Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and growing up in nearby York, young Kevin Brubaker could never have imagined that his roots in music, the son of two Christian conservative church musicians, would lead him to become a designer and manufacturer of exceptionally crafted guitars.
The journey was long with lots of detours and dead ends, but the desire to succeed would not be stifled, made more challenging by Kevin’s parents’ opposition to his pursuit of any music other than the religious genre or school performances. Starting in 4th grade, Kevin played piano and trumpet in school bands.
Kevin Brubaker’s dad was a church musician for 47 years, including choral director. He also bought and sold pianos and administered rental properties. A self-confessed tinkerer, Kevin became a fixit-man, performing minor repairs and renovations for his father’s various housing units.
Brubaker’s natural mechanical inclination for figuring out how to put things together moved him in the direction of doing carpentry work in his own business, and he would move on to a series of menial jobs requiring a variety of miscellaneous handyman services. However, when the work week was over, Kevin became what he calls a “weekend music warrior.”
Knowing his parents did not approve of his personal music preferences, Brubaker quietly began to affiliate with up-and-coming ” off-brand” local bands. In the 11th grade, Kevin Brubaker became the bass player for a local band he formed with his friends.
Around 15 or 16 years old, Kevin struck up a relationship with a neighbor who was a 50-something, chain-smoking educator and jazz musician who lived near the Harley-Davidson plant in York.
Incentivized by the opportunity to spend time around his neighbor’s “hot granddaughters,” Brubaker would receive two years of critical music instruction from the neighbor, who gave him his first guitar, a mahogany red, Gibson SG bass, Angus Young, in need of repair. Employing his honed skills as a Mr. Fixit, Kevin reconditioned the instrument to pristine condition, perhaps the beginning of his career as a guitar maker.
To expand his musical experience, Mr. Brubaker regularly traveled the 45 minutes to nearby Baltimore, Maryland to attend rock concerts. Baltimore offered an eclectic choice of homegrown musical bands at local community venues, as well as major artists and performances at state-of-the-art auditoriums year-round. In the mid-1980’s, Kevin moved to Baltimore.
He recalls his first custom guitar sale in 1989 for $400 to a client named Kitty, with whom he’s remained friends. As his business grew and prospered, Kitty would later sell the guitar back to Brubaker because she thought he should possess it due to its sentimental value as his very sale.
Brubaker decided he could pay his bills by accepting carpentry and other handyman work while continuing to teach himself how to make and sell guitars. His employer, a home improvement contractor, allowed him to use space in the apartment building as a pop-up studio to work on his guitars, where he converted the laundry facility into a paint room to finish his instruments.
Startup Stories
In his early years in Baltimore, Kevin got opinions from local players about fine-tuning the guitars he was building. His method was to build a guitar, take it out to play in real-time at jam sessions, and ask for the unvarnished assessment from those whose opinions he respected; then, he would figure out on his own how to make the required adjustments.
As his skill and confidence grew, Kevin describes how he immersed himself in the vibrant Baltimore music scene and started answering ads seeking professional musicians. As Mr. Brubaker’s financial circumstances improved, he bought his own house and dedicated sufficient workspace to amp up his guitar-making efforts.
He continued to grow his business and, by the late 1990s, regularly attended trade shows to expand his brand and grow his personal reputation through networking. Kevin incorporated Brubaker Guitars in 1999 and moved his production facility to a space in Westminster, Carroll County, Maryland, surrounding himself with knowledgeable mentors who advised him along his path.
Considering his business a midsize boutique manufacturing operation, not in league with the major industrial manufacturing operations, Kevin laments that Brubaker Guitars faced a major setback in 2003 due to a fire that gutted his shop, destroying all but a few of his tools. Luckily, he was adequately insured.
As Brubaker Guitars began to become profitable, Kevin Brubaker decided to bring on business partners, which he explains would become one of the more painful episodes in the life of his company when the collaboration failed.
Kevin attributes the 2016 failure in part to what he now realizes was “short-sightedness,” admitting that he didn’t know as much about business as he’d imagined. He said problems cropped up in several areas that led to the partnership’s demise, including manufacturing, distribution, and marketing missteps. In hindsight, he recognizes that it was the wrong move. Feeling demoralized, Kevin nearly quit his business altogether. Mr. Brubaker estimates his business moved 6 or 7 times, which also did not help.
Today, Brubaker Guitars is in growth mode again, having learned and grown from critical mistakes, building upon them as a new foundation for continued future success.
Author: Regi Taylor