Yeah....I had the same problem at first. I finally did a back door...searched for (news) 'Ovation reopening plants' and that got me into the story.

Part 1:

August 30, 2015, 7:39 AM




NEW HARTFORD — Darren Wallace's co-workers thought he was foolish, spending hundreds of hours of his own time, early mornings and Saturdays, mucking around at the Ovation Guitars plant that closed in the summer of 2014..

He thought if the factory looked like it wouldn't take much effort to restart, a future owner might return to make musical instruments there.

"I live really close to here and didn't want to give up," said Wallace, who has worked with Ovation for more than 20 years under three corporate owners.

After the plant closed, he worked in sales and marketing for the brand, which kept its Asia production.

"Man, you're wasting your time," he recalls his colleagues at KMC Music saying. "It's not going to happen."

But, against the odds, it did. Last winter, a California company bought the Ovation brand, liked what it saw in Connecticut, and decided to re-open the factory, with Wallace in charge.

"Thank God, [the naysayers] were wrong," said John Budny, who started working for Ovation in 1973 and was one of the handful who wasn't laid off last year.

This week, Wallace re-hired two men who worked at the factory. Along with Budny and two others who had stayed on to do repairs, the crew will start turning out new guitars in just a few weeks.

The story of factories leaving Connecticut because products can be made more cheaply elsewhere began more than 100 years ago. In fact, the Greenwoods Co., which built the complex where Ovation operates, left New Hartford in 1901 for Alabama, where it could make heavy cotton for ship sails, mailbags and tents more cheaply and with fewer restrictions on child labor.

Reborn factories are far more rare, although New Hartford is home to another, Hitchcock Furniture, which was revived twice, in 1946 and 2011.

Ovation Guitars was founded in 1966 by Charlie Kaman, more famous as a helicopter pioneer. The plant had been in New Hartford for 47 years and was owned by Kaman Corp. until Fender bought Kaman Music in 2007.

Weeks after the factory closed, Wallace tried to tag machines that Ovation would need if it ever re-started in New Hartford. But that didn't stop the company from selling them at auction.

Roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of the equipment was sold off after the closure, between machines going to Córdoba Guitars' factory in Oxnard, Calif., and a later auction. Córdoba bought the Guild guitars line from Fender.

After that, Wallace and the repair guys who were still in the plant started moving machines from what he called "random piles" and arranging them in what looked like a production line.

Even though there was no announcement, he expected Fender Musical Instruments Co. to sell Ovation.




Sure enough, Oxnard, Calif.-based Drum Workshop bought five drum brands and Ovation from Fender in December.

On Jan. 9, CEO Chris Lombardi came out to see what there was at New Hartford. Lombardi had told a trade publication that he thought whatever equipment and tooling were left would be packed up in boxcars.

"His intention was to move it to Oxnard," Wallace said — most likely contracting with Córdoba to make Ovation guitars, mandolins and ukuleles.

But, Lombardi told the trade publication, once he saw the equipment laid out and met the local staff, "the decision was easy."

When asked about how seeing the line swayed Lombardi from the thought of moving production to California, John Bagan, chief operating officer of Drum Workshop, said, "We never even considered that."

Wallace recalled, "They stayed here till probably 8 o'clock that night," and he started feeling like the CEO was considering re-opening the plant.



"But, really, until we finally signed the lease June 30th, we weren't 100 percent sure it was going to happen."