From Tokyo to Torrance: Japanese companies find a business-friendly home.

Leonid Rachman, who helps recruit foreign students for El Camino College in Torrance, often has to explain to Californians where the community college is located.

But not when he visits Japan.

Torrance is almost as well known in Japan as Hollywood or Disneyland. The city is home to at least 246 companies that, according to a new business survey, are either subsidiaries of Japanese companies or founded by people of Japanese origin.

"It's really the only country I go where I don't have to explain where Torrance is," said Rachman, international student program coordinator at the 21,000-student community college.

Japanese students make up nearly half of the college's 650 foreign students. And that figure doesn't include the dependents of Japanese executives doing a tour of duty at the U.S. subsidiary of companies ranging from Panasonic parent Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. to auto manufacturers Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corp.

Drawn by the city's business-friendly reputation, proximity to numerous transportation networks and a large ethnic Asian population that dates from the area's early years as agricultural center, Japanese companies have been flocking to Los Angeles County's sixth largest city for more than a half century.

But a little noticed statistic in the latest 10-county survey sponsored by the regional offices of the Japan External Trade Association and the Japan Business Association clearly demonstrates how the city has grown as a destination for Japanese companies.

While a fraction of the population of the City of Los Angeles, Torrance has at least 44 more Japanese-affiliated companies than the nation's second largest city--which is known as a center for Japanese businesses. Coming in a distant third is Torrance's next-door neighbor Gardena, with 54 companies.

"Torrance has developed an infrastructure over the years that makes it very comfortable for Japanese businesses to launch their U.S. operations here," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp, noting that Japan is the greater Los Angeles area's second largest trading partner.

Feels like home

"It is very easy to feel at home in Torrance," said Masahiko Horiki, chief executive of Panasonic Disc Manufacturing Corp. of America and chairman of the JBA committee that oversees the survey.

It doesn't hurt that nearly one third of Torrance's more than 147,000 residents are Asian-American, including 14,600 people of Japanese heritage.

Torrance also is the hub of Southern California's auto industry, with two of Japan's Big Three automakers with major operations here. Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. next year will celebrate its 50th year near the city's historic downtown district.

American Honda Motor Co Inc., which came here two years after Toyota, has a particularly close relationship with the city. The sprawling campus of Honda's North American headquarters is the north anchor of an ambitious redevelopment effort begun in mid-1980s and has transformed abandoned eastside industrial sites dating from the city's smokestack days.

Both companies are among the city's largest employers--Toyota alone employs more than 3,330.

The JETRO/JBA survey was released in late November. It surveyed 387 Japanese-related companies (out of 1,194 identified companies from Kern Country to the Mexican border) and found their executives share many of the same likes and dislikes as their American counterparts. They love the climate, the ports, and easy access to one of the U.S.'s largest consumer markets, but hate the high cost of doing business in the state.

Almost leo popular

One problem is that it can be difficult for a sizeable company to find room in Torrance. Fran Fulton, the city's economic development manager, said she gets many inquiries from Japanese companies but is challenged by the South Bay's tight commercial real estate market.

At least one Japanese subsidiary with longtime ties in the community, computer printer maker Epson American Inc. decided to relocate its corporate headquarters to Long Beach in 1999. The move was prompted in part by the Seiko Epson Corp. affiliate's inability at the time to find a large and appropriate enough site to consolidate operations that had scattered around Torrance over the years, according to a company spokeswoman.

Honda, which employs 2,300 people in two Torrance locations, continues to expand, but it has a 110-acre main campus. A design center is under construction that will be devoted to its upscale Acura line of cars.

"American Honda coming to Torrance has been a tide that has lifted many boats in terms of economic development, employment and philanthropy," said Jeffrey Smith, assistant vice president of corporate affairs for the company.

Honda's home office grants an unusual amount of autonomy to its overseas subsidiaries, which has enabled American Honda to become part of the local community as seamlessly as any American-owned firm, he said. The company, for example, underwrites and hosts on its campus an annual summer festival that has enabled Little Company of Mary Hospital to offer mobile health clinics serving the community's poorer neighborhoods.

Toyota has been similarly generous: over the past year it has donated $1 million each to Torrance Memorial Medical Center and the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

"All of our Japanese companies are very generous civically with time, talent and treasure," said Barbara Glennie, executive director of Torrance Chamber of Commerce.

Japanese presence broadens

Torrance's ties with corporate Japan go far beyond the automobile and electronics industries. Tecmo Inc., the U.S. division of a popular Japanese videogame company, is located in Torrance, as well as Gulliver U.S.A. Inc., the American subsidiary of Japan's largest used car purchasing agency.

Both grocery giant Mitsuwa Corp. and fast growing convenience store chain FamilyMart Co. have retail and U.S. headquarters in Torrance. Western Avenue's sprawling Mitsusa Marketplace, located in the redevelopment zone that Honda helped create, attracts a largely Japanese clientele.

Conversely, FamilyMart's subsidiary, Famima Corp., known for its fresh prepared packaged meals, targets a multicultural demographic and capitalizes upon America's fascination with Japanese popular culture. It opted to open its first U.S. store in Hollywood last year instead of Torrance or downtown Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, though both communities are now among its 10 Southern California locations.

President Shiro Inoue notes that proximity to the ports and the airport make it easy for his company for receive both imported dry goods and Japanese newspapers sold in his stores.

"Torrance is a central location for our expansion plans and the large number of Japanese people make it a very happy environment for us," Inoue said.

BY DEBORAH CROWE

Staff Reporter