My Job interview: Emerald Guitars, a finely tuned business

Alistair Hay of Emerald Guitars tells how opening a new distribution hub at Stuart, Florida, has helped minimise the impact of US trade tariffs

The Ultra Guitar, one of the innovative range of guitars being created by Emerald Guitars, based at Cavanacaw, St Johnson, Donegal.

MY JOB 

Name: Alistair Hay. 

Occupation: Founder and CEO, Emerald Guitars. 

Background: Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Donegal, it is the market leader in carbon fibre and electro-hybrid guitars. It produced its 10,000th guitar in October. 

[In conversation with John Daly] 

Alistair Hay of Emerald Guitars in Donegal, who are now handling all US orders through a new distribution hub at Stuart, Florida, thus eliminating any surprise fees for US-based customers.

It has been a turbulent twelve months for Emerald Guitars. 

When the US imposed swinging tariffs on imported goods earlier this year, a commercially dangerous trade war confronted many musical instrument companies and retailers. 

Faced with this unexpected challenge, Emerald Guitars, based at Cavanacaw, St Johnson, Donegal, took a proactive position and quickly set in motion plans to open a hub in North America to support its rapidly expanding US customer base.  

By shipping all custom and in-stock instruments via the company’s new facility at Stuart in Florida, import duties and tariffs were removed for buyers and instead absorbed by the company. 

“With the tariff uncertainties, we wanted to take decisive action to bring clarity and consistency to our customers,” Alistair Hay explained at the opening of the new facility in September. “By handling US orders through our new distribution hub, we eliminate any surprise fees for our customers and offer a smoother, more predictable experience.” 

While each guitar will continue to be handcrafted in Donegal, the new Florida setup will ensure that no tariff fees are passed on to their customers. The hub will operate as a centre for warranty and service work, in addition to a Player’s Suite showroom. 

Just one month later in October, the company arrived at another significant milestone in presenting guitar number 10,000 to its new owner. As a landmark instrument that celebrated the company’s quarter century in business, it was given the iconic identification number 001.

 “When we realised that we were approaching guitar number 10,000, we knew that this milestone deserved something extra special to commemorate it. A guitar that would not only reflect where we are today, but also tie back to the very first emerald, serial number 001.”

Alistair had a traditional rural Irish upbringing in the seaside town of Creeslough in North West Donegal. Living in a cottage, Alistair’s father Bobby ran the family farm which had been handed down through the generations. It was a life where everybody did their share, as the fourth generation of Hays ran the farm. 

“I grew doing regular farm things – helping to look after the animals and various jobs. When you grow up on a farm in rural Ireland you learn that you have to make everything, so there is an innovative side to it. It was an incredible place to grow up in the 1970s, but also a good experience in learning how to make things.” 

Alistair’s father was an early influence in pointing the youngster toward a career in design: “He was a designer and a great maker of everything. Whatever he needed, he would just make it. He set up a little workshop for me when I was five or six, with my own tools and timber and I could just chip away and make things.” 

When his father took a designer job with an engineering firm in East Donegal, the Hay family to St Johnston where the Emerald Guitars headquarters is still located today. 

“The house where I lived from the age of eight is right beside the factory that we are now still working in 32 years later.” 

When his father started his own engineering company making boats and children’s play equipment, working with fibre glass became part of Alistair’s formative years: “I really immersed myself in making things and designing which was all thanks to what my father taught me; that was the beginning of it all.” 

By his mid teens, while still attending Royal & Prior College in Raphoe, Alistair was taking on his own fibreglass business projects referred to him by his father. “I designed go karts as part of a school project which our business put into production and became our best-selling products for years afterwards.”

Attending Athlone Institute of Technology to study Polymer Engineering, Alistair took a summer job in St Louis, Missouri, that changed his life. Landing a dream job working for US Formula One Powerboat racing team, Seebold Sports, whose record-breaking craft was made of carbon fibre, would prove a key career move. 

Coming home to Ireland, the idea of starting his own company making guitars began to take shape, Two years of design and development work saw him construct and dismiss over 30 instruments before he was satisfied that his carbon fibre guitar creation would work. It was a serious engineering challenge to replicate the acoustic and tonal qualities of a traditional wooden guitar in carbon fibre – but, through trial, error and dogged persistence, he finally achieved it. 

“Wood has certain frailties in relation to temperature and humidity, it can warp and move and be fragile and break,” he explains. 

Carbon fibre, by contrast, allows for a much more resilient instrument with a reliable and consistent sound. Today Emerald Guitars sells to clients around the world, from beginners to stadium acts such as Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams.

 Another satisfied customer was composer and virtuoso guitarist Steve Vai – a hero of Alistair’s – for whom he created alien-like Ultra guitar inspired by his 1999 album and tour, The Ultra Zone.

 “At first I wasn’t sure if I should plug it in and play it or crawl inside of it and fly it to Venus,” Vai said, on receiving the instrument – “So I did both.” 

Such high praise marked another chapter in the global success story that is Emerald Guitars. 

“It’s amazing to think that here, on a little hill in Donegal, you’ll find the world’s most technologically advanced guitar maker,” said Alistair Hay of the journey so far. “It’s a very unlikely story but one that people have really connected with and it’s just great to be able to bring people from all around the world to this corner of Donegal to see our guitars.”