<Begin Segment 25>

BF: You were just again, helping out the family.

TM: Yeah, but a couple of things happened. First of all the, the Japanese family that owned that building that we were renting came to us and said that he wanted to retire, and he was getting on in age. His wife was sick or something, would we buy it? And we said, "Well gee, we can't afford a lot." Having said that we had a little bit of money from the profits so we did buy it, but they were very generous in the terms of low down payments so here again, maybe I got trapped at that time. We got this business, and we now own the property, so I don't know. But thinking back honestly, I don't think it would have been something I would have thought of that I would be talking about fifty years later or forty years later or whatever, and saying that that's what I desired to do. I don't think that would be true.

BF: So how did that happen? The, the World's Fair ended, and then I believe that your father passed, passed away.

TM: Uh-huh.

BF: And at that point Kenzo was assumed to take over.

TM: Uh-huh.

BF: And then you decided to leave Boeing.

TM: Uh-huh.

BF: And, but when you came in, you came in not just as a part of the company, but you actually came in as the president of the company?

TM: Yeah, well a few, as we were maybe sorting this out, and especially if we start to buy the property. We bought the property, just Kenzo and I myself, because in those days it was more tax advantage, there was more advantage to sell, own properties personally. But, but it became evident that if we were going to continue the business we had to incorporate and all this kind of stuff, start to buy insurance. And so we started talking about these things. And we hired Lem Tuai, who's the attorney, and we got to know him. He said, "Well, so we'll incorporate, so okay, who's gonna be president?" And my brother said, "Well, you be president." So it was very informal, but we had to start to formalize some of that loosey-goosey stuff. And then this, especially also, when you start to go out and rent money, now that we own the property, you have to have a corporation and things like that. And that's how it was. There was no formal vote or anything, he just said oh, you take over the president because it was just necessary. So that's how it happened.

BF: But it's interesting because he was assumed to be the one to take over, and he was running it up to this point. And you were working at Boeing. And yet he says, you do it.

TM: Yeah, well he said, "I'll run the front end you know, accounting and retail end. And you do whatever this legal stuff you do. And in addition you could continue to make satsumaage and things."

BF: Maybe it's -- what do you think -- and you didn't decline either. So what was it that was understood between the brothers as to why it, this arrangement made sense? Was it...

TM: I don't know. We didn't think. We don't talk very much about these issues very much. Just, just seemed natural, most expedient I guess.

BF: Had you had any, during the purchase of the property, did you sort of handle most of the details with that?

TM: Yeah, and also, you know, he's not, I'm more into the mechanics and taking care of buildings and things like that, and he knew that. So I was doing a lot of that already in terms of as a leaser, maintenance and all that anyway. So it just seemed natural for me to get into the real estate and building maintenance part of it.

BF: Now as, as things started, where the business decisions had to be made, and how did, how, how smooth was that with both you and your brother having these leadership roles in the business?

TM: Well, in the traditional way, my father, when he got ill, he did go to a lawyer, I can't remember who, it was either Mimbu or Sakahara and divided the company. It was called a company. It wasn't incorporated. And he gave, he divided the supposing, what little, whatever the company was into four, and he gave each son one fourth, twenty-five percent.

BF: Equal.

TM: He left the girls out, and he left my mother out. So in some ways I knew I had a quarter of this business. So the point I'm leading to is we had to deal with the fact that even with my brother and myself, Kenzo and myself, we had only fifty percent. We had to deal with the other twenty-five percent and fifty percent with my two brothers. As they were going on to college and serving the army, we had to be very cognizant that we had to look out for their interest, and then provide a position for them when they came back if they wanted to come back. Now dealing with the sisters is a different issue and we still are working on that issue.

BF: Did they, they didn't have a problem with the division?

TM: Well at first they didn't because my oldest sister, she went to work and got married and right after high school primarily, right after high school.

BF: Hisako?

TM: No, Suwako, my oldest.

BF: Oh.

TM: The one that was in Japan. So she probably didn't have a problem. And then Hisako and Tomoko, they both went to college and they kind of moved to California and they got married to Californians so they were away from Seattle physically. So they probably didn't give it much thought either I'm guessing. But what we did was to be -- you know, they were away and we thought, well, this isn't fair, so each of us brothers gave up five percent and gave the three sisters and my mother five percent each of our shares. Which we thought was generous, but it probably wasn't. And so we're still struggling with this. I think we, I don't know if legally, but we have now since, split the five percent of the, my mother's share into one third each for the girls, so at least now they have about seven and a half percent of the business. And we're trying to some way work around it. But recently when we had this family with all the nieces and nephews, they, they said well, you can't recreate history, so let's go forward. So, but we're, we're struggling with this issue. But in the future, how do we, I don't know, the term is not equalize, but be fair to people that work within the company that they have a stake in the potential growth of the company. You know, some informal stock option type of situation. Maybe not quite formal. At the end of the day there's two things, from, just because, from hereditary -- I mean just from the family sake you should retain some ownership. But also the people that work the company and make it grow or create value should share in the, you know, a fair share of that. We're, like I say, struggling with that issue. That's the biggest agenda item for, for the next couple of years. Resolve that before one of the four, five, seven siblings pass on. I hope to have that resolved.

BF: Yeah. But even the one generation up. You were mentioning that you had four, four sons with equal shares in the business. So running a business, that must be somewhat complicated to -- [Laughs]

TM: Yeah. Well, but you know, you could always say it could've been easier and less complicated if my dad chose to give a hundred percent to my oldest brother, which was not that uncommon either. So maybe he had some foresight. Or here again, I think it been my mother's influence. She wanted to treat everybody equally. I don't know what was in my father's mind, but maybe the attorney told him this is the better way, or he felt it was legal. Whatever, but that in itself was unusual. So here again you just take advantage or you do with what you have. And maybe because it was four ways we, we couldn't be totally dictatorial. We had to consider other people's views and consider other thoughts and everything. So in some way it was a good check and balance, I guess.

BF: And was it, was it one of those things that became part of how Uwajimaya is, is managed and the sort of culture that the business has to do things by consensus and do things kind of democratically?

TM: I think so. To the point of nausea sometimes. [Laughs] But no, I think that's true. You have to think if any one of us ended up with a hundred percent or ninety percent it would have been different. And most likely, the logically, it would have not been unusual for my father just to give everything to my older brother. In fact, if he probably lived, and I was away and my brothers were all some working somewhere else, that could have happened probably.

BF: Yeah, it, you could almost speculate that because you were still helping out with the business so much he probably, that probably influenced his decision to, to not, to divide it up. And, if you divide it up to two, you better do four.

TM: Yeah.

BF: But he drew the line there. [Laughs]

TM: I don't know the thinking. I haven't really thought this through but -- well, I'm sure as you were hinting that it did influence, and has and will continue to influence the way we do business, because, just because when you deal with partners you deal differently than if you were absolutely in control of things.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.