A Dozen Who Shaped the 80s

California’s image as a pacesetter held up fairly well in the 1980s in the world of business and economics. Californians were a force for dramatic change.

Some achieved change on a grand scale--inspiring a revolution in economic policy or transforming corporate finance. Some of the change may seem minor, but it altered our daily routines and our life styles. Some business people built firms that are monuments to America’s spirit of enterprise; others brought companies to ruin and became symbols of corporate recklessness.

Here is a sampling of California residents who gave American business a 1980s makeover--making it better, or worse, or just more fun.

TETSUO CHINO

Tetsuo Chino ran Honda’s U.S. operations from Los Angeles during the period in the 1980s when Honda surged past Toyota to become the biggest Japanese auto company in the American market.

Chino, 58, who has since officially retired but still acts as a senior adviser and consultant to Honda in Tokyo, headed all of Honda’s American operations from 1982 until 1987, often shuttling between Los Angeles and Tokyo.

He first came to the United States in 1979 to run Honda’s sales operations after holding a similar position for the Japanese market in Tokyo. By 1981, he was named president of American Honda, the sales and marketing arm based in Los Angeles, and the following year was placed in charge of all of Honda’s North American sales and manufacturing operations.

By 1987, he was given a new title, president of Honda North America, which reflected Honda’s consolidation of its U.S. and Canadian sales and manufacturing divisions into one organization.

One of Chino’s greatest attributes was his deep understanding of the United States, which was reflected in Honda’s early drive to become a more “American” company than any other Japanese auto maker. Honda was the first to open a U.S. car assembly plant, in Marysville, Ohio, in 1982, and now has a second, in East Liberty, Ohio. Together, they are capable of building more than half a million cars a year.

Chino, who speaks fluent English, seemed to understand that Honda’s future was more closely tied to the United States than to Japan. Honda now sells more cars in the United States than in Japan, and rumors persist that someday the company may move its corporate headquarters to this country.