William "Bill" Kaman II, who owns AirKaman (an aviation company based at JIA), plays an Ovation guitar. The guitar type was invented by his father and features a synthetic rounded back. -- Will Dickey/Staff

By John Carter
Times-Union staff writer

Bill Kaman's office is pretty sharp, about what you'd expect for a young, hip, well-heeled chief executive officer.

His office at AirKaman, the aviation company he runs at Jacksonville International Airport, is professional looking . . . except maybe for the several guitars propped up along the back wall and the photo collage of Kaman at various ages hanging out and back-slapping with famous folks like Vince Gill, Glen Campbell, the Doobie Brothers, Nancy Wilson of Heart, Mark Knopfler, Jon Bon Jovi, Eddie Rabbitt and Adrian Legg.

''Seeing those people around just always seemed normal to me. Sort of no big deal,'' he said in the understated, almost laconic way that typifies the man - a big, bearded guy, a couple of inches over 6 feet, who's not heavy, but big-boned.

Rubbing shoulders with celebrities, he said, is just what happens when you grow up working in a factory that makes a unique guitar that was invented by your multimillionaire dad - who also happens to be a pioneer in aviation.

The guitar is Ovation, and it's been used and endorsed by dozens of the best-known pop, rock and country guitarists of the past 35 years. It was launched in the mid-'60s and known primarily for the rounded, fiberglass backs and the way-aheadof-its-time electronics used on the acoustic line.

Bill Kaman (pronounced like ''command'' without the ''d'') eventually took over the reins of that company, Kaman Music Corp., located in Bloomfield, Conn. He ran it from the late mid-'80s through the mid-'90s and is still an owner and on the board of directors.

Kaman Music Corp. is one of several companies owned by parent company Kaman Corp., which has interests in music, aviation and industrial parts. When Kaman Corp. divested itself of AirKaman in 1997, Bill Kaman bought it and came south to Jacksonville. He took over as president and CEO of the aviation company that provides fueling services for commercial and private aircraft as well as providing hangar services, offices and maintenance facilities for private planes.

''Frankly, I'm not particularly wild about aviation,'' he quipped. ''But over the years I've learned to enjoy being an entrepreneur. So I stay busy running this. You get to interact with a wide range of people. That's what I like.''

South for the golf

Ed Miller, vice president and chief of operations at Kaman Music, worked with Kaman for about 15 years. He thinks his former boss may have had an ulterior motive in moving south.

''He's about the most unpretentious wealthy person you'll ever meet,'' Miller said. ''I honestly think maybe the climate had a lot to do with his heading down someplace where he can play golf and smoke fine cigars year round. And he's calling the shots, so he seems to be very happy.

''In fact, besides loving golf, about the only thing he'll ever splurge on is those cigars and maybe a nice pair of boots.''

Ah, the alligator cowboy boots. They became a trademark for Kaman, who, Miller said, ''quite honestly became something of an icon himself within the guitar industry.''

Kaman pulls those big boots on occasionally nowadays, but admits they have grown to represent perhaps the one negative thing about living on the First Coast.

''For the most part, the boots are too hot down here,'' he said.

So he's had to resort to wearing other kinds of shoes that reveal his socks.

''I had to actually learn how to use the same color socks and to how turn them right-side out. It's sort of a new skill.''

Oh, and to be honest, in addition to the boots and cigars, Kaman also has a penchant for cars and guitars, and not just Ovation guitars, either. His guitar collection includes many makes and models. One of his favorites right now is a rosewood and spruce Collings.

As far as cars, he's partial to vintage models, like a favorite '59 Cadillac with the giant rocket-ship fins.

Kaman's father, Charlie Kaman, made his first fortune in aviation. He invented a dual-rotor helicopter and started his own company, Kaman Aircraft, in 1945. And he's never looked back. The company still makes K-model (for Kaman) helicopters.

Charlie Kaman, who Miller describes as ''a natural, engineering genius,'' got interested in selling guitars in the early '60s. A player himself, at first he decided he wanted to sell guitars simply to diversify his businesses.

Whirlybirds to guitars

He offered to buy the venerable C.F. Martin guitar company in Nazareth, Pa. No deal. So he began to think about making his own guitars using some of the precise tooling and engineering skills (and even materials) he'd pioneered in creating helicopters.

After various prototypes, he ended up in 1967 with a revolutionary fiberglass, bowl-backed guitar dubbed the Ovation. The first model was called the Balladeer.

The first major musician to endorse Ovation was Glen Campbell, who'd just scored three mammoth hits in Gentle on My Mind, By the Time I Get to Phoenix and Lineman for the County. Campbell, despite his down-home image, was a sophisticated guitarist who knew a good instrument when he played one.

When Campbell played the different-looking guitar on his popular late-'60s TV show The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, it didn't hurt Ovation sales a bit.

Don Walton, who deals in vintage guitars through his Don's Pawn & Guitar on Blanding Boulevard in Jacksonville, said in the early '70s the company made its biggest impact on the industry by pioneering an amplification system for the acoustic guitar that sounded much more natural than other systems of the era.

The company began making a transducer guitar-pickup system that used six piezoelectric crystals (one for each string) in the bridge, an idea that was light years ahead of its time - and one that foreshadowed the acoustic-electric guitar craze.

During the evolution and popularization of the guitar (and its unique pickup), the teenaged Bill Kaman worked summers in nearly every aspect of guitar production.

''I did sanding, finishing - made braces all day. That's quite a thrill by the way,'' he said.

'Make it run'

Truth is, Kaman liked being around guitars, partly because he's an accomplished blues player himself. He got the bug, like millions of other youngsters, after seeing the Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964.

He taught himself to play guitar and got to be comfortable sitting behind a drum kit as well. In fact, he played drums in his one and only musical group, a high school band with a decidedly '60s name: Two Weeks from Yesterday.

Through it all, Kaman kept working at different jobs throughout the company. He took on more and more responsibility in the company, along the way getting a degree in economics from Western New England College in Springfield, Mass.

In 1986, Kaman became president of Kaman Music. The father Charlie, who'd begun phasing himself out of the guitar business, told his oldest son: ''Hey, kid, you've got it all. Make it run. Handle it.''

Bill responded, ''What the hell am I gonna do?''

''You'll figure it out,'' Dad said.

Thanks, thought Bill Kaman. But he did, in fact, figure it out.

''When Bill took over, we essentially had six independent companies run by six sort of entrepreneurial-type presidents,'' said Kaman Music's Miller. ''Bill, though he maintained a sort of low-key presence, essentially consolidated the operation. He put the team together and he did it well. And it worked.''

But eventually, Kaman began thinking about taking a break from guitar manufacturing and related businesses. For one thing, he'd been doing it his whole life.

But he also admits he'd begun to lose a feel for today's popular music.

''Where's the Eric Clapton of today?'' he asked. ''Who's coming up to fill those shoes? Where's the Duane or Gregg Allman?

''I'm from the '60s and '70s. A lot of the music was, oh, you know - simple really. But it was good. The average guy could play it on the guitar. It made you want to participate - a quality I'm afraid is sorely lacking today.''

When the kind of rock 'n' roll he loved began to fade, Kaman simply felt less inclined to be involved in the business.

''Heck, I'm 47 now,'' he said. ''To oversimplify it a bit, I guess I began to feel that when your heroes are has-beens, it's time to move on. So I did.''

With the aviation business, he said, he sees a much wider spectrum of personality types, people with diverse sensibilities. He enjoys living on Amelia Island.

Besides, with AirKaman, he still has the occasional celebrity customer: Bill Cosby, Harrison Ford.

''Plus, I really do love the weather down here,'' he said. ''I can play golf whenever I want.''

Even if he does have to leave the cowboy boots in the cart.