The Fullerton Workers

Clarence Leonidas Fender

BORN: August 10, 1909

Died: March 21, 1991

Position: Founder / CEO

Employed at Fender: 1938-1965

Leo Fender (August 10, 1909 – March 21, 1991)  was born in a barn in Fullerton, the city he was to live his whole life in.  After graduating from college, he started Fender Radio Shop in Fullerton in 1938. This was the beginning and ground zero of his journey into music instruments of what was to become a remarkable and revolutionary journey

During World War 2, Before the Telecaster was created, he developed Lap Steel guitars and amplifiers with Doc Kauffman Orr. Together they started a company called K&F Manufacturing Co. producing and selling Lapsteel & Amplifier combos. The company did not last long, and in 1946 Kauffman pulled out and Leo renamed the company "Fender Manufacturing", which soon again was renamed to "Fender Electric Instrument Co." in 1947.

The rise of the solid-body electric guitar was not solely Fenders doing.  Other individuals would start inventing their own solid body guitars, like Les Paul who were building his "Log" at Epiphone. 

Leo eventually started working on what would to become the Fender Esquire, the precursor of the Telecaster. In 1948 he had a prototype ready.

He launched the Esquire in 1950, that was to further evolve to the 2-pickup Broadcaster, then ultimately Telecaster after a trademark dispute with Gretch. 

Fender Fullerton factory would go trough two sites to begin with. First location was in Santa Fe Avenue, for a short time. The second location was Pomona Avenue where he built a new larger building that would expand his operations. And finally, the last location at 500 South Raymond Avenue where Fender would establish a full scale factory and distribution loaction and soon invent the Stratocaster. This location was handed to CBS when Leo sold his company in 1964.

LEO , THE QUIET GIANT...

Leo was an inventor first and a businessman second. He did not know how to play guitar ever, yet alone tune one up, but was always keen on learning from artists what they need and improvements they wish to see for his guitars.

Leo sold Fender in 1964 to CBS because he thought he was terminally ill, when in fact he was not.  He remained a consultant for CBS for a few years. He would develop the micro-tilt system for them  mention one of his invention post Fender ownership.

After some years, he would become involved with business affairs alongside ex-Fender employee Forrest White and Tom Walker. With them they started what was to become "Music Man" which Fender became president for in 1975 under his CLF Research company he had founded.

He pulled out a short time after and started G&L with George Fullerton. This was to be the last position Leo worked at where he kept developing on the Stratocaster inspired design until he passed away.

During his tenure with G&L, Leo got married to Phyllis Fender after his first wife Esther died of cancer in 1979. With Phyllis, Leo took the opportunity to travel a great deal around the world. He was fond of boat and cruise trips and would visit many countries trough his exploring adventures.

After a couple of minor strokes, Leo Fender passed away in March 1991 following complications from Parkinson disease. Phyllis died in 2020.

Great book about Leo i would recommend Leo Fender The Quiet Giant Heard Around The World

Freddie Tavares

BORN: 18 February 1913 - Maui Hawaii

DIED : 24 July 1990 - Anaheim California

Position: Assistant Engineer

Employed at Fender: 1953-1985

Frederick Theodore Tavares was born in Hawaii in 1913. He was of Chinese, Portuguese and English descent.

Growing up in a family of ten children, When Freddie turned 12 yr old, his oldest brother Anthony gave him a guitar, and he decided to find a place in music.  Pretty soon he was  showing a natural ability at excelling quickly on instruments. Some years later, he was offered to play lap steel guitar in a band, but he did not know how to play it, but he acquired a lap steel and learned the parts of the songs in two weeks anyway and got the job. The Steel guitar was to become the instrument most associated with Freddie.

He would later develop skills for electronics and would put together his own amp eventually because commercial available amps would not give him the sound he wanted.

Well established in the music scene, he got married to his wife Tamar in 1937.

Dick Dale says in his interviews that Leo headhunted him from Hawaii, but i think the true story is this:

In 1942, he relocated to Anaheim, California with his family and quickly found work as a song writer and musician  for TV and Radio jingles and themes. The same year he would record the Steel guitar swoop heard at the very beginning of the 'Looney Tunes' theme.

He became friends with Noel Boggs who was contributing and testing steel guitars for Fender, and in 1953, Boggs introduced Freddie to Leo.

Freddie showed Leo his amp, who inspected it closely and was quite impressed with it. Leo had for a while been on the lookout for an assistant engineer to help out his busy schedule at the factory and offered Freddie the spot. He accepted.

Despite getting a job for his amp building skills, Freddie was put to work on a new guitar design that was in development. The guitar was the Fender Stratocaster that was to be released the year after.

Freddie would modify its shape and design but was solely responsible for designing the Tremolo/Vibrato units it had. He eventually decided it would need larger mass, and came up the tremolo block design. The 6-screw vintage tremolo we know today is solely Freddies work. Together with Bill Carson, Dick Dale and Rex Gallion, they further developed, and finalized the Stratocaster during the remainer of 1953. Leo had drawn up the blueprint for it and the guitar was primarily a joint design trough all engineers and musicians, where as the Telecaster was Leo's brainchild. The Stratocaster was not aimed for any type of musician. It was simply a product to expand their solid-body guitar line.

By 1958 Leo settled that the Stratocaster had come to its final design, and Freddie would go on and help designing the Jazzmaster, Jaguar and the Fender Jazz Bass.

But he also got back to building amps, and his biggest design contribution was the legendary 4x10" Bassman amplifier.

When CBS bought Fender in 1965, Freddie stayed on, but he had less influence on the design floor during the CBS era. But he did work in the R&D department.

At the start of 1980, he recruited from the Fender factory work-floor an enthusiastic John Page to product design. The two hit it off, and Freddie would start designing the Reissue Telecaster, when CBS sold the company to Bill Schultz. Freddie, Page and Paul Bugelski would start working hard to turn around a company that was in a disastrous decline. Bugelski was let go for Dan Smith to come aboard and build up the company.

John Page would go on starting the early stages of Custom Shop and Freddie decided to retire in 1985.

Freddie would enjoy retirement for only 5 years before he died at his home in Anaheim in July 1990 at age 77. His remains was flown back to Hawaii and was buried at Nuuanu cemetery in Oahu.

His brother Ernest Arriaga Tavares was also a skilled multi-instrumentalist. 

One can only imagine what the Strat would be like without him. He contributed immensely to Fender's history and legacy.

George W. Fullerton

BORN: March 7, 1923 Arkansas

Died: July 4, 2009 California

Position: Engineering & Design

Employed at Fender: 1945 - 1970

George William Fullerton was Leo Fender's partner since the Fender Radio Shop days around 1945 when they met. George had similar interest as Leo in electronics and fixing up amplifiers and radios.

Like Leo, he also repaired home equipment radios, but he worked for another company. but would hang around Leo's shop very often.

But them two got acquainted well, as George would tag along and join events that Leo used to supply amplification for. He was also around when Doc Kauffman established and ran K&L with Leo for a short time before Kaufmann left.

Around 1947, Leo set up his first "shack" in Pomona Avenue where he would start the humble beginning of guitar work. There he he would tinker with lap steel guitars and he asked George to help out and fix and repair returns of several lap steels he had lying around.

This was the start of the workmanship between the two. Fender would eventually leave the shop into the hands of Dale Hyatt to run while Leo had other plans of building something new he was designing on.

Him and Leo would work long hours designing the guitar that would become the Broadcaster prototype. The guitar would have the Body design we know, and Bridge design almost identical to the vintage one we have today, but only had two pots, a simple pickguard and a neck with a paddle headstock, similar to an acoustic. They would also design the cutaway for the player to be able to reach the upper frets. Although Bigsby had beat them to it on that feature.

The Esquire and Broadcaster was born after much work and design together with musicians at the time. Both were named by Leo at first. But had to drop the Broadcaster because Gretch used that name on their product line of drums and they sent a cease and desist letter asking them to stop using the name.

After a few month of producing "Nocasters" (Guitars with only Fender logo on)The "Telecaster" name was then brought up by Don Randall.

They eventually took the guitar to Jimmy Bryant to play. He really liked it and soon the word spread around and more would want one, And before they knew it, the had more orders than ever before.

George and Fender then opened the Richmond Avenue location and he was there to oversee designs of the Stratocaster as well. More people were brought in. Don Randall, Forrest White and Freddie Tavares eventually. George, however did not get a fully titled position until 1948.

When Leo sold Fender to CBS, George stayed on with CBS until 1970 when he left. He eventually would come up with the idea of custom colors for CBS to try out.

Leo then started up CLF Research in 1966, barely a year after he sold Fender. At CLF, Leo was a consultant for CBS and helped out designing new feature for them which was part of the sales deal. George would eventually team up with Leo again after 1970 when he left Fender Company, and work with him together trough the short upbringing of Music Man Guitars. And eventually they started up G&L Guitars together with Dale Hyatt in 1979 where Leo held his position until he died in 1991.

George would write a book called "Guitars from George & Leo: How Leo Fender and I Built G&L Guitars".

George Fullerton passed away on independence day, July 4th, 2009 in Fullerton California.

Dick Dale

BORN: May 4, 1937 - Boston

DIED : March 16, 2019 - California

Position: External Product Tester & Advisor

Employed at Fender: Non-Emplyed

NTRO:

If there is one guy that lived long enough to tell the tale of Leo Fender and the uprising of guitar-driven Rock'n Roll, Dick Dale was the man. The career and stories that Dick had was golden treasure every time he would speak about them. He grew up in the middle of a musical revolution both on stage and off stage.

Dick Dale was named the King of Surf music. He basically invented it, and Beach Boys commercialized it.

His real name was Richard Anthony Monsour and was born May 4, 1937 in Boston, Massachusetts.

He would later move to California with his family in 1954 and involve himself with the surfing community. In terms of musical interest, he started playing drums first with Gene Krupa as his main influence. But later he also learned piano and trumpet and develop a dream to become a country musician where Hank Williams would be another influence.

THE FENDER COLLABORATION

Dale's turf was the Balboa area. Great for waves and music. He started playing live music around there at very young age. However, he was often broke and had only poor equipment to use. So he decided to drop by the Fender factory and sought up Leo Fender,- introducing himself as a surfer with no money, and he needed some better equipment and could not afford it.

Leo, who had released the Stratocaster the year before, found a Strat in his factory and gave it to him and asked him to try it out. The two would then go on and collaborate on various instruments and amps over the years with both Leo and Freddie Tavarez in close collaboration.

Dale has an unorthodox style of playing. He plays left-handed backwards. Meaning Jimi Hendrix style but with Low-E at the bottom and High-E at the top. 

Leo, a man of staunch focus who rarely cracked a smile fell off his chair laughing when he saw Dale playing it that way and told him; "Son, you are holding it the wrong way"

If it was not unorthodox enough, he used some string gauge that Stevie Ray Vaughan would struggle to handle. 

Dale used 016-.018-020-039-,049- and .060 strings for sheer power and output.

Leo told him to take the guitar and "beat it to death." with a sort-of an endorsement deal statement to "tell him how it performs" as payment. Eventually he sent Dale off with the guitar and an amp.

To begin with, Dale was mainly focused on country music and was influenced by Hank Williams. But he created a playing style that was unique and unheard of at the time. He would play fast Staccato single notes, and since his father was of Lebanese origin, he found inspiration in middle eastern scales.. The staccato derived from Krupa´s tribalistic drumming, and he has said that the sound of thunderous waves during surfing  was a major influence as well.

He would also make heavy use of the built in reverb on the amps to create the foundation of the surf music sound with its now- identifying "boom-cha-cha" drum rhythm. As he progressed into the Californian music scene, he found himself getting a slot at the Rendezvous Ballroom, Balboa, California. There he would pioneer Surf music to thousands of people during the mid-60's with his band "The Del-Tones".

The Beach Boys was establishing themselves at the same time. But their sound was commercially pop driven compared to Dale's more fierce style and considerably more toned down.

THE BIRTH OF THE SHOWMAN AMP

Dale played with incredible loud volume and blew amps all the time. On the commercial market, 10-15W amps was the maximum you could get in those days. Not many amps could withstand the sound and volume Dale was after.

But now, with good connection to Leo Fender, he went to him once more and asked for solutions. Leo who was primarily an inventor at heart that always went great length to help out artist, which was the reason he made guitars to begin with. So Leo Fender and Freddie Tavares would come down to Rendezvous Ballroom when Dale was playing one night. The two stood in the middle of the crowd, and Leo said "Well i think i know what Dick is trying to tell us" and they started designing and building an amp with more power.

Leo then developed the first 85 Watt transformer that was capable of pushing 100 Watts of power trough four 5180 tubes. There was no capable speaker around to drive such power, so they went to Jon Lansing of JBL and asked him to make him a custom 15" inch speaker with a 15 pound magnet. Also on Dale's request, he asked JBL to put those aluminum dust cover on the diaphragm so he could hear the "click" when he plucked the strings.

The speaker became a commercial model and is called JBL D130F.  They packed all this into a cabinet and it got the name Fender Showman amplifier wrapped with cream tolex because thats all Leo had at the moment. he named it after Dick's stage mannerism since he was a "Showman" on stage as he would leap off the amps during the performance and so on.. 

Finally Dick had an amp he could crank up without any fear of the amp catching fire.

But for Dale, that was not enough, he silently asked Leo again to stick two 15" horns in a cabinet.

So again Leo, Dale and the crew would expand the amp, cranking up the wattage further. Packing a 100W output transformer jointly developed with the  Triad Company, with peak volume to 180 Watts and housing Two JBL D130F speakers. This was to be called the "Dual Showman"

These powerhouse amplifiers was the forerunners to Marshal high gain amps. later Rockers consider him the forefather of loud Rock'n roll. The Showman amps was the humble yet brash beginning of more modern Rock music.

HOLLYWOOD MOVIES

Dick Dale also went into the movie business for a period in the beginning of the 60's. 

When the Surf music movement grew, Hollywood sought to make some money of it and they did several surfer movies where Dick would have a role as a technical music consultant or a acting role as a musician or other roles if there were needed for one.

The first movie he ever did was "Let´s Make Love", where he played an Elvis Presley impersonator and got to work with Marilyn Monroe for four weeks whom Dale thought was a gifted and intelligent person. 

Two decades later in 1994 after the Surf movement had long come and gone, Quentin Tarantino decides to open up his critical acclaimed movie Pulp Fiction with "Misrlou" , Dale's probably most known song, a fierce instrumental spearheaded with all signature surf and mariachi horns, thus giving his career a spark again.

DICK DALE IN PRIVATE

Privately, Dale was a everyday surfer in his younger years. He was also a environmental activist and spoke for planet preservation and anti-commercialism which he wrote most of his lyrics  about. He was also a animal rights lover preserving rare species like tigers.

Together with Fender he would pioneer the Stratocaster, but he was a multi-instrumentalist and helped out testing all the Fender Hammond organs and other models as well as Jazzmaster and Jaguar guitars.

during his later years as he grew older, his health started to decline. He suffered from Diabetes, Vertebrae damage and kidney problems. He also fought and beat cancer in 1966 . But Dale was a real trooper and took his health issue as an simple obstacle to overcome and beat.

He toured and played as much as he could to pay his medical bills until he died in 2019 after complications from heart and kidney treatment. He was 81 years old.

Abigail Ybarra

BORN: November, 1935

Position: Master Winder

Employed at Fender: 1956 - 2016

The word "Legend" is easily thrown around amongst artist. But Abigail Ybarra truly deserves that title.

She is, if not, the last living member of the golden-era Fullerton crew of the 50's and 60's.

She started working for Leo Fender in 1956 as a teenager after she had lost her father.

Abigail found her firm spot behind the winding machine after a short time after being trained by Pilar Lopez (First principal pickup winder) . Her workday was 8 hours at the time that split between 4 hours of winding and 4 hours of assembling, soldering and other operations.

Abigail has never mentioned what she did during the CBS-era since the company went from manual winding to machine winding.

But eventually after the CBS-era, she became the master winder for Fender for many more years up to 2016 when she retired at 80 years old after almost 60 years in service. She dedicated her whole life for music in a different way.

In 2024 she came out of retirement together with her daughter Aurora Ybarra (who also winds) to help out an former Fender Masterbuilder Carlos Lopez for Castedosa Guitars. Together they wound some pickups for his ABI line he was producing.

Thinking back, you can only imagine the artists that had wired Abby's pickups installed in their guitars. The Queen of Tone is still heard today trough her pickups and will be for many years more.

Respect is due.

Pilar Lopez

BORN: Unknown

DIED:  Unknown

Position: Pickup Winder 

Employed at Fender: Early Years

There is no records or pictures of Pilar Lopez that we know of.

The only thing we know of her is that she was the first pickup winder at Fender Fullerton that was personally taught by Leo Fender.

When Abigail Ybarra started working there in 1956, Pilar was the one who taught Abigail to wind pickups. Other than this, we know little. Ybarra has said that Pilar was a fantastic lady. Very kind and cheerful.

“Virginia”

BORN: Unknown

DIED:  Unknown

Position: Quality Control Inspector

Employed at Fender: 1954 - ? (Early Years)

Virginia is another unknown we know nothing about.

Her name is to be found in a few Strats and Telecasters from 1954. Most famously she was the final inspector for Eric Johnsons infamous "Virginia Strat" that was named after her.

But as of today, no photo, bio or anything exists of this employee.

“Beck”

BORN: Unknown

DIED:  Unknown

Position: Quality Control Inspector

Employed at  Unknown (Early Years)

We know nothing of this employee. No full name nor gender..

The only proof there was a "Beck" working there is from a 1954 Hardtail Stratocaster once owned by Overend Watts from Mott The Hoople. Back then, it was common that the last person who controlled the instrument put a tape-strip in the cavity and wrote their first or last name of it, and "Beck" was written inside Watts guitar.

Tadeo Gomez

BORN: October 28, 1902

Died: November 25, 1986

Position: Engineering & Design

Employed at Fender: 1945 - 1970

Perhaps we could say that Tadéo is the second in line after Abigail Ybarra that deserves the higher accolades for his services at Fender. Tadeo was a wood worker who was instrumental in the Fender's development of neck shapes and carves.

Tadéo Juarga Gomez was born in 1902 in La Cueva Mexico, Tadeo was an immigrant from a large family, that like so many, crossed over the USA border to find the American Dream. Certainly he made here, but ending up at Fender was perhaps not the dream he wished for perhaps, But he did find honest work which was more than he needed. He remained unknown for most, and was not really heralded for his work until the vintage collector market started to rise acknowledging his contribution to the Fender brand. 

No exact date is known when he started at Fender, But he was there in the very early beginning in the 50's as his "TG" signature is found on Broadcaster necks.  During his time in Fender he invented the infamous '57 Soft-V shape which many favor. This neck shape is the defining shape amongst the 50s reissues today.

His carving technique and neck shapes  is dubbed  "The Tadéo Taper" Specifically the necks that goes from one shape at 1st fret and ends up differently at the heel.

Tadéo would only work for Fender until 1957 when he quit due to disagreement with managment. He then went to Anaheim to help constructing Disneyland. But finding his health was not cut out anymore to do hard labour, he returned to Fender after it was sold to CBS to work as a... Janitor.

You could say it was a waste of talent during those years, but neck production methods had changed and CBS only really cared for straight C-shapes during their reign. Neck carves and shapes did not really seem to be emphasized on while CBS had Fender ownership.

A work-accident made him quit Fender for good in 1969.

He retired back to his home in La Habra, CA (just north of Fullerton) to run his own little convenient store  with his wife called "La Chiquita Store" on 4th Street until he passed away in 1986.

Tadéo was Married to Petra (who died in 1989). The couple had six children.

Read more about Tadeo: Guitar.com / GuitarHQ

Rogelio Centeno

BORN: 1929

DIED: January 2022

Position: Factory Worker / Custom Shop (later years)

Employed at Fender: 1960 - 2021

Rogerlio "Roger" Centeno is the longest serving employee of Fender ever.

He started working for Leo Fender in 1960 and has continuously worked with Fender ever since, trough CBS era and then FMIC. He worked in the Custom Shop in the last period.

He died in January 2022, only one year after he retired from Fender.

If you have more information about Rogelio, what he actually did at Fender in the past and at the end, let me know.

Fred Lee Fullerton

Born: October 8, 1893
Died: October 9 1979

Position: Factory Worker

Employed at Fender: Early 50’s

Fred Lee Fullerton was George Fullerton's father.

He worked at Fender as a regular plant employee in the early 50's, Fred was one of them old school hard working blue collar workers.

Fred is briefly featured in the footage film of the Fullerton factory from 1957.

Bud Morgan

BORN: Unknown

DIED:  Unknown

Position: Sales & Purchase 

Employed at Fender: 1958 - 1981

Bud was a long time employee of Fende,r and his father Vern Morgan also worked there.

He started working for Leo in 1958.

When CBS purchased Fender, Bud worked in the sales department responsible for shipping and purchasing . But during Leo´s reign, he was responsible for acquiring all the necessary parts for Leo and his crew as well. He retired just before CBS sold out to FMIC.

Bud has the last Strat ever made at the Fullerton plant that was given to his Father Vern by George Fullerton. It was the 2-Knob Stratocasters.

Bud eventually moved to Goodyear, Arizona after retiring.