Submitted photo... Martin Dunham of Boardman, a Realtor with Burgan Real Estate, collects and restores vintage guitars, mostly Gibsons. He also likes to play the instrument as well as sing.

BOARDMAN — Martin Dunham has come a long way to his career with Burgan Real Estate — literally and figuratively.

Dunham, who lives in the historic Newport Glen area of Boardman, grew up in Tasmania, one of the Australian islands. He went to Parkland High School through 10th grade because students in Australia do not have to attend for 12 years.

He grew up on a dairy farm and started working at age 7, milking cows. His first real job after high school was at a tractor sale company where he kept all of the inventory manually on index cards.

Dunham said he felt called to serve God, so he decided to attend a Bible college in Jackson, Mich. That is where he met his wife, Carrie, who lived in Beaver Falls, Pa., at the time, in 1990. The two got married in 1992 in Chippewa, Pa., and moved to Boardman in 2004.

BIBLE SCHOOL

The pair was training to be missionaries in New Guinea, which is north of Australia. After Bible college, the pair attended the English Language Institute in Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., where they trained to teach indigenous tribal people in New Guinea who had no written language. The idea was to help them translate the Bible into their own language.

“There are 800 tribal lanuages spoken in New Guinea,” Dunham said.

Because he and his wife had an aptitude for foreign languages, the institute asked them not to go to New Guinea and instead train other missionaries to do so. In addition, they pastored at a church in Lake of the Ozarks that was under the umbrella of Calvary Chapel ministries. The Calvary Chapel movement was founded by Chuck Smith, whose story was told in the movie “The Jesus Revolution” starring Kelsey Grammer.

“When we started at the church, there were 25 to 30 members. When we left four years later, there were 150,” Dunham said.

In addition to the language training, Dunham said he also has been on mission trips and built airstrips in remote areas of the jungle as part of his missionary work.

MOVING ON

After their stint as pastors, they sold their house in Missouri and headed to Ohio without having jobs lined up. He said they bought a vehicle in Columbus from a dealer that helped Christian missionaries by buying vehicles at auction and selling them for no profit.

Not long after, he got a phone call from their Realtor in Missouri, who said the sale of their house fell through. The couple planned to use the proceeds from the house to buy the vehicle.

A woman at the car lot said she knew a guy who was hiring. and he landed a job with the National Federation for Independent Business, which lobbies for small businesses. He worked there for 11 years.

“It was like God was nudging me. The car sale led me to a new job,” Dunham said.

He left the NFIB in 2015 and started purchasing homes and fixing them up during the housing crisis. His family is in the real estate business in Australia, so he got his real estate license to enable him to start selling the houses himself. He worked with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for 18 months and decided to pursue real estate full time.

In addition to working for Burgan Real Estate, where his primary focus is on residential sales with an emphasis on working with new investors, he also manages some rental properties locally as well as in Canton and Florida, and does home renovations on the side.

“I like to be flexible, and the income from my rental properties gives me residual income so I can visit my elderly parents in Tasmania,” Dunham said, noting the island is “one of the most beautiful places on Earth.”

He has two older brothers and one younger brother, and all of them live in New Zealand or Australia.

He and Carrie have three children. Youngest son Mitchel attends Walsh University, where he runs track and cross country. Their daughter, Kellie, works in internet sales for Fred Martin Ford in Austintown. Their oldest son, Fletcher, lives in Columbus and works for an online mortgage company. Carrie owns Body Works Massage in Poland.

GIBSON GUITARS

In addition to skiing and golfing, Dunham’s main hobby is playing, restoring and collecting vintage guitars, primarily Gibsons. He said his children also sing and play guitar and occasionally they will play at local venues and at church.

“I have loved music since I was 11,” Dunham said. “But I have spent the past few years buying vintage guitars and restoring them. I love the sounds of an old guitar, and I love the different tones and pitches and finding which songs sound best plated on each one.”

He said he buys the guitars on eBay and Facebook Marketplace, as well as buying them at antique stores. His collection dates to the 1920s.

“Some of them I have restored myself, but if I find one that is particularly valuable, I will send them out to have them restored professionally. Some of them I have sold, but I keep the ones I really like,” Dunham said, “I fall in and out of love with some of the guitars, but some I will never stop loving.”

Dunham said he is blessed to be married to his wife for 31 years, noting she has stood by him through many ups and downs.

“I am grateful for God’s presence in my life,” he said.

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