PEOPLE
Conserve and Use: Pioneering New Approaches for Operational Heritage Assets
Director and Managing Executive Officer, Hanshin Expressway Company Limited
Member, Board of Directors, National Congress of Industrial Heritage
1953 Born in Osaka Prefecture
1979 Department of Civil Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo
1994 PhD in Engineering, University of Tokyo
Career highlights:
April 1979 Joins the Ministry of Construction (now Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) after administrative reforms in 2001)
April 2003 Director, Road Department, Kyushu Regional Development Bureau, MLIT
October 2005 Director, Planning Division, Road Bureau, MLIT
July 2008 Director-General, Kyushu Regional Development Bureau, MLIT
January 2011 Director-General, Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, MLIT
July 2013 Retires from MLIT
June 2014 Director and Executive Managing Officer, Hanshin Expressway Company, Limited.
FY 2008 to 2011 Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba
In addition to your current position, you are on the board of directors of the National Congress of Industrial Heritage.
Tell us how you came to be involved in the Sites of Japan’s Meiji industrial Revolution project.
In July 2008, I was assigned to Fukuoka to head MLIT’s Kyushu Regional Development Bureau. I think my involvement in the project began soon after with a visit from Ms. Koko Kato, who is now the Managing Director of the National Congress of Industrial Heritage. She said she wanted to have Miike Port and other historical industrial facilities in the Kyushu and Yamaguchi regions inscribed as World Heritage sites and she wanted my help. That’s how it all started.
What was your first reaction when you heard about the plan to apply for World Heritage inscription?
There was already a local movement then, led by the Kyushu Prefectural Governors Conference, to have the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution–at the time, the project was called the “Modern Industrial Heritage Sites in Kyushu and Yamaguchi” – and I knew about that.
According to Ms. Kato, Miike Port preserves the beautiful hummingbird-like layout of facilities with which it was built at the beginning of the 20th century, making it an extremely valuable property, not only in Japan, but globally. It was very important, she said with passion that it be conserved as a World Heritage site. It had never occurred to us that the port facilities for which we had oversight could be of such global historic significance. Miike Port continues to operate as one of Japan’s major ports. We had never thought to view it as a historical and cultural asset. I remember how novel this was to me.
Former General Manager, Nagasaki Shipyard and Machinery Works, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
Chairman, Fujisankei Group
Executive Managing Advisor, Fuji Television Network, Inc.
Executive Managing Advisor, Fuji Media Holdings, Inc.
Advisor, Federation of Japan Port and Airport Construction Association
(Ex. Chairman of Specialists Center of Port and Airport Engineering)
Mayor of Nagasaki City
Former Director of the Sano Tsunetami Memorial Museum (currently known as Sano Tsunetami and the Mietsu Naval Dock History Museum)
Director of NPO Association for Thinking about Satoyama
Director of National Congress of the Industrial Heritage
Honorary Chief Priest Toshinari Ueda
Former Mayor of Omuta City
Archaeologist and Heritage Conservation Specialist
A fellow of the Japan Federation of Engineering Societies
Team Member of the Industrial Project Team Office for the Promotion of World Heritage Listing under Cabinet Secretariat
Governor of Kagoshima Prefecture
Mayor of Hagi City
Mayor of Uki City, Kumamoto Prefecture
The Former Employee of Nippon Steel Corporation
An Associate Professor of the Faculty of Science and Engineering in Iwate University
Chairman of the Tourist Guide Association of Misumi West Port
President of Kuraya Narusawa Co., Ltd.
Chairman of Izunokuni City Tourism Association
Director and General Manager of Gunkanjima Concierge
Producer of the Gunkanjima Digital Museum
Owner at Tōge Chaya
Chairman: Mr. Hidenori Date
President: Mr. Masahiro Date
Proprietor, Houraikan Inn
Representative Director of Egawa Bunko non-profit incorporated foundation
The 42nd head of the Egawa Family
Democratic Party for the People (DPP) Representative for Nagasaki Prefecture
President of the NPO, Way to World Heritage Gunkanjima
Representative Director
MI Consulting Group
President of Watanabe Production Group and Honorary Chair of Watanabe Productions Co., Ltd.
Member of the House of Councillors
Governor
Kagoshima Prefecture
World Heritage Consultant
Director and Dean, The Kyushu-Asia Institute of Leadership
Representative Director, SUMIDA, Inc.
Journalist, founder of the Shimomura Mitsuko Ikikata Juku School
Representative, Rally Nippon
Chairman, Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution World Heritage Route Promotion Council Director, National Congress of Industrial Heritage
Representative Director, General Incorporated Foundation National Congress of Industrial Heritage (Advisor, Public Interest Incorporated Foundation Capital Markets Research Institute）
Mayor of Nagasaki City
Policy Director at Heritage Montreal
World Heritage Consultant
Executive Director of Kogakuin University
Heritage Architect and International Consultant
Head of Data Acquisition at The Glasgow School of Art’s School of Simulation and Visualisation
Head of Industrial Heritage, Historic Environment Scotland, Edinburgh
Scottish Ten Project Manager, Historic Environment Scotland, Edinburgh
Mayor of Izunokuni City, Shizuoka Prefecture
Pro-Provost and Chairman of Council of the Royal College of Art. Heritage advisor of Canal & River Trust for England and Wales.
Dean of Tokyo Rissho Junior College
Professor emeritus of Keio University
Mayor of Kitakyushu City
At the 39th session of the World Heritage Committee convened in Bonn, Germany, from June 28 to July 8, 2015, the decision was approved to inscribe the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution on the World Heritage list.
At a celebratory party held to mark the occasion, some of the primary promoters of the project spoke of their joy in achieving their goal and of the trials and tribulations to getting there.
Director and Managing Executive Officer, Hanshin Expressway Company Limited
Member, Board of Directors, National Congress of Industrial Heritage
Vice-Governor of Shizuoka Prefecture
Mayor of Hagi City
Chairman, Tokyo Metro Co., Ltd.
Mayor of Omuta City
Deputy Director-General, Lifelong Learning Policy Bureau, MEXT
Former Counsellor, Cabinet Secretariat
Mayor of Kamaishi City
Member, Board of Directors, National Congress of Industrial Heritage Counselor, Shimadzu Limited
Chairman of the Consortium for the World Heritage Inscription of Modern Industrial Heritage (Kyushu-Yamaguchi) and governor of Kagoshima Prefecture (as of 2015)