Sen. Joel Anderson Awards Taylor Guitars Business of the Year

Sen. Joel Anderson, R-La Mesa, presented El Cajon-based Taylor Guitars with a "Business of the Year" award for Senate District 36 on Tuesday.

"Taylor Guitars is an example of the American dream come true," Anderson said of the 37-year-old company. "They are proof that you can do a great business in CA, especially in easy county San Diego."

He said the founders, Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug, ran their first shop out of a building with a leaky roof and sawdust on the floor to sop up puddles.

"Almost 40 years later, Taylor Guitars operates out of a 200,000-square-foot El Cajon facility, employs hundreds of my constituents, and makes a world- class guitar," Anderson said. "Taylor Guitars has also given back to their community through their support of local high school wood shop programs that are building the critical career development skills of our youth."

Musicians who use instruments from the company include Dave Matthews, Jason Mraz and Taylor Swift.

Taylor Guitars brought in $84 million in revenue last year, is home to 700+ employees, and the El Cajon facility produces about 300 guitars a day, with each one taking about eight days to build. This year they passed the 100,000 guitar production mark for the lifetime of the company- quite a feat for an artisan piece of musical equipment that has human hands guiding it through most aspects of production.

"It's so fulfilling that I can go anywhere and see someone playing a Taylor guitar at the airport or on the street with their hat out for change," said Bob Taylor, president and co-founder of the company.

Taylor Guitars sits just on the boundary of Santee and El Cajon, right off of Cuyamaca Street, across from Gillespie Field. They offer and are currently having Christmas sales, for those of you with musically minded mates (the facilities are closing for the holidays Dec. 19 - Jan. 2).

-City News Service contributed to this story