404

Written by Peter Li-Chang Kuo

(Chinese)

In January 1979, while flying from Narita to Seattle on a Boeing 747, I had the strange impression that I was the only passenger on board. Curious, I walked down to take a look—and was utterly shocked by the scene in economy class. It was truly packed shoulder to shoulder, mixed with the cries of infants. At that moment, I felt incredibly fortunate to have the means to travel in business class to the United States, where I would complete the development of a “satellite receiver” to help improve the U.S. economy. I had just turned 25 that year.

I am deeply grateful to Heaven for granting me the wisdom and ability. To improve my family’s circumstances, I had the courage at age 13 (in 1966) to meet the stringent demands of Avnet Taiwan Ltd., helping them secure NASA’s PTH orders. By 1974, at the age of 21, I was already referred to by Chiang Ching-kuo as the “Father of Taiwan’s Precision Industry.” Although by 1975 we had identified “satellite receivers and personal computers (PCs)” as the next generation of products, I was still bound to Chenggongling by an outdated military service system.

Figure 1: Serving as a platoon leader at Chenggongling