C. F. Martin & Co. announced that Tim McNair has been promoted to general manager of its String Division. Effective immediately, McNair will report to company President Keith Lombardi. In this position, he is responsible for the growth of the company’s String business and providing direct leadership to the areas of manufacturing, marketing, procurement and R&D.
“We are thrilled to be adding Tim to our core leadership team as he celebrates a decade of dedicated service within the company,” said Lombardi. “Our Strings division continues to grow and innovate, and we are excited about what its future holds.”
Recently, under the leadership of McNair along with Martin’s Director of Promotional Marketing Amani Duncan, the company named Pennsylvania-based Spark the new agency of record for its Strings division, and introduced a new “Heart | Tone | Legend” logo that serves as a representation of what the brand means to Martin Guitar and its consumers.
“The Martin String division is a market leader in its category,” stated McNair. “It is a great pleasure to work with our consumers, dealers, artists, and suppliers to strengthen and grow our string brands.”
McNair joined Martin Guitar in 2001 as controller, where he worked with senior management to analyze and execute financial, strategic, operational and marketing decisions. In 2005, he was appointed director of sales and marketing for the String Division. In this position, he led the division to year-over-year sales records and launched several successful new products including the FX Flexible Core acoustic strings, used by such artists at Tommy Emmanuel and Gordon Giltrap, and the new SP Lifespan acoustic strings, already the strings of choice for artists such as Mumford & Sons and Travis Tritt.
Prior to joining C.F. Martin & Co., McNair spent several years with Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. in the Chemicals Division as a Market Manager and Business analyst. McNair also spent time with Price Waterhouse as a senior accountant and staff accountant in the Audit Services Group. His public accounting experience included significant emphasis on consumer product manufacturing and telecommunication services.
You won’t need to pass a genetics class to play one, but C.F. Martin & Co. is using DNA to ensure that customers are getting the real deal when purchasing a Martin guitar. After a wave of Chinese-manufactured counterfeit Martin guitars hit the market this year, C.F. Martin & Co. employed New York-based Applied DNA Sciences to “tag” each genuine instrument with a DNA signature. Eventually, C.F. Martin & Co. wants to offer customers the ability to check the validity of their own instruments, to ensure they haven’t been hoodwinked. Measures taken to stop counterfeiting have fallen upon deaf ears in China — the country has done very little to stop the production of counterfeits over the years. Several months ago, C.F. Martin displayed the flaws of the counterfeit guitars to U.S. Senator Casey (D-PA), noting how easily the instrument can “collapse.” At the Martin Guitar Museum in Nazareth, PA, guitarists were asked to see if they could pick out the genuine Martin guitar from a set of two guitars, one real the other fake. Most had a hard 
time, but a few could spot the flaws. The design of the counterfeit guitars are stolen directly from Martin’s finest guitars, however the materials to build them are not. These fakes can sound and feel like a genuine for a short while, but they will eventually fall to pieces. Unlike other methods of determining authenticity, Applied DNA Sciences actually use real plant DNA with a particular sequence as a tag of authenticity. The DNA can be infused at any point of the guitar manufacturing, from the lacquer finish or the ink in the C.F. Martin Guitar Co. engraving. However, for now, customers should stick to the best way of purchasing a real Martin guitar: always use a authorized Martin dealer.
