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BN: So I want to go back now to, or, I guess, forward, because you were talking about your time in the army. And I think you wrote that you were drafted in '55 and you came out at the end of '57?

MT: '57, yeah.

BN: And then that's kind of when you went into the travel...

MT: Yeah, travel. I was surveying land there for them. Somebody got me as soon as I got out of the army, said, "Come with this Pacific Farm Rating Bureau, survey some land." I did, but I was never home. I was gone for two weeks, they gave me a car, "Go." We had teams so we worked with teams. But I left that, and so this guy from Pan Am, his name was Kozakura, he was the head of the Japanese department. And he said, "Mas," he said, "you're going to get married pretty soon?" I said, "Yeah, maybe one of these days." And he said, "You can't be doing what you're doing." I told him what I was doing, he said, "Why don't you join Pan American?" "Doing what?" And he said, "I'll get you into the management training program." I said, "Okay, that sounds pretty good." So that was in June or July. And they have it twice a year, the class. "The November one is full, but I got you in already in for the March one. So I'm going to get you a job in the tour company so that by the time you get management training, you'll have a leg up on everybody. You'll know what travel is, tour operators, how Pan Am works with the tour operators, travel agents and group operators." I said, "Okay." So he put me in this company, and it's a subsidiary of Airborne Freight Corporation, it was a freight corporation but they had travel agencies. And there was a guy named Chiura Obata who was a professor emeritus, and he led these tours. This company had the biggest Asian tourists from America, from the United States, and successfully ran, we ran two or three tours, they were full up every time. And so I worked with Professor, well, he was Professor Obata, put together the programs. And it was in the marketing side, so I knew kind of, a little bit about advertising, marketing. We had a marketing guy, and he was really happy to get a lot of stuff off his desk.

BN: So who was the audience for this?

MT: Caucasians.

BN: So this is white Americans...

MT: White Americans.

BN: ...touring Japan and the Far East?

MT: Touring Japan first and then Hong Kong.

BN: And Obata was the one organizing the itinerary?

MT: Yeah, he was just a figurehead, he would just go along.

BN: Okay. But he was... because he was a well-known Japanese guy?

MT: Well-known guy, yeah. Well-known guy, yeah. Everybody knew him. And we had it limited to thirty-five people.

BN: That was successful, though?

MT: Oh, yeah. But we had a white Russian, and she spoke Japanese perfectly. I think she fled Russia and raised in Japan. So she spoke English and Russian and Japanese, so she led the group. And so she could converse with Obata very well. So then this company sent me to Hawaii to open up an office there, a couple offices there. Because at the time, they were propeller airplanes, but it would take nine hours to get to Hawaii, and these people pretty much, on the older side, they get off the aircraft and nine hours, or spend a couple days in Hawaii. And then I would make sure my staff would take care of them, put 'em on the plane and take 'em to Japan. And on the way back, they were all scattered, but they would still want to stop in Hawaii and we made sure we took care of 'em in Hawaii. And then my plan for me was to go two years in Hawaii, two years in Hong Kong, and two years in Japan. Well, during the war, at the time, ironic it's starting now in Taiwan, Quemoy and Matsu, they were bombing each other and China was bombing them and everything else. So our company was hesitant to open up in Hong Kong. So I ended up in Hawaii about, a little over three years, and I said, "Either send me forward or send me home." I didn't plan on spending four years in Hawaii. So they said, "Yeah, we'll bring you back home."

BN: Which company is this now? This is not Pan Am, right?

MT: No, no. So in the meantime, March comes along. And excuse me, November comes along, we were having coffee, and he said, "How's it going?" I said, "This company has sent me to their, really treating me nicely, Albert." I said, "They made me open an office in Portland, one in Los Angeles, and now I'm running this office here, the people here, I've got seniority. I haven't been here a half year and I'm the boss and I don't think that's right. And I'm kind of uncomfortable." But he said, "I know, I talked to Dell, Dell Cherill was my boss, and he said, "I talked to Dell and Dell said he's not going to let you go." And I said, "What's going to happen?" He said, "Well, I don't know, Mas." He said, "If they like you that much, maybe you ought to stay there. I hate to lose you, maybe you could stay there and see how long you like it." So I said, "Okay," because now they're going to send me to Hawaii and they're going to do all this stuff. So I told Albert, "They're going to send me to Hawaii and Japan and Hong Kong." He said, "Okay, do that." He said, "Maybe you could come back to Pan Am then, we wouldn't have to send you to training." I said, "Okay." So I didn't go to the training program. Then when I was in Hawaii, I opened up the office and then I came back. And when I was leaving there, I met a lot of Hawaii people, of course. My office was, I lived in Waikiki, my office was in Waikiki, I knew all the people, and the industry was not that big at the time, it was just starting. So the people over there said, "Why don't you stay? I'll give you a job here." I said, "No, I want to go home," and came home. And by chance, I was doing some work for a company that we were building homes, second homes. Our eastern boundary was a common boundary with the Bohemian Club. I don't know if you're familiar with Bohemian Club, it's the most exclusive club, I think, in the state of California for anybody who's anybody, I mean, presidents come there. And so we were developing this land, and the market just fell apart. So I said, "Well, it's okay." I was walking down in Union Square and I run into this guy who was the vice president of Hawaiian Airlines, and he asked what I was doing and I said, "Looking for a job." But I had another job, but I said, "But I'm looking for another job, I'm not sure I like it." He said, "We're going to open our first Hawaiian Airlines office in San Francisco, why don't you take it?" He said, "You know Hawaii, you know it well, and you know us." "Oh, maybe." But he gave me a form to fill out, and like Cookie, it took me two months to send it in, but I sent it out. And they came flying over and they said, "We want you to visit our office." And I went back and talked to their, if he had a company psychologist for crying out loud, and passed that. They said, "Yeah, we'd like to have you on board." So I joined Hawaiian Airlines.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.