Masa was a Japanese fellow who had lived in Perth a fair amount of time, he came to Australia from Japan, loved the place and decided to move here permanently. He had worked for a fairly high profile dive operation in Fremantle before deciding to branch out on his own - an astute decision in my view.
This was about the time the Japanese tourism market was expanding, Perth was a must-see destination for the Japanese back then. Masa was able to capitalise on this growing market, it is fair to say he was the right guy in the right place.
Masa was a big picture guy, he didn't care much for the details - that's where I came in. I am an operational guy, or I was back then anyway. I was the operations manager of his business, Masa came up with the ideas and I implemented the plans.
That's not to say I didn't have any input; however, the general trend was Masa was the ideas man and I was the operations guy. Masa gave me pretty much a free reign, if the courses and tours we were running were making money then he was happy.
I had calculated the break-even points so I was well aware of minimum numbers so the courses and tours we run spilled into the next program so those people filled the next program with new-comers joining and creating extra profit.
Masa had his limitations, but was that a problem? Well no, as long as you identified them, then there is no issues, you just work around them. Some of his ideas were really bizarre and I had to shut them down. Some of his ideas were brilliant, even if I didn't see it at the time, I soon worked it out.
This was a good time in my life, I was really enjoying my life, my dog was alive and my world couldn't be better, my time working with Masa coincided with significant life milestones. Life was good, it could always get better, but I was pretty happy working together with Masa.
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