<Begin Segment 24>

BF: So you're working, you're going to Boeing, or you're graduated, you were working at Boeing and still working at Uwajimaya at the weekends because it's busy, because your father is in declining health. It seems like it must have been a pretty busy and somewhat stressful period for you. Do you, do you remember it --

TM: No, I, you know, since I wasn't obligated, and I didn't have to punch the clock at Uwajimaya, you know, you kinda just kinda help during the busy time and you kinda... I, I used to travel, and I used to go hunting with my friends, so I wasn't completely, it wasn't completely work only. So, I was single and I had pretty much a very loose, unstructured life other than work. And even at Boeing I had this opportunity to get into a program where, I don't know 100 or 150 of us every year were allowed to, within a division, change your job three or four times in two or three years. It was an opportunity where, how I got in, I don't know, because I didn't have the highest grades or anything. But I had one supervisor there, supervisor that, one of my first supervisors that said, "We'll get you in there." So, but the point I'm making is, my job at Boeing was not exactly nine to five either. I had some positions that were fairly loosey-goosey as long as I did my job, so, sometime on call twenty-four hours a day type of situation. I've been fortunate in those ways. So I had the flexibility to either travel or help my father or things like that. But I felt I was doing my job at Boeing.

BF: It sounds like a, like a management training?

TM: Well, they didn't call it management, but they wanted the best fit in the cross culture in awareness of -- yeah probably, they didn't call it management, but we were given a special human resources department and we would check in with them. And we were, I think, allowed to change from three to five jobs in two years, positions. And I had, in my year and a half I had about three or four different positions. So it was a unique experience and I kind of got a broader view of the missile, Minute Man missile division at Boeing. So...

BF: Do you think that that sort of experience also started giving you kind of a new insights or broadened your, your idea about, I don't know, running a business? Or managing or things like that?

TM: Yeah, I think looking back it gave you the confidence and the flexibility necessary to get things done.

BF: Interesting. Now you, you mentioned earlier about the World's Fair. And now is around the time when the World's Fair is coming up. And you said that your father gave that to, to you...

TM: Well, I don't know if he gave it to me.

BF: ...and your sister to take care of?

TM: He wanted to go into the World's Fair because in those days the World's Fair were very prestigious type of events. And so these things don't come overnight, so let's say it happened in '62, so four or five years before, it's '58. He's fairly healthy. So he probably wanted to go in, and if he was healthy I'm sure he would have did it in some way by gosh or by gun, but in his failing health, I guess I kinda stepped up and took over.

BF: What, what, so either consciously or unconsciously this was an attempt to reach a broader customer base.

TM: Uh-huh. Looking back, it probably, I guess I should, I should be, I should give him more credit. Maybe he wasn't as inwardly thinking as I maybe think he was. But for whatever reason, actually my sister Hisako worked very hard, too. So we both worked. And she was in college at the time and I was working at Boeing. So I kinda helped physically put that together, which I enjoy, and I been doing ever since for the company and like other places. But, but I remember she ran the business. So I kinda just put it together because I was working at Boeing, and she kinda ran the thing. It was primarily during the summer vacation, so I remember that she ran the thing.

BF: And you said that the strategy was not to make a lot of profit, but was to expose people.

TM: Yeah, both, primarily to the products from Japan, but also to Uwajimaya I guess. But I think my father was more interested in promoting the products. And we found out the, you know, sembei, rice crackers and things which we take for granted and you can buy it at the supermarket now, it was a very hot item if I remember.

BF: And that was new to them?

TM: Yeah. And the electric rice cookers. Even to this day we sell hundreds of rice cookers. I can't understand where they're going to, but there are just hundreds of 'em. We buy rice cookers by almost the vanload. It's amazing.

BF: So do you, do you remember whether you thought at the time that this would be a successful, that the World's Fair would be as successful as it was for the store, or did you think, oh well, it's just something to do?

TM: No. Here again, I'm thinking it's just a duty. [Laughs] I'll be honest, if I had it my way I don't think I would have put a store in the World's Fair, it was only 4 or 500 square feet or something. It's something that we got committed to, we saw it through and probably couldn't wait 'til it got finished. I don't think that was -- under that circumstance, I was working at Boeing and I just thought, well just help out. Get them on their feet and go on with my life I thought. So I'm sure that same thought was at the World's Fair. But having said that, he, like I said my father, I didn't, but he had contact with people running various trade shows, especially from Japan. And some of those relations have continued, and that's been good.

BF: Now you, the fair was successful?

TM: For us it was very successful. And I guess for the city it was. Some people didn't make money, but we made very good money, I mean relatively. We might have almost accounted for a third of our annual sales at that time or something. So it was very good. Much better than, I don't know what to, what we expected, but it was very good.

BF: Was it a turning point for the business also after the fair was over? Did you see increase -- ?

TM: Well I think those were the reasons why probably I did decide, I came to the conclusion that I couldn't work at Boeing and also help. But I'm guessing the success of the fair probably helped me decide that this was making some potential. But I have to honestly say I didn't think, even at, when I quit Boeing to help my parents, my mother anyway, that this was going to become my lifelong vocation. I, I, I'll be honest, I don't think I was thinking that way at that time.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.