Namihei Odaira (小平 浪平 1874–1951)

Founder of Hitachi (company)

Namihei Odaira.

Hitachi Inauguration Cabin

In 1900, Odaira took up his new post in Kosaka Kouzan mines right after his graduation from the Electrical Engineering Division at the Tokyo Imperial University Engineering College, and teamed up with Fusanosuke Kuhara on a project of a home power station. The first time Odaira set foot in Hitachi was in 1906. He was actually invited by Kuhara to supervise the planning and the implementing of a power station designed on his own. After completing the Nakazato power plant in 4 months, he undertook the planning of the second Nakazato plant and achieved the construction of a power station in Ishioka (now Kita-Ibaraki.) Following that, he got entrusted with the entire supervision of the Hitachi Kouzan mines’electrical and mechanical design / production. His team went on sketching and planning everything on their own and produced at the very first three 5-horsepower induction motors. The very first Hitachi product were born in March 1910 at the Hitachi Kouzan Mines Planning Division (now the Hitachi Factory.) In December of the same year, the very first official Hitachi building was accomplished in (back then) Hitachi village, at the Shibauchi factory, where the company was established. Odaira later on worked hard to raise the Hitachi Factory to the level of a leading electrical appliances maker within the entire country.

Japanese version of this article available here.