Densho Digital Archive - George Nakata Interview (denshovh-ngeorge

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GN: I joined the Port of Portland after Pacific Supply Cooperative, and I took on the position of deputy director of trade development which was quite a few words that really meant working closely with importers and exporters of this area that were quite unfamiliar with the port. Just very briefly, the Port of Portland operates in the tri-county area. They have four airports, they have five terminals, they have thirty berths. They own the most industrial acreage in the metropolitan Portland area which most people don't understand, so it's a very interesting organization really, and port authorities differ. New York and New Jersey are together, the New York/New Jersey Port Authority. In Los Angeles, it's run by the city. SeaTac is run by the Port Authority. But Portland and Oregon, all the little ports of Oregon have their own port and under the state. The Port of Portland is independent of all those other ports in Oregon and really is operated by nine member commission appointed by the governor of the State of Oregon, and these commissioners meet once a month, and they have approximately a 700-member staff headed by an executive director. For the most part, I was general manager of marketing, and then it's a slight change, but I was general manager of Far East business, and then I was general manager of international business. And the reason for those titles is the words are not that important, but there was a time when I worked principally with most of the larger importers and exporters of this area. And then I worked with the steamship carriers that are headquartered in the Far East such as in Japan, you have carriers such as NYK, Mitsuyo-K, K-Line and others. In Korea, you have Hyundai and Hyonjin. The Evergreen Line that you see containers running around Portland, OOCL in Hong Kong, Cosco out of Beijing, I worked with those carriers. But later on during the height of the bubble expansion of Japan, Japan was looking to the United States for investment and companies like Sony, like Sharp, like NEC, like Epson, Fujitsu, and a host of others wanted to possibly locate a plant here in Oregon. So as general manager of international business, my responsibility was to try to go to those companies and attract them here to Oregon. Shikishima Baking Company of Nagoya, Japan, is the second biggest bakery in Japan. They now have a very large plant here in North Portland. They are the ones that make Pasco bread and the anpan that you see around some of the stores. Kanto chemical is here. Marubeni operates Columbia Grain, a lot of Japanese trading companies, NEC out of Hillsboro, Fujitsu, Toshiba Ceramics, Toyo Tanso which is a carbon company making graphite carbon, Kambara, which is a photo album company in Tualatin. In the Shokokai business, Japanese Business Association, they have approximately seventy companies. In the height of their boom period, there were over 135 Japanese entities in and around Portland, and so I had a very interesting and challenging position of opportunity to go to NEC, to go to Epson and to go to baking companies and go to Ajinomoto that's here now with us with a plant and a chance with meet with a lot of these companies and help them make a comparison, a compare land costs in Oregon compared to California or Colorado, the energy costs of Oregon compared, Portland compared to Seattle or Tacoma, cost of water, cost of labor, how about taxes, property tax, sales tax. So these are major plant location decisions by multi-national companies, sometimes with plants all over the world, and we were successful in getting quite a few of those companies. The recent exodus of these companies is not Oregon's fault. It was principally Japan with a prolonged recession since 1991.

So at the Port of Portland, I feel very fortunate in that I had an opportunity to have several positions working with importers, exporters, working with automobile companies, working with steamship companies, and for a brief period, even working with airlines. I did go to Zen Nikku which is ANA JAL. I went to Singapore Airlines, went to Korean Airlines, went to Evergreen Airlines in Taipei and Cafe Pacific. It's rather challenging and without getting too technical, Portland is a river port. Others on the coast are deep water ports to begin with. They sit on the ocean. There is no draft worries. They got deep draft. Other places have population. Portland is a small base. We do not consume a lot of television sets and VCRs and DVDs as does Los Angeles by itself. So comparing all of these things, and we have 12 million passengers that go through PDX, not 25 million like some other airports. So it's very challenging and a real marketing thing to strategize and try to get steamship companies to call Portland, to get airlines to have direct service here. And as United tried and as Delta tried and now is Northwest, it's challenging for them to have direct service from PDX to Narita as an example. So some of us associated with the Port of Portland get involved in quite a few diverse things. And when it comes to international business, the Port of Portland is international in its business. It doesn't sell widgets to Portlanders. It's doing foreign trade. And so being fortunate enough to be in the mainstream of that trade and going to headquarters of Evergreen in Taipei or to Beijing and meeting with China Ocean Shipping Company or meeting with the high tech semi-conductor company outside of Tokyo really was an interesting experience for me. Sometimes, I worried about my family because all of this pre trip arranging and the post trip follow ups. There were times that I took six trips a year to Japan. For the most part, it was about three. But starting in '65 and until I started my own business in '95, there were three, four, five trips a year that I took and continued to take. And no question, they are enjoyable. You eat good Japanese food, and you meet great people, but also, it's work. There's the time difference. There's the jet lag. I traveled between countries always on the weekends. I use Saturday and Sunday to get from Seoul, Korea, down to Singapore so Monday morning you're ready to go to Singapore Airlines or other clients. And when you do that, then you have a full two-week trip with thirty appointments and you go to five countries. It's, it kind of wears on you, and it wears on your family. And Keiko was just a yeoman's support taking care of children and the yard work and the changing of the oil or whatever. So whenever I was abroad, I used to make sure I send a fax or send a message or send a postcard to my three children. And whenever I'm home, I made sure that I attended their soccer game and speech contests and plays at Ridgewood grade school or what have you. But we all go through these, but it was quite an interesting career that I had at Pacific Supply Cooperative.