Consent Preferences

This is the Life We Chose

by Stacey Miyamoto

The founders of SSFM were building careers in a time of war recovery. They had the strength and resolve to use their education and hard work to building a better life for their families. Roy Shimabukuro and Don Shimazu were deliberate in how they set up SSFM and who they hired.
When Mike Matsumoto took the reins as President in 1997, we could all smell fear in the air—the fear of not wanting to fail him. Everyone worked hard, day and night. We had days that people went into Mike’s office, came out, packed up their things and left that same day. Somehow, I felt secure that if I worked hard I would continue to have a job. At the age of 19, I never thought about retirement or anything beyond what Karaoke bar we were heading to that night. But Mike did.
Roy and Don’s business philosophy was fundamental to our founding visionaries.
Mike embraced their philosophy and catapulted it into the people centric company we are today. Mike, Lee Takushi and Norman Kawachika were pivotal in establishing SSFM’s 401K, Profit Sharing plan and our many other benefits. They were committed to creating a powerful company that led the way with innovative, thought provoking, and simple questions and solutions for our Industry.

They opted not to take rewards from the profit-sharing plan which was established for the staff in the early 90s. They created an ownership program for everyone else. They knew as a 19-year-old, I wasn’t thinking about what happened to me in retirement or my ability to buy a house. They did that thinking for all of us. They sacrificed for us.

One of our obligations is to assure everyone, regardless of their position, will be appreciated for their contributions and receive resourses to help them retire. Mike has maintained this commitment for 65 years, and today’s leaders continue to keep that promise. Our strategic plan has everything to do with our people. We are knee deep in improving our systems, and our ownership mindsets even more, to enable people to grow into purposeful careers that leverage SSFM’s stake in our industry throughout the Pacific.

We all have serious choices to make. Some are related to family, some to work and require sacrifices to achieve success. We chose to continue the legacy of our founders and stay and continue to build, repair and improve SSFM. We do it with the right people. We do what it takes.