[Anonymous]

The ‘Father of the Inkjet’ to Assume Presidency of Seiko Epson
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080501/151277/
MAI,
2008,Seiko Epson Corp announced  that Managing Director Minoru Usui
will be promoted to President of the company. The current president,
Seiji Hanaoka, will assume the post of Chairman.Hanaoka says, “Mr Usui
will have complete authority and I will be responsible for part of
overseas operations.” According to Hanaoka, Usui, who will assume the
presidency, is “the father of the Inkjet” and has been working for many
years on the development of piezometric heads found in inkjet printers.
The personnel proposal will be formally approved at the shareholders
meeting scheduled on June 25 2008.

As part of the personnel
change, the President will be replaced in the final year of the
company’s three-year medium-range business plan. Hanaoka explains the
reason for the replacement as follows. “When I assumed the presidency,
our two major businesses, the finished product business and electronic
the device business, ceased to function properly. However, things
started to improve. We are in the middle of the medium-range business
plan, but now is the time to create a new domain identity. Usui, who
has no equal when it comes to products and technologies, will be the
most appropriate person for our goal.Expressing his resolution, future
President Usui, said, “We would like to focus on piezometric head
technologies, projectors, crystal oscillators, organic ELs and
high-precision processing technologies. Our products are slightly
biased toward consumer products. We would like to further expand our
business in the fields of business and industry. Seiko Epson has been
growing on its unique technologies. It excels in technological
development as well as in manufacturing. We will continue to grow on
‘unique technology and unique manufacturing’.”

Mr Usui, born
April 22 1955, is 53 years old. After graduating from the University of
Tokyo, Faculty of Engineering, he worked for a company related to ships
for six months before joining Shinshu Seiki Co (now Seiko Epson Corp)
in November 1979. He became Director in June 2002 and assumed the
current post of Managing Director in October 2007. His motto is “Search
for the Ultimate,” which refers to the pursuit of the ultimate
technology.”Usui was approached by Hanaoka in March 2008 regarding the
promotion to President. “It was a bolt out of the blue,” says Usui. “I
am still 53. Part of me wanted to remain in the post of Chief Director
of Production Technology Development a little longer,” he confessed.

[Author]

May 1, 2008 at 2:30 PM