Densho Digital Archive - Henry Sakamoto Interview (denshovh-shenry

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HS: 1951, graduated, started looking for a job. You run into some conflicts, apply for a job, college graduate. Sometimes you're looking for an entry level position. The employment situation wasn't all that great, for me anyway, and I frequently heard, "Well, you're, you got a good resume, but you're overqualified for this job," so you ran into subtle forms of discrimination. After I got married, the first apartment we looked for, follow up on an advertisement, do a check at the manager's office and takes a look at me and says, "Well, I personally don't have anything against you, but the owner is, doesn't want to rent to Japanese." So I guess in those days, they didn't have the housing discrimination bills yet. It came a little later, but you ran into those kinds of forms of discrimination. These days, I guess, there would be more subtle forms, but then not as blunt I'd say as they were in those days. But anyway, I finally went to work.

My first job was with Bonneville Power Administration and that lasted about a year and a half. I was in the fiscal department and got a reduction in force, budgetary appropriations problems, so I got laid off, and the personnel guy there said, "Yeah, check with the Department of Agriculture downtown. They're hiring temporary people like crazy." So 1953, I went to work for the Department of Agriculture and got a job as a clerk, temporary appointment, not to exceed ninety days, and then that was extended another ninety days, and then it went on a temporary appointment for a year, and I kept on getting extended. Finally, I got on the permanent status. And with what happened, what started out as a temporary appointment not to exceed ninety days, I ended up working for the Department of Agriculture thirty-two years and retired from the Department of Agriculture in 1985 because they, because of appropriations reasons ran out of money for my office on the West Coast. At that time, I was a branch office manager, but I had charge of our grain inventory on all the seven West Coast states. And although it was Oregon and Washington and Idaho that had the most grains inventory, we had some grains in California, not an important inventory down in California.

So after thirty-two years with the Department of Agriculture, I went to work for the Oregon Wheat Commission and worked for them from 1986 to 1989, about three years. The reason for that was because through my job with the Department of Agriculture, it was all grain related, had a lot to do with wheat farmers and the wheat industry from country elevator storage operations to export elevator storage operations. I had a pretty detailed familiarity with a grain operation from growth to harvest to marketing, and so the assist of the administrator at the Oregon Wheat Commission at that time thought I would be of great assistance to him, so we worked together, and we were a good team. In both of those jobs with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Oregon Wheat Commission, I never ran into anything adverse in my relationships with people. And because of my length of time with the Department of Agriculture, I was a so-called expert in the field and I got to know many of the Japanese grain trading people that were assigned to work in Portland, and these Japanese grain companies had branch offices in Portland, and they would originate export quantities in the export business because Japan is the biggest grain buyer of the United States grain, not only wheat but corn and sorghums, and they even buy rice from California and a lot of agriculture product. So, and the Japanese Grain Trading Company had eleven branch offices here in Portland at one time, and they would come visit me and talk to me or phone me as a representative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and I was, my position was in Japanese eyes was regarded as a pretty high position representing the federal government, and many of the senior Japanese were proud of my associations and my position representing somebody of Japanese ancestry in a high management position. So you know, I may not have deserved it, but I was held in high regard by many of the Japanese traders, so we had very, very good relationships going. But anyway, then I went to work for the Oregon Wheat Commission. Then in 1989 because of budget problems, I lost that position, and my mentor there, the administrator, Ivan Packard, he decided to retire. So anyway, I lost that job.

Well, taking the two jobs together, thirty-two years with the USDA and three years with the Oregon Wheat Commission, that's thirty-five years of experience in the grain and wheat business. Well, somebody suggested, why don't you become a consultant? So I thought, well, why not, you know. So I opened up a consultancy, called myself the AGRA Advisory Service and started looking around for a place to hang my hat to have an office, finally found a spot with the Portland Merchant's Exchange, a desk and phone service and that kind of things. But before I even bought a desk for myself, I had two contracts, so that was a good beginning. And then I thought, at the outset, I thought, well, maybe I'd do this consulting thing for a couple years and help build up my Social Security reserves because the job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture at that time, you didn't contribute to the Social Security, seven and a half percent of the gross went totally to the Civil Service Retirement System. So other than working in war plants in Cleveland and Detroit and other small odd jobs, I had very little in terms of the Social Security thing. So with this self-employment tactic and you do as a self-employed, you pay a generous portion to, a generous tax to the Social Security system, so I built that up a little bit. It gives me a cup of coffee. But I did, I thought I'd do that consultancy thing for a couple of years, but I ended up doing it for seven years. So what I finally decided to, quit my consultancy business, I had a total of forty-two years in the wheat business. But I finally retired fully in June of 1996. Two of my best contracts were optioned to end at that time, so I thought it would be a good time to end it and do other things.