It all started in a garage in Anaheim. SKB founders Steve Kottman and Dave Sanderson met on the rowing team at Long Beach State University and decided to start building guitar cases for some friends. Using a homemade vacuum former with the manifold vacuum pump from Dave’s Datsun 240Z, they created the world’s first plastic molded guitar case — what would eventually become the world’s premier lightweight guitar case.
Dave and Steve continued making cases, but it wasn’t until 1979 — when they convinced Fender that SKB could provide 2,500 cases for a special anniversary edition of the Stratocaster guitar — that business really began to take off. The duo turned to their parents with a revamped business plan and secured a $50,000 line of credit using the parents’ homes as collateral. By 1983, SKB had 20 employees manufacturing 600 cases per week for Fender on machinery built by Dave and Steve.
By 1987, SKB moved into a new 40,000 square-foot facility in Orange, California, where they were able to expand into growing markets. Military contracts and cases for medical equipment, computers, and lasers provided huge growth potential. Soon, it was apparent that sports enthusiasts were buying keyboard cases and converting them for their gear, and SKB pursued this untapped market with tremendous success. By 1990, SKB had 170 employees building more than a million dollars’ worth of cases each month.
In 2004, injection-molding equipment was installed in SKB’s Orange plant. The waterproof iSeries cases were introduced into dozens of markets from high-tech laptop cases, bow cases, and cases for oceanographic equipment to improved, heavy-duty travel cases for guitars and keyboards. These new case innovations were game changers for all three of SKB’s divisions (Industrial, Music, and Sports) and helped to cement SKB’s global reputation as a premier transport manufacturer.
Today, SKB has one of the largest injection-molding machines in the United States among its arsenal of 14 injection molders as well as an in-house foam shop complete with water-jet machine, bun saw, slitter saw, and a 150-ton 4-post die press to accommodate custom foam applications.
SKB cases are now considered essential gear for everyone from hobbyists to world-touring musicians. With its robust lineup of military-grade cases, SKB has been a part of mission-critical situations to help medical personnel, first responders, and the military — but the same attention to detail is put into their iSeries musical cases that are built to withstand the most extreme environments to protect the most valuable gear.
SKB remains dedicated to the assurance that every case with an SKB logo has been manufactured with an unconditional commitment to unsurpassed quality. It may have all started with a humble guitar case, but SKB’s more than 40 years of steady growth and innovation have created a unique and lasting global legacy: providing customers around the world with the cases to protect whatever’s most important to them.
