Takachiho has always been known as the pioneer of specialty gases in Japan, but now the worldwide gas industry knows that its Chairman is also a pioneer in longevity; Masashi Egami, founder of Takachiho, recently celebrated his 100th birthday.
Masashi Egami is known as the founder of “Japan’s Specialty Gas Industry.” More than half a century after pioneering this industry in Japan, Takachiho continues to develop, manufacture, and sell specialty gases including pure atmospheric and rare gases, calibration standards, multi-component mixtures, semiconductor gases, high purity hydrocarbons, and fluorocarbons.
Chairman and Founder of Takachiho, Masashi Egami, was born on January 10, 1914, in Kurume in Fukuoka Prefecture, as the eldest son of a Samurai family. In 1939, he graduated from the Tokyo Institute of Technology with a degree in Applied Chemistry. After graduation he worked at Showa Densen Denryu Laboratory. When World War II broke out, he was drafted into the Army Aviation of the Narashino Air Force Regiment where he worked as an engineer commission officer in the rocket fuel division. After the War, in 1946, he worked at a research lab in Hodogaya Kagaku, which sent him to work on a project at Tohoku University, where he was exposed to the world of industrial and high purity gases for the first time.
In 1949, in a workshop rented from Daiwa Denki in the Shinagawa Ward in Tokyo, Masashi developed a method to purify argon, which later became his first product. In 1950, Masashi founded Takachiho Trading Company and, in 1958, Takachiho Chemical Industrial Company. Both were named after the Takachiho Mountain Range, which is located in Miyazaki Prefecture in Kyushu, where he grew up. He dedicated the rest of his career to expanding the specialty gas industry in Japan.
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