Namihei Odaira

Namihei Odaira
Namihei Odaira

Namihei Odaira (小平浪平, 1874 – 1951) was a Japanese entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded what is now known as Hitachi Ltd.

Odaira was born in Tochigi Prefecture, about 100 km from Tokyo, Japan.

In 1900, he graduated from the electrical engineering department of Tokyo Imperial University. Following his graduation, he joined a mining company as an engineer in its power plant. From there, he went on to several electric power companies. In 1906, he joined the Kuhara Mining Company at its Hitachi copper mine as an engineering section chief. Although his main duties at the mine were to ensure a stable supply of electricity and to maintain the mine's electrical equipment, he and his colleagues began working on the manufacture of a five horsepower electric motor. This marked the beginning of the development that would become Hitachi, which was founded by Odaira in 1910. However, because it was started as an in-house venture of the Kuhara Mining Company, the owner of Hitachi was Fusanosuke Kuhara, the President of the mining company, not Odaira. Hitachi Ltd. was incorporated as an independent company in 1920. Odaira acted as the Managing Director of Hitachi from 1910 to 1929 and the President from 1929 to 1947. In 1947, Odaira was ordered out of this position by the U.S. occupation authorities. In 1951, this order was lifted and he returned to the company as Chairman Emeritus. Almost immediately after his return, he died on October 5, 1951.

See also

  • Hitachi Works




Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Hitachi — For other uses, see Hitachi (disambiguation). Hitachi, Ltd. 株式会社日立製作所 Type Public Kabushiki gaisha Traded as TYO …   Wikipedia

  • Hitachi, Ltd. — Infobox Company name = Hitachi, Ltd type = Public (tyo|6501 nyse|HIT) slogan = Inspire the Next foundation = 1910 location city = Marunouchi 1, Chiyoda, Tokyo location country = JPN key people = Namihei Odaira, Founder Kazuo Furukawa, President… …   Wikipedia

  • Hitachi (Unternehmen) — Hitachi Ltd. Corporation Rechtsform Kabushiki gaisha (Aktiengesellschaft) ISIN …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Hitachi Seisakusho — Hitachi Ltd. Corporation Unternehmensform Kabushiki Kaisha Gründung …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Hitachi Maxell — Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. 日立マクセル株式会社 Type Private Industry Electronics Founded Osaka Prefecture, Japan (November 7, 1947 …   Wikipedia

  • D-VHS — Media type Magnetic tape Read mechanism Helical scan Write mechanism Helical scan …   Wikipedia

  • Microdrive — For other uses, see Microdrive (disambiguation). IBM 1 GB Microdrive Microdrive (MD) is a brand name for a miniature, 1 inch hard disk designed to fit in a CompactFlash (CF) Type II slot. The release of similar drives by other makers has led to… …   Wikipedia

  • Hitachi TrueCopy — Hitachi TrueCopy, formerly known as Hitachi Open Remote Copy (HORC) or Hitachi Remote Copy (HRC) or Hitachi Asynchronous Remote Copy (HARC), is a remote mirroring feature from Hitachi storage arrays available for both open systems and IBM z/OS.… …   Wikipedia

  • Hitachi Cable — Hitachi Cable, Ltd. 日立電線株式会社 Type Public kabushiki gaisha Traded as TYO: 5812 Industry Manufacturing (non ferros metal) Predecessor Hitachi, Ltd …   Wikipedia

  • Hitachi Deskstar — The Deskstar is the name of a product line of computer hard drives. It was originally announced by IBM in October 1994.[1] The line was continued by Hitachi when in 2003 it bought IBM s hard drive division and renamed it Hitachi Global Storage… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”