[June 6, 1980, Friday - Nihon Kogyo Shimbun]
Printing electrons ④ NEWLONG SEIMITSU KOGYO
President Inoue is a true engineer. Inoue says he inherited his father's blood.
On April 17th, 1912, the tail end of the Meiji era, he was born in Chojamachi in the middle of Yokohama as the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Hideo Inoue.
Hideo was the second son of a farmer in Nagano Prefecture, but he did not manage to establish a branch family. Around the time of World War I, cigarette cases made of brass were popular in Japan. The inventor of this type of cigarette case, which consists of two brass plates joined together and a rubber band to hold the cigarette in place, was a Hideo.
“It's because people from Nagano are hard workers.”
As Inoue puts it, Hideo was the epitome of that, and built a generation as a down-to-earth but reliable engineer who worked with various machines in response to the changing times.
As Inoue admits, the blood of the hero was inherited by Inoue. Machines were always around him, and Inoue had an unparalleled love for machines ever since he could remember. “Even with toys, I didn’t show any interest in finished products. I used to buy parts for everything and assemble them myself with a soldering iron in my little hands. I also had a habit of saying I would become a machine-maker." (Inoue)
However, the road to the machine shop was not so smooth.
The first obstacle appeared at the time of the junior high school exam. While passing the written exam, he was rejected in the physical fitness test due to his broken left arm in gymnastics when he was in the sixth grade of elementary school.
It seems that young Inoue, who wanted to be a mechanical engineer, was not very good at gymnastics. However, this left arm would later play a major role in Inoue's life. This will be discussed in detail later, but life is quite an interesting thing.
......
Well, Inoue, who failed his junior high school entrance exam, can't afford to be idle. He decided to go to night school and became a waiter under the principal of an art school in Ueno. This leads to the next turning point.
In the art school office, there were guidebooks for each school. Inoue, who still has a passion for learning, read the guidebook and searched for suitable schools in his spare time. The place that caught my eye was the Kanagawa Prefectural Technical School.
He was fascinated for several reasons. First of all, tuition is cheap because it is a prefectural school. Also, the facilities are quite nice. Another thing he liked was that there was a dormitory. Inoue was an only child, having lost his only sibling, his younger brother, to measles at the age of three.
He was loved by his parents very much, but more than anything, he wanted to leave his parents' house and study leisurely.
In 1926, Inoue enrolled in the Kanagawa Prefectural Technical School. The fourteen-year-old boy's heart was full of happiness and hope because he could study his favorite machine.
From then until the day of graduation in 1931, he enjoyed his life at the dormitory to the fullest, leading a leisurely student life. Inoue recalls that these years were one of the most fulfilling times in his life up to that point, as he was able to devote himself to his favorite studies without worrying about anything.
After graduating, there are a few twists and turns. It was the middle of a recession. From the beginning of the Showa era, the storm of depression that engulfed the world covered all over Japan. Although he graduated from school, he did not find a satisfactory job.
Through the good graces of another, he was able to take the entrance exam for Mitsubishi Aviation, but passing was out of the question. In the end, he spent half a year working as an inspector at a rubber factory through a mutual classmate.
After that, he worked in the alloy casting section of Tokyo Gas Electric Industry, and in October 1934, he applied through an engineer recruitment at Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., and joined the company.
Life at Nissan continued until 1946, when he left the company with the aim of becoming independent.
(Titles of persons omitted)
<Written by Kunio Michida>
From June 3, 1980, to the 16th, over 2 weeks; Nihon Kogyo Shimbun (now:FujiSankei Business i.), reprinted with permission.
