Editor’s Note: Tâm Nguyễn is chairman of Garden Grove-based Advance Beauty College. His sister Linh is president of the college. He serves on the board of the Orange County Community Foundation, is chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority and is past chair of the Cal State Fullerton Philanthropic Foundation board of governors. OC Philanthropy special report, a stand-alone supplement, comes with this week’s print edition.
In June, Cal State University Fullerton announced the first scholarship recipient of the Minh Tâm Nguyễn Endowment Fund for International Education, named after my father who passed away a year ago.
The scholarship honors my father’s journey as a refugee from Vietnam. He left Vietnam in April 1975, the day before South Vietnam collapsed. He was a high-ranking naval officer in the South Vietnamese military and the Americans knew he would be a high-risk capture.
By 1978, he was in the United States. He got the idea of the beauty college after watching my mom make significantly more money as a beautician doing hair and nails than he did at his job. The other reason he thought of the beauty college was because he was a volunteer for a nonprofit processing a lot of Vietnamese immigrants and saw a need for a transition job or vocation for them. He believed it was important to contribute back to the U.S.
Minh and my mother Kien opened a beauty salon before starting the college in 1987. It became a renowned beauty college in Garden Grove that has enabled thousands to secure jobs and open their own businesses. His legacy has inspired me deeply, both in business and in the opportunities that I’ve had to give back to our community.
Many of the lessons I’ve treasured most are those I gleaned from my father, who led courageously and consistently throughout his life.
Relationships are Key
Whenever I talk to business students, I reinforce the importance of learning the hard skills of management, marketing, accounting and finance in business school, of course. But I am quick to add that when you get out into the real world, it’s not only about your transactional skills or the P&L statements that cross your desk. Equally or more important are the relationships you build. I believe that people always come before profits, and profits are often the applause you get because of how you treat people.
After my father passed away, my family felt the impact of his deep relationships across the community. Even though we didn’t request contributions, he was so beloved within his industry and in the local Vietnamese community that countless people wanted to make gifts in his memory.
Many of our students and past graduates said their families are successful and that they own multiple nail salons thanks to my father’s legacy. They wanted to honor a person who gave them a leg up to start their lives and find success and financial stability. Their collective contributions of more than $25,000 became the basis for the creation of a donor-advised fund at the Orange County Community Foundation (OCCF) and the scholarship fund at CSUF.
My advice to entrepreneurs is that as you continue to grow your business, make sure that you have a clear mission that’s also integrated into the community, building a reputation not just for transactional excellence but for the depth and strength of your relationships.
Give Time
I think it’s important to ask yourself daily, what can you give today? There is something even more important than dollars. It’s your time and energy. We can invest our time and energy to uplift others and strengthen our community.
This became especially important to me in the early years of the pandemic, as I witnessed anti-Asian-American hate hitting an all-time high. I remember the alarming statistics provided by Orange County Human Relations (now Groundswell) and the Orange County District’s Attorney office, which were collecting and sharing data on hate incidents and showing the upward trends and spikes. Several of my friends and colleagues were spat on and yelled at to go back to their country, despite being decades-long members of the Orange County community.
It took a village—many allies and friends, starting with the nail salon industry and all the nail salons that were closed during the pandemic—to come together to say, “We can do something to help.”
We used Advance Beauty College as a hub to collect personal protective equipment like N95 masks, gloves, hand sanitizers and more. We were ultimately able to collect personal protective equipment across the nation worth $30 million.
We called upon many Asian-American communities throughout the U.S. to help us in this drive. We also called upon Asian-American restaurants, including many Vietnamese restaurants within Little Saigon in Orange County, and they helped us prepare and deliver 85,000 meals to isolated seniors and frontline workers.
Maximize Impact Via Strategic Approach
My generous parents not only worked very hard but gave locally. But when they gave it wasn’t always done strategically. It wasn’t under the guidance of any professionals, although it came from the heart, and that was very noble. But it would be very short-lived, or it wouldn’t create the impact that they would have liked to see.
Creating a donor-advised fund at OCCF with the monetary gifts my sister and I received in honor of our father was a natural progression for us. We were able to accomplish our goals more strategically and impactfully. That self-sustaining fund will support the endowment in our father’s name at CSUF so that his legacy lives on in perpetuity.
Remember that we can start small. We can start with the PTAs at our children’s schools, or local nonprofits. We can start with something that speaks to our heart. The younger generation is reminding me every day that representation matters to them. And so, when we show up as Asian-Americans, when we give back our dollars, when we start an endowment or when we serve on a board, despite our busy schedules with our family and work, it matters. We have great organizations in philanthropy that help underserved communities. We get to be a part of that. We are so grateful to have OCCF in our lives.
We are proud Americans, specifically Orange Countians.
