Our Roots: Lessons from Okinawa

Family legacy lies at the core of what makes a family business special. It is building something tangible that financially supports the family and doing it with the people you love the most.

This week I had the chance to visit the island my mom grew up on and to learn more about her family’s business. My grandfather (mother’s father) moved to Okinawa in 1949 to help the US military build mess halls. As a serial entrepreneur, he continued to find opportunities to meet the growing needs of American military families. He built a shopping center, a bottling plant, restaurants and bakeries on the island and laid the foundation for what would become a budding tourism industry in Okinawa.

We had the chance to visit Plaza House, the shopping center my grandfather built (pictured above). As a real estate junkie, it was so special to see what the family who bought the center from us had done with the property in the subsequent decades. They preserved the original center and built modern interiors around it to showcase what the original Okinawa looked like back in the 1950s. It is, in fact, the last remnant of the Okinawa of the 1950’s and 1960’s that still remains. We arrived on the last day of the 70-year special exhibit honoring the shopping center as a landmark in the local community. My mother, my aunt (who works for Westlake), and myself are pictured here in front of the part of the exhibit honoring my grandfather.

While my grandfather’s premature death led to the eventual wind down of the business in Okinawa, it is still very much a part of the family lore and stories I heard many times growing up. I’ve often reflected on what makes me so motivated as a third generation leader of Westlake and I think a lot of it has to do with having the opportunity to keep our story and the physical manifestation of that story (our real estate portfolio) intact given what happened with my mother’s family business. Our story, our business (both the properties and our greater employee family), and our values are all inextricably tied in ways that are so special and unique to each family but this is what truly motivates me to grow our business for the next generation. Deals are fun but they come and go. This week I learned that the stories and the values stay with our family forever, sometimes even after the business itself is gone.