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Biographies
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Kenneth Fong
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HOME > SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS > LOCAL LEADERS IN PHILANTHROPY > BIOGRAPHIES
Koichi Nishimura
[Note: The following biography was prepared and presented at the 2001 gala by Board Member and KRON TV News Anchor Emerald Yeh.] With our next honoree, it was from brawn to business… a physical education major who ended up as CEO of the year and head of the world's largest electronic manufacturing services company… a company that has won numerous awards for its business practices. It's a respectability that is a far cry from Koichi Nishimura's early years. Born in Pasadena in 1938, Ko was a mere toddler when he and his family were considered a threat to U.S. security and shipped off to internment camp at Manzanar, on the windy barren eastern slope of the Sierra. They were among the more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans confined in the years after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and started World War II. Among Ko's early recollections was seeing a friend's uncle shot and killed by a guard at camp. Yet he looks back at this experience with little bitterness. His family was able to stay together including his grandmother who instilled in Ko some core values that deeply influenced the way he would build and run a Silicon Valley powerhouse in his later years. After several years of internment, Ko and his family returned to Pasadena where he grew up to play football at Pasadena City College. He described himself as a mediocre student and was majoring in P.E. until a shoulder injury that caused him to lose feeling in his left arm for several years forced him to look for a new field. He decided to take a stab at engineering. With his arm in a sling, he went to see a guidance counselor who was not at all encouraging about his switching majors from P.E. to engineering. But Ko persisted, and talked a calculus professor into letting him take a class. From there, Ko went on to earn a bachelor's and then a master's degree in engineering at San Jose State… and then years later, a Ph.D. at Stanford in applied materials science and engineering. Being given that one chance by a professor, who frankly had expected him to fail, left a mark on Ko. One of his hallmarks as a boss is his willingness to give employees a chance to succeed. His philosophy is "Hire for traits and train for skills." His company today, Solectron, offers employees 2600 free training classes, ranging from English as a Second Language to a fully accredited MBA program through Santa Clara University. Ko firmly believes that ordinary people can do extraordinary things in the right environment and with the right frame of mind. Perhaps Ko's determination not to underutilize or underestimate employees comes from early childhood memories of seeing his father, fully trained as an engineer at UC Berkeley, unable for years to find employment except at a fruit stand. Ko's approach and philosophy in how to treat business clients and associates spring from his grandmother. She expressed her values to him more by example than by words. First and foremost, she showed him the importance of earning trust, that you must do what you say you're going to do. There is no trust in those who say one thing and do another… or fail to carry out their promise. Ko says that's perhaps what upset his grandmother the most about being sent to camp by her own government -- that her country did not trust her. "You couldn't pay enough money to erase that feeling from her," Ko said. But Ko's grandmother never verbalized her hurt. Instead, she taught Ko some fundamental human values that were to guide Ko in his business dealings years later…. values illustrated with Japanese characters or kanji done here by Ko's wife, Haru. Tamashii means soul and spirit. Whether it's a family, company, football team or a country, you've got to have this, Ko says. It may not be all you need, but it's a necessary condition. That's why he travels extensively to make sure that the candle, lit by the company's founder Winston Chen, continues to burn brightly. Kansha or appreciation and gratitude. Ko says he wouldn't be where he is if that calculus professor hadn't given him a chance. He wouldn't be running Solectron if its previous CEO Winston Chen hadn't believed he could help transform the company. We are all where we are because of someone along the way and we must never forget to have appreciation and gratitude. Makoto for sincerity and honesty. That goes back to Ko's grandmother's credo about making a promise and following through. It's the purest form of quality, Ko says. It's about commitment. Toku and Tokuzumi for virtue and the accumulation of virtue. It's something Ko tries encourage in his employees -- by filling the cups of others, yours will continued to be filled as well. Social responsibility is an important company belief. Solectron supports a wide spectrum of community causes, and every year, Solectron employees donate countless hours to community work, anything from mentoring at-risk youth to raising funds for homeless shelter to fostering local arts programs. By giving to the community, you benefit too. Wago is for harmony. You put all the wood behind one arrow, Ko says, and point it in the right direction. Harmony at Solectron is all the more remarkable because of the diverse cultures represented by the top executives and board members -- Japanese-American, Iranian, Chinese, Taiwanese, German, British and so forth. Finally… kyosei for mutually rewarding co-existence. Ko aims for "kyosei" with his customers, associates, suppliers and stockholders as well as the communities in which Solectron does business Ko Nishimura had been working at IBM, starting as a test engineer for 24 years. But it was when Solectron CEO Winston Chen tapped Ko, his former boss at IBM, to become COO of Solectron in 1988 that Ko was able to instill these values into the culture of a company. Obviously, something clicked here because Solectron went from just under $300 million in revenues in 1989 to its current $18.7 billion. It went from a single site in Silicon Valley to 75 sites on five continents. Solectron may not be a household name like Sony or Hewlett-Packard, but just about everything you touch electronically has its imprint… from pagers to phones, laptop computers, medical monitoring devices, navigational equipment on airplanes to routers and switchers that make the Internet work. Solectron is a contract manufacturer that led the outsourcing revolution in the electronics industry by partnering with major clients such as Cisco, Gateway, Hewlett Packard, Honeywell, IBM, Intel, NCR and Sun Microsystems to handle the overflow in their manufacturing demands. Solectron is often referred to as the silent partner to these big-name companies. It has received 250 quality and service awards from its clients and was the first company to twice receive the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, an award established by Congress. In 1997, the award was personally presented to Ko by President Clinton. Mindful of the Buddhist philosophy that nothing is permanent, Ko utilized his visionary strategic skills to keep Solectron ahead of the curve… acquiring plants from brand-name companies like HP, IBM and even a Sony factory in Japan, an unprecedented relinquishment by a major Japanese consumer electronics maker. By 1996, Ko Nishimura was CEO, president and COO of the company. In 1999, he was named CEO of the Year by Electronic Business Magazine… and just last week, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group. In addition to running Solectron, Ko has also been a director of the San Jose Buddhist Church, chaired the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, and personally supports groups such as the U.S.-Japan Business Council, the Asian Law Alliance, Japanese American Citizens League and served on the board of Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business and the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. He's also involved with Asian Americans for Community Involvement and Yu Ai Kai.
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