Kazuhiko Ichikawa, Reflections
Balancing by Unbalancing!
It's been 40 years since I graduated from Ohio University's mechanical engineering master's program in 1984, and I retired from working for a company, and now I'm starting my own small company, earning a pension, and playing my favorite sports.
At the time of my graduation from Ohio University, I posted a paper, titled ``The influence studying abroad at Ohio University had on my career path and life,'' which was published as part of the Chubu University pamphlet, ``Studying abroad and scholarships at Ohio University's graduate school.''
Now that I have finished my working life as a businessman, I am rereading that sentence and thinking about if the future direction I had thought about when I was younger was actually correct or not.
What I said in my text 40 years ago is,
In future society, due to the development of IT and the increase in the number of people who speak English, the walls between countries will be lowered and information will be exchanged instantly. When a variety of ideas and cultures coexist, a society emerges in which various directions are both right and wrong. Under such circumstances, the required skills are #1. English. #2. Being able to think about things from various perspectives. #3. Being able to act based on your own individuality and ideas. #4. Having many international acquaintances.
It can be summarized in a simple way. When I look back on my life as a businessman, I realize that what I wrote 40 years ago when I graduated from Ohio University was mostly correct, and it is clear that if I had not gone to Ohio University, my future path would have been different. There is no doubt that my life would have been impossible, but at the same some of the things I was missing that I didn't even realize when I graduated.
The company I joined after graduating from Ohio University in 1984 is Lubrizol Corporation, a chemical company that manufactures and sells oil additives and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. This company is one of the world's top companies in the field of additives, and has a Japanese branch office in Tokyo, as well as a factory in Aichi Prefecture. I worked there for a total of 10 years, 5 years in Japan and 5 years at the American headquarters. Although I was trained in the mechanical field, I pursued a career in sales and marketing in a completely different field of chemistry, during which time I also earned an MBA from Case Western University in Cleveland.
The next company I joined in 1994 was Ingersoll Rand, which was also listed on the New York Stock Exchange and manufactured and sold construction machinery, tools, pumps, etc., and I became the manager of the Japanese division. Under my management the division significantly increased sales in Japan and implemented cost reductions, resulting in a significant increase in profits. I was then transferred in the U.S. As one of the 12 directors who run the business at the pump division's main factory in Bryan, Ohio, I was appointed to oversee the entire international business. I was entrusted with M&A and lived with my family in Toledo, Ohio for 3.5 years and worked there for a total of 8 years.
Then the last company I worked for 18 years until my final retirement was Crane, which I joined in 2002 and is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange. I was the Japan branch manager and Asia manager of the valve division. I was responsible for the business not only in Japan, Southeast Asia, China, Taiwan and also South Korea.
After retiring in 2020, I started an investment and consulting company and runs the company by myself, focusing on real estate investments. With a lot of free time, I basically spend my days devoted to my favorite sports.
I love sports. When I was at Chubu University, I belonged to the soccer club, which I had been playing since middle school. Around this time, I also belonged to the golf club for a time, and golf is also my favorite sport. At Ohio University, I formed a team with people from various countries to participate in the soccer tournament held on campus. I won the Ohio University golf tournament, and taught the university's introductory golf class as a part-time job.
After graduation, I was busy with my corporate life and couldn't play sports much, and I started to get overweight, so I started running marathons at the age of 50 and triathlons at the age of 53, and the physical-strength-savings I had accumulated over the years began to pay off and I was able to place high in competitions. After the age of 60, I gained the ability to compete internationally in triathlons, which are grouped in five-year age intervals. The attached photo is from when I participated in the 2019 World Triathlon Championship held in Lausanne, Switzerland, as a representative from Japan. A triathlon is a competition in which three events are performed consecutively: swimming, cycling, and a running. I cannot say that I am the best in any of the three events, but when you combine them, there is no one who can do all of them at a certain level, so in a competition I can almost get to the 1st place or the top level.
At work, both subordinates and superiors are all from various countries, and it is impossible to progress without being able to communicate with them in English. I can speak English, understand mechanical and chemical technology matters, and am well-versed in business marketing. However, I often have Japanese accents and my grammar is not perfect either, so I can’t say I am the highest-level English speaker, but certainly am able to demonstrate my understanding especially of the technical fields, based on my own firm beliefs and ideas, and make the other person agree with me. In doing so, the most important thing is to proceed in a fair and logical manner.
In order to be able to handle various tasks in an increasingly diverse society, we need to have the courage to take on new challenges, take action, and continue to do so until we are able to handle them somehow. For example, when I went to Ohio University, I didn't have any English proficiency and international sensibilities, and the field was very unbalanced, but by doing that, I was able to somehow develop the ability to balance things with Japanese things. I can say that the environment forced me to do like that. Although I had knowledge of mechanical engineering, I became interested in chemistry and business, and once I lost my balance to a field far removed from mechanical engineering, I was able to become an expert in other fields, including mechanical engineering, even if I was not the best in each field. I was able to balance things out and move forward with things. The same can be said for human relationships, and it is important to build relationships after people have asserted their opinions to the point of fighting and upset the balance. For example, if you imagine someone walking a tightrope in a circus, they are walking forward while holding a long pole and constantly losing their balance to the right or left, but they cannot walk a tightrope without losing their balance in the first place.
Now that I retired, I am enjoying my favorite sport, triathlon, by completing three events in order to maintain my health as an elderly person. My entire life is balancing by unbalancing.