The company has trusted me since I made a big gamble for the future.

When I was in Waseda University, I studied under a professor who was also teaching Ryoji Nozaki, then an employee of Yamato Seisakusho and now a director here. He was receiving training at the Casting Research Laboratory of the university. Because of this acquaintance, I had a chance to visit Yamato Seisakusho. I was lucky enough to see the finishing cupola furnace operation. I was totally fascinated by the blazing coke in snowy white, and decided to enter this world.

At this time, the cupola chimney could be seen from Hirooka Station, giving out a lot of white smoke. In 1977, when I entered the company, exhaust manifolds were the major products of the company as they are today. However, the quality of the material used at the time had room for improvement. The customers were starting to request a material with better heat resistance.

The situation was serious because we were losing some orders for manifolds to another company. Trial production of heat-resistance ductile cast iron had just started. I was very lucky to be able to join the project just two months after being employed. While promoting the innovation of technology, the high-frequency induction furnace we installed in 1981 began to attract a lot of attention as the furnace with the highest capability in Asia. It was the time when this kind of cast iron melting was an unknown area in metallurgy, and it was widely believed that it was impossible to manufacture decent products.

The company did not really need such a high-capacity facility at that time. I insisted that we invest a lot of capital to widen the company's possibilities for the future, but I now wonder whether I was putting my own interest above the company's welfare.

Later in 1988, we launched a plan, to renovate the cast iron section' molding production line (the APK line) which was run down at the time. We made huge investments towards its completion in 1993.

I am very grateful to this company for always trusting me in making these investments on such drastic plans.

There was a time when we worried whether the company could sustain such a large amount of capital investment.

We did what we had to do to anticipate customers' needs and to match them with the company's strength. Today, many of these investments and technologies have proved fruitful, and I feel a great relief that they have turned out to have contributed to the company.