By the time DIC made purchase of Polychrome, Mr. Katsumi Kawamura was already "retired" and had the title of Advisor. As the founder of the modern DIC, he flew to NYC one year after the end of WWII to get license from Reichold Chemical and Sun Chemical and changed his old printing ink company to one of the major chemical companies in the world. He has maintained his interest in the printing industry, his bread and butter business, and expanded the offering to printing press as the distributor of Man Roland press, lithographic film and offset printing plate as the distributor of Fuji Photo Film. He has tried and failed to become a PS plate producer when the negotiation with Kalle failed earlier. The purchase of Polychrome, organized by his successor and then president of DIC, Shigeguni Kawamura, gave him one more opportunity to realize his dream of becoming a domestic producer. But it was Dr. Kouji Oe who made his dream come true in getting things organized and pushing the large DIC organization to get quick approvals and support. Dr. Oe was teaching Chemistry at the Kyushu University when he was invited to join DIC. The "Advisor" was eager to support Polychrome to strengthen R&D and a team was assembled quickly. It was clear that the licensee Fuji would be allowed to go outside of Japan after the long 28 years of licensing agreement ends in early 1980's to become a strong competitor to Polychrome world wide. DIC's answer to the situation was to build a PS plate manufacturing plant in Japan. The historic Gunma plant was chosen and under the strong direction of Dr. Oe, the modern manufacturing plant was constructed on time and on budget. The dedication of Dr. Oe to the project was legendary. He was always in the center and front of the construction, debugging and production. Once he was pulled into the still moving decurler rollers which had only wide enough opening for his chest. He came out under the rollers with his helmet crushed and bruise all over his body. He came back to the plant within a few hours to show he is ok fearing otherwise could slow down the project. He has recruited a strong team of chemists and engineers to develop products for Japan and SEA and directed expansion of Gunma plant.
He literally started Polychrome Gunma plant for DIC but he also played an important role for DIC to end relationship with Polychrome's successor; Kodak Polychrome. By early 2000, he rose to the top of the DIC management and while he was the president of DIC made the decision to end the joint venture with Kodak, essentially selling DIC's 50% shares to Kodak.
During the dinner in Tokyo last week Dr. Oe said DIC was not keen to the idea of buying a hardware company (CREO). He was aware of the market saturation then and was concerned with the maintenance liability. He is now fully retired from the chairman position and is enjoying meeting old friends.
