High fidelity

Commitment to family, music, community keeps alumnus spinning

By Heather Hughes, BA'05

The weight of responsibility has never been lost on Mark Furukawa, BA’90 (English).

As a recent university graduate, Furukawa didn’t have the money to seize an opportunity to open a Hamilton, Ont., location of the famed record store Dr. Disc. So, he turned to his parents for financial support. “They were happy to see me happy,” he said. “They are very selfless people.”

The amount Furukawa required was almost exactly the amount his parents had saved in the bank. The couple were interred during the Second World War in the Japanese internment camps in British Columbia. As part of the government redress, his parents were given $21,000 each. Furukawa needed a $40,000 investment.

“With a great deal of gratitude and even more of an impetus to succeed, I used the investment for the shop,” he said. “I consider myself very lucky. It’s different when you borrow from the bank – when it is ‘blood money’ from the Second World War, you have a lot more desire and a can’t fail mentality to keep going.”

For the last quarter century, Furukawa has survived – and thrived – in an ever-changing industry by staying true to his love of music and his business roots in Hamilton.

Furukawa opened Dr. Disc in 1991 in a section of downtown that had a strong patronage of university and college students. When many popular music stores took their spot in bustling malls, Furukawa took a chance on a storefront location near the corner of John Street North and York Boulevard/Wilson Street.

The Hamilton store was a franchise of the original Dr. Disc in London, Ont., where Furukawa worked during his undergraduate degree at Western. At that time, the young DJ was looking for a place to grow his collection. He was instantly captured by the “largerthan- life” personality of owner Syd Atlin, who was energized by the young people – many of them Western students – he employed.