Origins: an entrepreneurial dream
Chen, now 67, was born in Tainan in the postwar period when everything was in short supply. Although he was quite a rebel and disliked study, he was already nurturing the idea of running his own business at only 17. With his brother’s encouragement, and to everyone’s surprise, he passed the entrance exams for National Tainan Second Senior High School, and then went on to study mechanical engineering at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU).
After completing his military service, Chen gained a government scholarship to research materials science at the University of Hannover in Germany. On gaining his doctorate in 1975 at age 29, he was offered a teaching position by his alma mater NCKU. Two years later, he became director of NCKU’s Graduate School of Mechanical Engineering.
At that time, the department was heavily focused on the academic side of engineering, so Chen’s ideas of cooperation with industry didn’t go down well. As a result, he resigned and moved into research and development at the Materials Research Laboratory (now the Material and Chemical Research Laboratories) of ITRI, focusing on high-purity and specialized materials.
At ITRI, Chen was frustrated to discover that even though ITRI possessed cutting-edge technology, the local steel industry was unable to put theory into practice. So in 1985, with a proposal to develop specialty steels in hand, he met with more than 30 investors one after another, and finally hit it off with Evergreen Group chairman Chang Yung-fa. Evergreen agreed to invest in a new company as its largest shareholder, with Chen serving as general manager.
Chen recalls that at the time, he believed (rather optimistically) that domestic demand alone could support two specialty steel companies. So with the resources and reputation of the Evergreen Group behind him, the future looked promising.
In the initial stages, however, not everything went well. The company was unable to master the key technologies, so product quality was not what it should have been. To make matters worse, Taiwan’s specialty steel market had long been dominated by more experienced Japanese companies, so the company’s revenue wasn’t as good as expected. In fact, the Evergreen Group estimated that if its subsidiary continued to operate under these conditions, losses were likely to exceed NT$1 billion.
In order to obtain client certification, GMTC has invested heavily in equipment to produce high-quality products.