November 2021 Volume 3

INDUSTRY NEWS

Asahi Forge & COVID-19 Response and Recovery By Perry Bennett

The Beginning (March 2020) Kentucky’s Governor Beshear declared a statewide emergency and instituted a stay-at-home policy. Day one of this pandemic brought Makoto “Mack” Ishigaki (President of Asahi Bluegrass Forge) and Hiroshi “Hiro” Degawa (President of Asahi Forge of America) a situation they had never experienced. The seasoned veterans with Honda roots (Mack) and Panasonic history (Hiro) were determined to do whatever Asahi Forge DNA would allow to protect associates, customers, and their local economy. These are basic principles and rules that are followed in the Asahi DNA. Step one was to protect our associates. This was their top priority, and the beginning of the process that would lead to 10 weeks of plant shutdowns. As they entered the third week of shutdowns, it was still unclear how much help would come from the local, state, and federal government. Under this uncertainty, Mack and Hiro decided - without hesitation - to support the associates in every respect (payroll, insurance, and other) until cash ran out or other opportunities came around. This is when the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was brought to our management team as an option to alleviate the damage to the liquidity of our company. Throughout this time, we had been in close contact withHiroshi Asahi (President of Asahi Forge) who was in Mino, Japan. He of course was briefed very often by Mack and Hiro, and through these briefings we learned that Japan - at that time - was not suffering from the effects of COVID-19 to the same extent as the U.S. “Buy local, buy gift cards from restaurants.” These were words spoken over and over to associates and others to do our part to help the companies in our community since the start of the pandemic. We have always prided ourselves that the events at our company involve family members. We consider our company to be “our family away from home”. Even now after we have returned to work, we order lunch from local restaurants every Friday to thank our associates and to support our community. We will be hiring more associates from our community in mid- 2021. This is another way that we have come out of the pandemic, with high hopes of giving more employment opportunities to our community. We have three plants that are here in Kentucky with an investment of over 150 million. We have over 175 full-time jobs at our facilities.

Hiroshi “Hiro” Degawa (left) and Makoto “Mack” Ishigaki (right) in front of partially assembled ring rolling line (Richmond, KY) manufactured by Asahi MFG in Japan

FIA MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2021 56