FI V E M INUTE S W ITH
CHRIS MARTIN IV CEO, C.F. Martin By Brian Berk
July will be a time of much change for Chris Martin IV, CEO of C.F. Martin. At his company, he will assume the role of executive chairman, with a search currently underway for a new CEO of C.F. Martin. Martin will also end an eight-year tenure on the NAMM board of directors, including the past two years as NAMM chairman. Clearly, there are many questions to ask of Martin, who has spent more than 40 years in MI. If you want both honest and informational answers to our questions, you have come to the right place. So, let’s dig right in.
The Music & Sound Retailer: It is certainly hard to think of just a couple of memories from your time at C.F. Martin. But can you think of any really important moments for either you or the company in the past 40 years? Chris Martin: Let’s go back to the beginning of my career. My parents were divorced, but by high school, I was beginning to show interest in the business. So, I would come visit [the factory] and generally stay with my grandfather. One summer, I followed a guitar through production. That was fascinating. That’s when I really got into it. I thought, This is something. People are really dedicated to making this thing that makes music. Then, I went off to college, and at that point, it was the tail end of my dad’s career. He joined the business, catching the folk boom. He made a few acquisitions. Darco Strings was brilliant. The other three did not work out very well. Through that time, I saw a bunch of stuff happen. My dad saw his career peak, and he was challenged by the fact that business was getting more difficult. It wasn’t just how many more D-28s can we make, because the world wants them. Music was moving away from the acoustic guitar and going to disco and digital sampling keyboards. It was a really challenging time for the company. In hindsight, I said to myself, Are you sure you really want to do this? It was the tail end of someone else’s life — my dad’s life and my grandfather’s life. But, although my dad and I had an awkward relationship, my grandfather and I became very close. He saw in me the next Mr. Martin. I saw in him the Mr. Martin who was going to keep this business going no matter what. That helped me. My father retired under duress, and my grandfather passed away because he forgot to retire. That’s when the board [of directors] put me in charge. I said, “OK, I am doing this because I am a Martin.” I felt an obligation to at least try to help the business, to see if the business could survive. At that point, it was just survival. My dad hobbled the company with a lot of debt. Our banks fired us. They said, “We are done with you.” There was a lot of bank consolidation, and the people who bought the local banks did not know my dad, looked at the books and said, “This is a mess.” So, we ended up working with a little bank in Reading, [Pa.]. We would get calls every day from the CFO [chief financial officer] about whether the bank could send us money or if we needed us to send them money. That [daily] discipline was good because it made us understand that business is precarious. There isn’t a guarantee success will continue into the future. That was a really good thing for me to learn very early in my career. The Retailer: You announced you will be transitioning to an executive chairman role at the company in July. How is the CEO search going, and what qualities are you looking for in that person? Martin: I have been talking about retirement, off and on, for about five years. I am also concluding as NAMM chairman [in July], and I looked beyond those commitments and asked myself if I still want to be Mr. Martin, CEO. I said, “No. I don’t.” [My daughter] Claire, who is 16 and just got her driver’s license, said to [my wife] 26
MAY 2021
