Mits Michiyoshi Sumiya BORN November 22, 1922 OCCUPATION Engineer, entrepreneur
MITS SUMIYA planned to be an engineer while he was a first-year general studies student. He took a long, winding route, but he got there. Sumiya was born in Bowen Island on November 22, 1922. His family followed the logging route with their father: Barkin to Gray’s Creek to O’Brien’s Bay. In 1929 they moved to Vancouver, where Sumiya went to Strathcona Public School and Vancouver Technical School, where he gained technical skill and joined the Air Cadets. He entered UBC in 1941, living with his family, working and commuting to classes. His main interaction with campus culture
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was with the COTC, where he swore allegiance to the Crown and undertook compulsory military training, only to be stricken off the roster after Pearl Harbor. Sumiya deferred eviction from the coast until he finished his exams. When he had nothing left to write, he refused to go to roadbuilding camp on the basis that it constituted slave labour, a stand that saw him handed over to the military and housed in a prisoner of war camp in Angler, Ontario. After the war in 1946, Sumiya was released from the PoW camp. As an undergraduate student, he had his sights set on establishing himself in Toronto. After his
RETURN a commemorative yearbook in honour of the Japanese Canadian students of 1942
release, he made it as close as they’d let him go: a mushroom farm fifteen miles away in Port Credit. He was given a bus ticket and $12 for food and sent on his way. After a short time as a farm labourer, Sumiya’s skills with mechanics gained from Vancouver Tech helped him apply for a chauffeur’s licence, which let him drive the farm truck. Sumiya bought a house in Vancouver with his two brothers in 1950, and got a job with Mitchell Manufacturing in fluorescent lighting, which he saw as the way of the future. His work in research and design got him an invitation to join Wilson Lighting’s PR division in
1959, the same year he married his wife Gloria. Sumiya served as an R&D manager, product development and engineering manager for a number of fluorescent lighting companies, including Wilson, Donn Canada, Thomas Industries and Gypsum. After retiring in 1989, he ran a consultancy company for five years. He has two sons: Yoshio, a lawyer in Red Deer, and Kiyo, a specialist in de-icing planes at Pearson International Airport. Kiyo and his wife Linda have a daughter named Kelly.