The not-yet-co-founder of Taylor Guitars got on his motorcycle and drove from the family home in Clairemont to the nearby campus of Mesa College. I just stood there. A life-defining moment ensued. It would be awful. It makes sense now. Taylor was and is a creator. A builder. As a kid, when he wanted a skateboard, he made one. Same with a bicycle. It was in his genes. Twila and Richard Taylor were do-it-yourselfers. Mom sewed clothes; Dad built furniture. His parents often bought old couches and completely reupholstered them.
Young Bob learned by watching and doing, especially in shop class at Hale Junior High. He worked with me really closely and taught me lots and lots of stuff. Taylor was a shop class savant. He placed second and first in consecutive years in a statewide industrial arts exposition. He kept learning by trial and error. I told him I wanted to make a guitar. He let me. Kaiser handed him a book called Classic Guitar Construction. Taylor spent all of his junior year making that first guitar as an independent study project.
Bob was taking honors classes but told me he was bored. He researched all the tools needed to make a guitar, learned how to use them, and proved his ability.
So, I made an exception for him. Senior year, Taylor made two guitars and a banjo. For Taylor, apparently, not much. He got a job at American Dream, a hippie-ethos music store in Lemon Grove. Soon thereafter, the owner bailed on the business. Taylor, then 19, his friend Kurt Listug, then 21, and a third partner took over the store. Sales were uneven for nearly a decade. Business was rocky, so Listug took control of financial decisions. No money, no income, no nothing. Still, Taylor kept perfecting the sound and shapes of his guitars β more learning through hands-on experience.
Fast-forward through decades of design innovation, recognition, and prestige. Today, Taylor Guitars has 1, employees in its factories in El Cajon and Tecate, Mexico, a distribution warehouse in the Netherlands, and an ebony farm center in Cameroon, Africa.
