was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

who founded

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

Life

Odaira was born on January 15, 1874, in Ienaka, Shimotsuga,

Tochigi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Tochigi Prefecture has a population of 1,943,886 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,408 km2 (2,474 sq mi). Tochigi Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the ...

(present-day Tsugamachi Kassenba, Tochigi), the second son of Odaira Sōhachi and Chiyo. In 1900, he graduated from the

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

department of

Tokyo Imperial University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

. 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 was an entrepreneur, politician and cabinet minister in the pre-war Empire of Japan. Biography Kuhara was born in Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture into a family of ''sake'' brewers. His brother was the founder of Nippon Suisan Kaisha and his uncle F ...

, 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, aged 77.

References

1874 births 1951 deaths People from Tochigi Prefecture Hitachi Japanese businesspeople Japanese philanthropists University of Tokyo alumni Japanese company founders {{Japan-business-bio-stub

Life

See also

References