For five-year-old Tan Nguyen, April 29, 1975, began no differently than any other day in his Saigon home. But by the end of that Tuesday, Tan and his sisters, along with his mother and two aunts, had left their home behind. The next day, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Viet Cong) and the People’s Army of Vietnam captured Saigon, ending the Vietnam War and placing the country under communist rule.
Although his family’s escape from Vietnam was unscheduled, theirs wasn’t a totally impulsive decision. Tan’s mother had often contemplated whether she and her three children, all under the age of six, should flee their home country, but until that point, a way had not presented itself.
“As a young kid, I remember Mom and my aunts talking about the Viet Cong bombings,” Tan says. “They were always attacking something, Mom would say, and we just got used to their attacks.”
But the reality of leaving Vietnam only materialized on that last day, when someone told Tan’s mother of a cargo ship leaving for Guam. “Mom tried to convince my grandparents to go with us, but they weren’t able to get out in time,” Tan recalls. Tan’s grandfather had been a successful entrepreneur in Vietnam; when they left, his grandfather handed each of his three daughters a pouch containing millions in Vietnamese currency (which became obsolete the moment Saigon fell). With no time to pack, they fled the house, arriving at the port only minutes ahead of thousands of others also attempting to evacuate.
After days at sea, the ship arrived in Guam. With a mass exodus of people disembarking the ship, Tan’s aunts were inadvertently separated from them.
“We didn’t know how to find them,” Tan says. “The decision to leave was spur of the moment, and there were no advance plans on how to communicate with each other if we were accidentally separated.”
In Guam—then and still a jurisdiction of the United States—the authorities immediately inserted Tan and his family into the emigrant process. Soldiers organized tent cities to accommodate the displaced families. “We were housed, fed, and cared for,” Tan remembers appreciatively. “The U.S. military managed the influx of Vietnamese refugees with exceptional precision!”
A lottery system assigned each group of refugees a place to live in the United States, and Tan, along with his mother and sisters, were initially sent to Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. One day as the family strolled down the street, they discovered with delight that his two aunts were also sent there. Tan’s aunts were later assigned to other locations, “but this time, we were all able to stay in touch,” he notes.
Tan didn’t know then, but his family’s placement in Pennsylvania would open the door to his success as a serial entrepreneur—and further his appreciation for chocolate!
The family moved southeast to Lancaster, where the local Catholic church paired them with a sponsor. “We lived with the Zimmermans for a year to get acclimated before we moved to our own townhouse in Lebanon,” twenty miles north, Tan recalls. In Lebanon, Tan’s mother hastened to support her family. Back in Saigon, fluent in French, Chinese, and Vietnamese, she worked as a teller in a French bank. But in the States, with no money or English-speaking skills, she took on any jobs she could find, from cleaning houses, offices, and buses to altering clothing. Tan’s family learned English in order to assimilate quickly.
“My primary English teachers were Electric Company and Sesame Street,” he laughs.
By the time Tan was eight, they moved into a Section 8 apartment in the state capital of Harrisburg, where his mother continued to work odd jobs while getting her GED at Harrisburg Area Community College. “Mom worked tirelessly. I would stay up until midnight waiting to hear her come into our apartment,” Tan remembers. “She hid her own pain and struggles so well, always showing us love and encouragement.”
Amid the kind people who helped Tan’s family settle in their new homeland, there were also early challenges with Americans who blamed Tan’s family for the Vietnam War. “Don’t play with those people,” a father said when Tan tried to befriend his son. By the time he was twelve, Tan straddled being an “A” student in public school and constantly getting into fights to protect his sisters from insulting remarks. “I fought the other kids so that my sisters wouldn’t have to,” he says.
Eventually, the school administrators recommended that Tan’s mother place him in a military school or the Milton Hershey School, twenty miles away in Hershey, to separate him from the distractions of fighting every day. “Fortunately, Mom chose the Milton Hershey School,” Tan says. It was a perfect fit.
Chocolate magnate Milton S. Hershey and his wife established his namesake school in 1909 to support students in severe poverty or at social risk. All expenses were paid.
“It was a private boarding school, and we were not allowed to leave the campus,” Tan explains. “I had the opportunity to earn weekend visits back at home, but even those weekend visits were not overnight. My mom had to have me back at the student home the same day or evening.” Other than holidays and one month in the summer, Tan lived on campus full time.
The highly structured environment at Milton Hershey School allowed Tan to flourish. Every morning at 5:30, the students began their chores—“like cooking, laundry, and vacuuming, or barn chores like milking cows, scraping the feed lot, and scrubbing the walls.” After showering and eating breakfast, students launched into a full academic curriculum before returning to their homes for more chores in late afternoon. Bedtime was 9 p.m.
Tan excelled in math and science, as well as sports. “My teachers and coaches were incredible,” he exclaims. “We practiced soccer, baseball, and basketball like it was the Olympics. Actually,” Tan laughs, “we fought hard to make the teams so we could avoid afternoon chores.” As captain, Tan led the soccer team to the school’s only undefeated season.
After four years at Milton Hershey School, Tan and his family moved to Annandale, Virginia, where one aunt had settled. There he finished high school, earning an academic scholarship to Old Dominion University, then transferring with more scholarships to graduate from James Madison University in 1992.
Tan’s career as a serial entrepreneur has incubated businesses from mobile entertainment distribution to telehealth and a billing mediation platform. “Once the idea grows to a point that justifies its own existence, I can form it into a new and separate entity,” he explains.
Today, Tan is the chairman and CEO of his own company, NuWIN FWRD (Food Waste Recycling and Distribution), to recycle food waste into high-nutrient fertilizer using an aerobic process that does not produce methane. With headquarters in Kansas City, the company serves food waste sites nationally.
“My daughter was the primary reason I wanted to create this green tech business, a company to support the future environment, where she can thrive.”
A strong believer in accomplished women leaders, he also launched an environmental infrastructure innovation company with his wife Linda, who is now one-hundred-percent owner.
Tan credits two men—his grandfather, Albert Tran Van Sang, and Milton S. Hershey—for their profound influence on him. Prior to the fall of Saigon, Sang had applied his own entrepreneurial qualities to build businesses throughout Vietnam. One of his companies shipped merchandise between Saigon and Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Another shipping company, Thanh Van, also transported Vietnamese refugees from north to south following the 1954 Geneva Accords. To improve equity across the community, Sang built a power plant in Cà Mau city that generated free electricity for residents in the blighted socioeconomic conditions. Each time the country’s political opposition intensified, the government would step in to nationalize his businesses without compensation, but Sang would just launch another enterprise.
Similarly, Hershey repeatedly overcame failed business ventures before finding a way to mass produce chocolate for consumers. “He wasn’t afraid to take risks, and he relentlessly moved forward without complaint,” Tan says. “He left his entire fortune to the school to ensure it survived beyond his life. To me, his philanthropic legacy is even greater than the chocolate company.”
Tan’s recollection of Hershey and the school are reinvigorated each time he sees a Hershey bar, which often refers to the school on the back wrapper. “I cannot make a candy purchase without including Hershey brands,” he smiles. He keeps a miniature replica of a Milton Hershey statue in his office.
Conversely, Tan’s grandfather’s material possessions were destroyed following the Vietnam War, so Tan has no keepsakes. Nevertheless, Sang’s ability to make visionary business decisions with integrity continues to influence Tan. “My grandfather saw opportunities before their time. He treated his employees well. And because he built his own successes from scratch, he understood how to help others even during his own times of struggle. It’s imperative that I remain true to these qualities that my grandfather imparted on me.”
Tan astutely recognizes that his experience growing up prepared him for his life today. “I now feel as if there is no job that I cannot do,” he says. As an immigrant refugee who experienced the loss of his homeland, money, and resources, Tan emerges as a beacon of hope.
“Once you’re past the fear of loss, failure doesn’t have to control you. Hope kicks in to keep you moving toward the freedom of a better life for you and your loved ones.”
Jane Chu describes the contributions of immigrants to the United States through her stories and illustrations. An artist living in New York, she served as the eleventh chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts. Support of this immigrant entrepreneur story is provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
