Duke Kahanamoku, King of the Waves

During the first half of the 20th century, Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku — known to most as Duke or The Duke, and as Paoa to Hawaiian and long time island friends — “emerged as the world’s consummate waterman, its fastest swimmer and foremost surfer, the first truly famous beach boy,” wrote biographer Grady Timmons. Duke Kahanamoku is best known to surfers as, “the father of modern surfing. As a sign of Duke’s importance to the sport, one of his early surfboards, with his name across the bow, is preserved in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

Duke Kahanamoku came to be known as the father of international surfing, but the Hawaiian native made his first splash as a swimmer at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden.

Born in Honolulu in 1890, Duke  was named in honor of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and struck gold by setting a world record in the 100-meter free-style and earned a silver medal in the 200-meter relay. He won two more golds at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, a silver at the 1924 Paris Olympics, and a bronze at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.

Kahanamoku’s swimming and surfing talents caught the attention of Hollywood, and over the course of nine years, he appeared in nearly 30 movies.

Kahanamoku went on to serve as sheriff for the City and County of Honolulu for 26 years. When the legendary swimmer and surfer died at the age of 77, he was remembered for his athletic talent and sportsmanship.

Source

http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/314627.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Kahanamoku

Tadao Yoshida, Founder of YKK, Maker of 50% to 90% of all Zippers

In 1932, a 24 year old Tadao Yoshida was working for a company producing zippers. While he was impressed by the product, his employer went bankrupt. In 1934 Yoshida founded the company that is today YKK in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.

This company is now the worlds foremost zipper manufacturer, making about 90% of all zippers in over 206 facilities in 52 countries.  In fact, they not only make the zippers, they also make the machines that make the zippers; no word on if they make the machines that make the parts that make up the machines that make the zippers. Their largest factory in Georgia makes over 7 million zippers per day.

In any event, Mr. Yoshida’s company zipped to number one by practicing the “Cycle of Goodness”, as he called it.  Namely, “No one prospers unless he renders benefit to others.”  Using this principle, he endeavored to create the best zippers out there that would hold up over long periods of time in the end product.  This in turn would benefit both the manufacturers who used his zippers and the end customer and because of these things benefit his company with higher repeat and referral sales, thus completing the “Cycle of Goodness.”

A visit to a YKK factory shows just why the competition has been ground down so successfully. The closely guarded machines automatically turn raw materials into zippers of thousands of colors and sizes. Each part is tested mechanically and defective ones are ejected, all without human intervention. Competitors have machines that resemble those made by YKK, but lack the company’s custom-made software and other tricks YKK keeps close to the chest.

YKK has manufacturing facilities in 68 countries. YKK also has the world’s largest zipper manufacturing center located in Macon, Georgia, where they have 900 employees.

Source:

http://gpenston.posterous.com/