New President at Toshiba Unit

Toshiba America Information Systems, struggling to recover from a series of costly mistakes in its cornerstone portable computer business, has appointed a new president to replace the man who created that business.

Toshiba America said Kiichi Hataya, 51, who engineered the company’s leadership role in the $3-billion portable computer market and has run the Irvine-based company since 1988, will return to the company’s Tokyo-based computer and telecommunications parent firm as assistant to the general manager for the international operations-information equipment division.

Atsutoshi Nishida, 48, who headed Toshiba’s international computer marketing and who has spent much of his time in Irvine during the past year, took over Monday as Hataya’s successor at Toshiba America.

Linda Bell, a Toshiba America spokeswoman, declined to say whether Hataya’s departure is related to the subsidiary’s problems. She said typical terms of duty for overseas Japanese executives are three years, while Hataya had stayed in the United States for five years.

Hataya has ridden a roller coaster from the start. In 1985, while still in Japan, he was ordered to shut down Toshiba America’s unprofitable computer business.

But he persuaded his superiors to wait until they could judge the impact of a last-ditch product: the laptop computer. Hataya’s intuition was right, and Toshiba captured the lead in the exploding laptop market.

In 1988, Hataya was sent to Irvine as president of Toshiba America.

Two years later, he was confidently projecting that the company would employ 3,000 people in the United States by March, 1992. But employee cutbacks have been the norm. Hataya also said in 1991 that he liked the California lifestyle and hoped to stay.

Neither Nishida nor Hataya were available Monday for comment.