's the right thing to do -- to come out with more affordable Martin guitars.

One of those was the DXM, which is made of a paper laminate. How do you make sure that a low-end model like that doesn't drag down the high-end image of the rest of your line?

From my perspective, it's somewhat about tone. But I have to chuckle when people say to me: "You know Chris, that DXM doesn't sound like a D-28." And I go -- thank God! Thank God it doesn't sound like a D-28!

It's more about quality. That is one of the issues we wrestled with when we began the process of figuring out how to make the DXMs in a manufacturing environment in some quantity. There were some quality issues.

That's where I intervened and I said that, until we resolve these issues, this product was not ready for market. My co-workers were looking at the guitar going -- do you see what he sees? They'd take their glasses off and they'd look really closely and then go -- oh man, how did he see that? So to me it's that, if we can get the quality right, and be consistent, we can be proud of this thing.

You've also introduced a number of models using other non-traditional materials.

That's very important because the traditional materials -- whoever picked them figured it out. And they picked them before my family even got in the business. Those materials are getting much, much scarcer.

They are becoming so scarce that if we don't begin to learn how to use alternative materials and convince the customer they're viable, this is going to become a zero-sum game. All of us who make great guitars are going to be fighting over the last tree, and that's not a good way to run a business.

How do you think that your great-great-great grandfather would feel about using these materials?

He used some of them, himself! We have a guitar in our collection made out of Hawaiian Koa wood that he built. I don't know how he got Hawaiian Koa wood back in the 1840's but we have one. I think he would say -- yeah, that's a Martin guitar. I'm proud of that.

We don't use defective materials. When the wood comes in -- regardless of the species -- the first thing we do is make sure it's structurally sound. I don't think he would say -- man, they're using wood that is not appropriate in terms of its structure. He might say -- I've never seen that wood before. But I think he would say -- but, you know what, it looks and sounds like a Martin guitar. Congratulations.

People refer to C.F. Martin & Company as the American Stradivarius.

And I sure feel a lot better about that than when I hear people who say, it's the Cadillac of guitar! I usually cringe. It's like -- do you have any idea what Cadillac quality is like these days?

I will tell you, there was a period in the 70s, where my dad embarked on what I call today the acquisition binge and he bought the string company, which was brilliant. Unfortunately, three other acquisitions didn't work out, but they were so consuming of management's time that there was a period when we forgot to continuously improve the core product.

People talk about that era in the '70s when Martin quality got a little dodgy. It wasn't a conscious decision. No one ever said to the people in the shop that it's okay to let things slip. But the word from management was not to make them better tomorrow, either. Whereas today, everybody knows that I want to see a better guitar tomorrow than what we built today.

Sometimes it's a very subtle thing, but the product we're making today, the dealers tell me, the customers say, "Chris, this is the best guitar you've ever made." It's because we have that intent that we can do better. One thing I've noticed about business is that there is no steady state. There's no such thing as a steady state in business. You're either moving forward or backwards.

There's been some talk that you might take the company public.

You know, that's funny. I've talked to some analysts and they say: "You know Chris, you're not big enough; nobody's going to pay attention." And I sure like being my own boss. I really have no interest in having some analyst call me incessantly to ask me how we're doing this quarter.

You undoubtedly have still a long run ahead of you at the helm of Martin, but how is the family business looking for the seventh generation?

To be very honest with you, my wife and I lost a baby last year. So we're trying again -- actually at the end of this month, thanks to the intervention of the fertility specialists, given our age. So we'll see. But I'm in my late forties. If we have a child, if the child wants to join the business and is capable, it's going to be a long time. So there probably will be a period where I will have assistance from someone who is not a family member.

In fact, I hired a President to help me run the company. This is a big, complicated business. The stress was getting to me and I decided I needed some help.

It would be great if there were a seventh generation. But the commitment from my co-workers is such that I think that if I got hit by a bus today, they would carry on, because the tradition's there. All you have to do is remain true to it. People who I work with are really into the fact that we make the best guitar of its kind. That's something that they can really wrap their subconscious around -- that they work for a company that makes the best of its kind.