Iwata Celebrates 80 Year Anniversary

Anest Iwata Corporation, Japan, manufacturers of our renown Iwata brand airbrushes celebrated their 80th Anniversary in 2005. Any company having an 80 year run is pretty remarkable during these days of dot.com busts, mergers and home based businesses. During the past 80 years, Anest-Iwata has set the standard for excellence by producing the finest quality in compressors and spray equipment worldwide. While airbrush is just a small portion of their total business, our company Iwata-Medea, Inc., has made airbrushing our core business and helped to establish Iwata as the premier brand in airbrush markets worldwide.

In celebration of their 80th Anniversary, Anest-Iwata hosted various parties and events around the world. Since they are based in Japan most of the celebrations were held in Japan, however they did bring the celebration to Italy for their overseas partners. The events in Italy were hosted by our sister company Anest-Iwata Europe based in Turin, Italy. Other invitees included members of the various branches of AI-E including AI Scandinavia, AI France, Cormack Anest Iwata (Australia), AI UK, AI Italy, ASET USA, Anest Iwata USA and us Iwata Medea, Inc.

Even though one morning was to be spent reviewing new products from Anest Iwata, business was not the entire purpose of the trip. The time was spent looking back on the history of the company, celebrating this landmark anniversary, spending time with friends old and new from around the world and sharing our Iwata stories. A chartered bus was in order as we went on various tours of the countryside in and around Alba in the Piemonte region. Piemonte is home to the famous Barbera and Barbaresco wines and we were treated with a private wine tasting at one of the premier wine cellars in the region.We also dined in various wonderful restaurants including a very memorable meal at a farm in the Italian countryside. One of my comrades from the USA, Bill Williams of ASET, found his inner soul there on that farm. After freezing outside and trying to find a door into the restaurant, he was treated to a fabulous meal and a delightful Italian kiss for dessert.

It was there in the restaurant on the farm where the league of English Speaking Nations (the ESN) was formed. However, on the bus ride back to the hotel Karl Isherwood from Australia busted out a bottle of Scotch and before long no-one could speak English very well, thus the demise of the ESN.

For me it was all about the wine and the food. Being of Italian descent myself I am particularly fond of Italian food and it made for good comparison to my mom's cooking which I gorged on while growing up in Chicago. And for some strange reason, while in Italy it seems to be really easy to consume large quantities of wine throughout the entire day and not once feel tipsy or hung-over. And of course the espresso! Who can go without the Italian espresso? Il espresso migliore!

In my mind, there is no better place to celebrate the 80th Anniversary; actually, there's no better place to celebrate any occasion than in Italy. A heartfelt thank you to Anest-Iwata President, Mr. Morimoto and Director, Mr. Tsubota for extending the invitation to attend and for picking up most of the checks. Special thanks to Marco Vicentini and his staff at AI-E, including Mr. Kato, Clara and Cecile, who were gracious hosts. Suzuki-san for the paper swan, and finally to Marco's wife, Monica who helped me to reclaim my lost luggage from Lufthansa.