and this morning the founder and the owner of prs guitars paul reed smith joins us in studio.llege. thanks for coming in. happy new year. >> thanks for having me. >> are you local still? i want to say welcome home. >> gosh yes. i'm a maryland boy. >> happy you are here today. when i was reading over this big impressive bio, my question was how cool is all of this for you? if you could just stop for a minute. >> once in a while, there are really special moments like you'll see somebody you'll play music with do something special or the kids we'll teaching will do something extraordinary outside their age group. you well up a little bit but concerned by 280 employees still have jobs. >> and you say that and it sounds very humble but we talked about st. marys but when you look out there you have to see the influence you have. >>> i think we're aware of our position. if carlos santana takes a guitar and takes it on stage, my first concern is it's not been played more than 15 seconds, i want to make sure it works right. there's a magic to guitars. if you sit on a couch and playing

so it's about half our business. >> reporter: no wonder at the paul reed smith plant in maryland wherern out 1,000 instruments a month the founder is watching the european market closely. >> if the exchange rate goes one way, we sell a lot more stuff. if it goes the other way, we sell less because it became more expensive in their country or became less expensive. >> reporter: you've seen that happen? >> god, yes, every day. >> reporter: this guitar which would sell for around $3,000 in the u.s. is being shipped to europe today. if the euro is strong and the economy is stable when it arrives, all is well. but if the euro gets devalued or the banks or the stocks are in trouble, this american-made product can find itself facing some real hurdles. the shop that wants to order it may be unable to get a loan for its inventory. therefore, the instrument never gets shipped. or the customer who wants to buy this guitar may find his money is worth so little he can't afford it. and if this drought in the marine stream continues pushing more businesses and more governments toward default on their