2010 has been a good year for American patriotism. And we don’t just mean annual rituals such as the Fourth of July. American pride was clearly evident in February in Vancouver and the United States did not disappoint. The country took home the most medals in the Winter Olympics, which only years before badly trailed the Summer Games for U.S. excellence. Even the men’s hockey team took Canada to the brink in the gold-medal game, only to fall in overtime.
American spirit continued in June’s World Cup. The USA advanced past the first round of the soccer tournament before losing a 2-1 heartbreaker to Ghana. The U.S. team definitely didn’t reach its goals, but being one of the top 16 countries in the world in a sport that’s overshadowed by football, baseball, basketball, golf, tennis and auto racing probably isn’t that bad.
To keep up the rising American spirit theme, we brought back our “Born the USA” story, which we debuted last year. We are highlighting companies that manufacture a majority of their products in the United States. We asked many companies, which are below, representing a compilation of answers. Answers are presented in
no specific order.
Editor’s Note: To qualify for this story, manufacturers had to manufacture at least 51 percent of their products in the United States. That can be further broken down into unit sales or revenues. If the company fulfilled the 51 percent requirement in one of the two categories, they were welcome to respond. Also, in some cases, a manufacturer may be owned by a larger conglomerate. That company qualified for this story if their product line was 51 percent U.S.-made. The conglomerate does not have to be a majority U.S. manufacturer. This story represents a list of respondents. It is not intended to be a full list of U.S.-based manufacturers.
Question No. 1: Why do you make your products
in the USA as opposed to Asian countries?
What benefits does it provide?
“FMIC utilizes best-in-class manufacturing facilities around the world to support the wide product and price point offering that makes up our total guitar and amplifier product lines. It has always been a part of Fender’s legacy, culture and origins to maintain an American manufacturing presence, and we are proud to be among the few who continue to support manufacturing within the USA. We feel this is necessary to carry our legacy forward and also to provide the finest musical instruments possible by controlling every aspect of the creation of our guitars and amplifiers.”
—Andy Rossi, Fender
“Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of our products are made in the USA, using raw materials that are also made in the USA. We are a small string maker and our focus is on quality, not quantity. We have a great staff at our factory in Cortez, Colo., and I am more interested in creating jobs in the community where I live.”
—Curt Mangan, Curt Mangan Strings
“As we enter our 45th year in business, we still have strong roots in U.S. production. Hartley started building Peavey products above his father’s music store in Meridian, Miss., and today things continue to roll on. No other manufacturer in our industry has invested as much in plants, property and equipment for U.S. manufacturing as Peavey. I would say in years past that Mississippi was the ‘China’ of U.S. manufacturing and we just happened to be located here. Costs are cheaper than other parts of the country and it enables us to build great, made-in-the-USA products at a fair and reasonable price.”
—Courtland Gray, Peavey
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