PEOPLE One of the brothers passed away in the ’70s and the oldest brother died in the ’80s. Don was asked to run the company. By this time he was in his 30s and oversaw all the production. The Dopyera’s sister ended up owning the company and asked Don to take it over as Plant Supervisor. In 1985 she decided to retire and sold the company to Chester Lezak, who had been the former CPA of the brothers. Don continued to work for Mr. Lezak.
Hawaiian guitars also have the strings raised up and are played with a steel bar. This style came into this country in 1915 in the Pan Pacific Exhibition, when the lap steel guitars emerged from the Hawaiian steel guitar. Don, at eighteen, was a bit of a Bohemian guy, mostly interested in music. He was wandering here and there, unsure what to do, when his parents invited him to come live with them for a while in Long Beach, California and go back to school. However, school just wasn’t of interest to him—he lasted only three days and found a place to stay in an industrial district in Long Beach that made guitars. In 1971 Don began working for the owners of the Dobro Guitar Company. Two brothers named Dopyera started the company called National Guitars in 1926. In 1929 they expanded calling it the Dobro Guitar Co. Dobro guitars were all Lap Steel guitars with the strings raised up, made out of wood and metal. During World War 2, they ceased making guitars as they had things to do for the war effort. In 1946 the Dopyeras started making the Dobro’s again continuing on a small scale. They built them by hand calling them Resophonic guitars. The brothers hired him when he was still a teen. Don was fired a few times, once for insubordination, but each time he was rehired. He worked for the Dobro Co. four different times. During one of the times when he wasn’t working for Dobro he ventured to make some acoustic guitars, but it was a failed effort.
Even though they did not get along very well, Don worked with Lezak until 1988. However, Don had a vision of new opportunities and left Dobro to start the new National Guitar Co. He began with eight thousand dollars in a garage in Long Beach, California. His best friend, McGregor Gaines, became his partner. They built seven guitars and took them to the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchandise) show. They were all constructed from wood with metal resonators—the round piece of metal that fits on top of the guitar and has a cone inside to produce a certain sound. Those guitars were the beginning of the National Lap Steel guitars. The show yielded them orders for fifty guitars. What a surprise!
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In 2008 Don’s partner, McGregor, decided to retire, prompting Don to purchase his partner’s half of the business. A young man named Eric began to work at the company at age 16. After working for a number of years, Don took Eric on as a partner. Don decided to retire in 2014 and sold his half of the company to Eric. There are currently 20 to 30 employees working at National today. Don found people with no prior knowledge of building guitars, but they were crafts people and eager to learn to be skilled in guitar making. All National guitars are hand made. Walking away from the guitar business was hard for Don. He decided to open a small string shop in Los Osos, where he presently lives. He has vintage string instruments of all kinds and plans soon to have a repair shop in the back. He also wants to build a few guitars on his own in the future. After all these years, Don knows what it takes to build a guitar.
Don told McGregor they better get to work. They continued in Long Beach for the next eight months in the garage knowing it would soon prove too small a space. Loving the Central Coast of California, they migrated to San Luis Obispo and leased a small industrial unit. Business continued growing along with hiring more employees. “My twenty-eight years in SLO has been a wonderful ride—selling nationally and internationally the now famous National Guitars,” says Don.
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