My generation is the third generation of "Katos" involved in the manufacture and sales of springs. My grandfather, Inokichi, broke away from a major manufacturer in the industry and established the predecessor to Kato Spring in 1930.
  There are many stories that I could refer to regarding the initial period in the history of industrial springs in Japan, such as the introduction of automation, but I will not delve on these in this book. Kato Spring began on the burnt plains of Tokyo in November 1946.
  A line in the corporate history reads, "Sekimachi, Nerima-ku, Tokyo, 530ft2 factory and seven Katoites." This history overlaps with the image of my father at 20 years of age delivering flat springs and scale springs using a backpack, and making cold calls at any place with a smokestack in an attempt to obtain orders on the way back to the factory. This was also when Koichi Tsukamoto of Wacoal Corporation began peddling wares, and when Masaru Ibuka of Sony was selling an "unique" electrically heated mat he made in Ginza. It was an era when the air was saturated with the energy of starving founders in a town filled with shanties. Although possibly a familiar scene of the "post-war black market economy," I was by chance able to read about its background in a pamphlet.
  In March 1946, the year Kato Spring was founded, a select committee of the Foreign Ministry issued a pamphlet titled "Various Issues Related to Rebuilding the Japanese Economy." The primary proponents were the leading economists of the time, including Hiromi Arisawa, Hyoe Ouchi, Shuzoh Inaba, Kiyoshi Tsuchiya and Ichiro Nakayama. There is a section in the pamphlet that reads as follows.

"In Japan, we must also promptly conduct thorough and organizational research into materials, design engineering, manufacturing, handling methods, design and a variety of other items for the manufacture of products; for example, tea, paper, ceramics, rubber and glass goods, clocks, bicycles, etc., that should become the primary export products of our country. We must proceed with steady preparations towards the goal of making Japanese products renown globally."

  Tea, paper and ceramics! This pamphlet is focused on Meiji Era Japan. However, the overflowing "animal instinct" of businessmen in the field, who were ignorant of such analysis and proposals on paper, led the Japanese economy head-on into a period of high economic growth in only 15 years.
  During this period, Kato Spring, first became the top maker of scale springs through innovative approaches. In addition, the precision spring technology we developed through immense blood, sweat and tears was highly recognized and helped us gain a 70% share for springs to be used in weapons built for the U.S. military. Moreover, in 1956, ten years after the war, we successfully shifted our products into consumer goods including clocks, cameras and electric equipment. The quality control (QC) we mastered during the production of components for weaponry paid great dividends here.
  Eventually, Japan experienced the Tokyo Olympics and the recession of 1965 that followed. It was soon after this that my father made another daring leap forward. He made a complete shift from springs made from wires to springs made from thin plates. People commented that the timing was too early for the industry, and questioned his sanity when he stated his intention to build a huge 5,000 square-meter factory. Again, the people started talking, "This will make Kato go bankrupt." However, during the ten-year period of 1955~1965, the economy acquired positive momentum, led by the production of household appliances, which increased 17-fold and the export thereof that increased 150-fold.
  The year 1966 marked the "First My Car Year" ("My Car" meaning the personal ownership of a car) and the release of the Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sunny and Subaru 1000. With this there became a new desire to own the three sacred treasures, a car, cooler and color television; represented as the 3Cs.
  The Soka Factory was completed in 1967 and began full-scale production of flat springs adapted to a variety of uses in response to the large wave of demand generated by the "Izanagi Boom" (a high growth period of 57 months) that began in 1966.
"Don't just adapt to change, create it!" This slogan became the backbone of Kato Spring, and is a message that exudes from the entire body of my father, who chose to overcome change by applying flexibility.