Taking His Own Path
After graduating from university in March 1896, Noguchi took his first new steps as a working adult towards realizing the dream he had envisioned. What kind of a start was this? And what meaning did this hold for his later direction as an entrepreneur? Let’s take a look.
With his big dreams, young Noguchi first began working at the Koriyama Lighting Company which was managed by Man’uemon Hashimoto in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture. Here, he was chief engineer for the construction of a hydroelectric power plant.
Graduates of Tokyo Imperial University usually got a job at a government office or in a large company. In contrast, Noguchi chose a power plant in a distant mountain village far from the center of Tokyo, and devoted himself to his work in this place as a step toward realizing his dream.
Noguchi would be involved in the power generation business working at several hydroelectric power plants, but let’s take look at his time at the Utsunomiya Lighting Company where he worked six years after joining the Koriyama Lighting Company.
Someone who worked with Noguchi at that time had this to say.
“At the time, the only place with electric lighting in this region was Nikko. They had electricity early to use in the hotels. Electricity was supposed to come to Utsunomiya and Tochigi from Nikko, but it never came, and so the Utsunomiya Lighting Company was founded. This company’s first plant was the Ishinada hydroelectric power plant, about 14 kilometers from Utsunomiya. The generator was German-made, with a capacity of 150 kW. We built a hut at the construction site, and three of us slept there: Mr. Tanabe, an engineer from Utsunomiya Lighting, Noguchi, the engineer from Siemens, and me. I handled the utility poles, water channels, and lumber for the plant. We were all young, but Noguchi was four years older than me.
At that time, Noguchi was, in a word, impulsive. No matter what he did, he was like a cannon ball, never taking time to think about the next step.
He would often tell us bedtime stories. He told us a personal story about how he didn’t have a father anymore and only had his mother, and he would often say that since Japan doesn’t have a lot of oil or coal, the country had to prosper with hydroelectricity.
The Ishinada power plant seemed strange to me, with a 10.5-meter difference in elevation and the water turbine placed halfway in between. I asked Noguchi why this was good for generating electricity, but he just laughed and said that I wouldn’t understand even if he explained it to me.
A local educated person said that since Confucius taught that water and fire can’t mix, water shouldn’t be able to light up a lamp. He said there must be something wrong with us to think we knew better than Confucius.”
So far, here’s what we know about Noguchi: Just after graduating from university, Noguchi thought that electricity would be necessary for Japan to industrialize, but as the country didn’t have a lot of oil or coal, hydroelectric power was the key to prosperity. This was a rational way to view the actual situation, showing that Noguchi was very perceptive even in his youth.
Furthermore, he wasn’t interested in getting a prestigious position, but simply set out to accomplish what he wanted to do based on what he believed, no matter what anyone thought, even if that meant living in a hut in an undeveloped area. He made his choice to work in hydropower generation.
His career then developed in cycles, from power generation to plant construction. His starting points were the Koriyama Lighting Company and the Utsunomiya Lighting Company. This is where he laid the foundation for his later businesses.
The story also mentions what a local educated person said about hydroelectric power. Such skepticism was actually not uncommon in Japan at the time.