BOWLING GREEN, O. — The president of Nissan Technical Center North America (NTCNA) will speak Wednesday (Sept. 24) at a Nakama meeting sponsored by the Asian Studies Program at Bowling Green State University.

Mitsuhiko Yamashita, who heads the engineering arm of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd of Japan, also will give an address on the “Product-Focused Turnaround at Nissan” at 7:15 p.m. in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union Theater. The program is free and open to the public.

One of Japan’s leading car and truck manufacturers, Nissan experienced falling sales in the 1990s. In the past two years the company has achieved a turnaround unprecedented in the auto industry by aggressively launching a series of new products—from a two-seat sports car to a full-size pickup truck and SUV--while reviving other models with new styling, engineering and performance to differentiate Nissan from its competitors.

Yamashita will review the company’s transformation over the past two years as well as discuss the engineering group he heads. Yamashita, who has been with Nissan since 1979, is responsible for all of the company’s vehicle engineering and development operations in Michigan, California, Arizona and Mexico.

He previously served as general manager of vehicle design engineering Department # 1 for Nissan, as senior manager and chief vehicle engineer of that department and as senior engineering director of vehicle engineering of U.S. production vehicles for NTCNA. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aeronautics engineering from Kyoto University in Japan and has completed advanced studies in engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Prior to his evening speech, Yamashita will meet and speak to members of Nakama, the organization of American and Japanese business leaders from northwest Ohio and southern Michigan.

Nakama, a group of Japanese and American business people which meets regularly, strives to foster friendship and cooperation between Japanese and American business executives and their spouses; encourage mutual understanding of the Japanese and American culture; and help minimize difficulties and maximize opportunities for Americans and Japanese to do business today.