William Blair of Eiki International died on March 21st, 2018, after more than 21 years of service to the company. Blair started with Eiki in 1996 as Operations Manager and, over time, was promoted to VP of Sales, followed by VP and General Manager, and, lastly, President and CEO.
Born December 24th, 1947, in Toronto, Canada, Blair had a long and storied career in the industry. He started his career at Pioneer Electronics, where he held several management positions in the service and technical support group, including managing the company’s remanufacturing operations. From there, he was recruited by the Industrial Products Group and became the Western Region Sales Manager for Pioneer Video, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pioneer Electronics.
Steve Rubery, Eiki’s General Manager, offered some thoughts on his colleague and friend, “Bill was a tremendous asset to Eiki. His vision for the company—combined with an enthusiasm that was contagious—will not be forgotten. Bill was known for his honesty and caring attitude toward the entire Eiki family of staff, sales representatives and dealers. We are all sorry to hear of his passing.”