A California-born & raised musician, Mike Upton first fell in love with the ‘ukulele and its uniquely beautiful craftsmanship and tone while living and working in Hawaii in the 1990s. But for all their immense potential for more widespread use and enjoyment outside the islands, at the time he could find very few options available between the high-cost, artisan ukulele makers and cheap, poorly-built toys.

After returning to his hometown of Petaluma, California, Mike founded Kala Ukulele to begin to design and build affordable ukuleles to make the instrument he loved more widely accessible. The first team of Kala sales and instrument techs was formed in 2005, working out of a converted chicken hatchery. With a keen sense of design and quality, Kala was able to rapidly expand its production and distribution to a national scale, emerging as a leading name in ukulele during a renaissance decade of boutique interest in the instrument throughout indie music circles in the United States, Canada, and England.