<Begin Segment 27>

BF: When you took over the business after your father passed away, and you were working, you and your brothers were working together. How much were you sort of doing the typical discussing the goals of the company and creating a vision and a business plan and things like that?

TM: Well, I don't know when, but you know, when I became the president, more or less -- yeah, you read a few things and I remember bringing in consulting, consultants helping us with some of these, and reading, and talking to accountants, and we, so some of that we did. And because any growing business has to do some thinking about -- well first of all, your basic question is do we continue? If you say, "Yeah, we do," then the question becomes what do you, what kind of strategy do you use? And then you start to say, "Well, then we have to plan five years, twenty years out." So we went through all that ritual. And I remember interviewing, and using and hiring consultants here and there along the way. And then I've been through my share of conferences, you know, like family business, or growth. I remember taking courses like reading financial statements for non-finance people. You know, those courses I've taken throughout the years. Just hope, I don't know, some of it's haphazard. Just do what you feel you have to do at that time. We haven't been really good at planning our future. Maybe that's been our success because we kind of let things happen. But like I say, our major issue next is some discussion of the equitable position. But maybe that's not the issue. The real issue is succession. Who will succeed the, when our generation retires or are gone. And pretty much the conclusion now is that we will hire and select whoever we feel is the best for the company and it doesn't have to be family members. Family members have every right to be considered, but the conclusion seems to be that there's no guarantee that just because you're a family member that you have a automatic crack to it. And the family seems to agree that that's the best way to do it.

BF: So has the, has selling been ruled out? Selling the business been ruled out?

TM: No, that hasn't been ruled out, but I think it's not a -- I mean that would be one of our last considerations.

BF: Okay.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.