Lieu Nguyen, Chairperson

Andy Tran, Vice Chairperson

Cliff Nguyen, Secretary

Katie Dang, Executive Director

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang, Director

Vinh Nguyen, Director

Dr. Loc Huu Khuong, Director

Lieu Nguyen is Vice President of Merchandising and Retail Operations at ICantHearYou®, with the goal of improving communications and safety for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing world. She was hired in 2008 as Merchandising Director of Safe Living Incorporated.

Prior to ICantHearYou®, Ms. Nguyen was Curator and Gallery Director of Mint from 2003 to 2008, where she combined her passion for art and knowledge of business, along with her commitment to the Vietnamese culture, to promote emerging and established artists. She also served as a commercial broker at Westgate Realty Group, Inc. from 2006 to 2008, where she promoted foreign investments to and from the United States, concentrating on Asia.

From 1988 to 2003, Ms. Nguyen grew professionally with Airborne Express, where she advanced through several international positions to the role of Country Manager, which she held for eight years. During this time, she led operational turnaround in four countries, restructured strategies, ensured quality, and catapulted customer satisfaction. In addition, she had executive oversight of a team of 62 top-performers. Due to her leadership ability, she was the first woman in this company of more than 27,000 to be selected for overseas assignments, successfully opening offices in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

Early in her life, Ms. Nguyen overcame great adversity when she narrowly escaped the fall of Saigon. With her family of 10, she had the opportunity to move to the United States. She excelled academically through all of her schooling and was offered a scholarship to Marymount University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration, with a major in Finance. She is currently on the Board of Directors for Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA), Washington D.C. Metro Chapter. She is also involved with the Smithsonian Vietnamese American Heritage Project and the Street Children of Hue, Vietnam project.

***

Andy Tran is a Mortgage Consultant with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage; he specializes in New Construction. Andy has been involved in the financial services industry for 15 years, and has personally closed over $250 million in residential loans. At Wells Fargo, he is responsible for Condo/New Home Builders lending in the Washington, D.C. metro area and has successfully closed many new residential projects including 1010 Mass Condo; The Artisan Condo; The Vaughn Place Condo; The Matrix; 555 Mass.; Artery Homes @ County Center; and the 1800 Wilson Blvd. condo complex. He is currently involved with home builders and developers for KingFarm Condo, a workforce housing project sponsored by Montgomery County, Maryland; The Solea Condo; The CityScape Condo; The Parker Flats among others.

Andy is a member of the DC Metro Chapter of the Asian Real Estate Association of America and has played an active role in the Conference Planning Committee. He is also a lifetime volunteer as a financial literacy trainer for BPSOS (Boat People SOS) and NAVASA (National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service Agencies), both of which are national Asian American Non-Profit institutions with a housing/financial literacy program as a primary offering to the general public.

***

Cliff Nguyen is CEO of Willows Development Company, a small land development and real estate services company focused in the Mid-Atlantic region. He is a licensed real estate agent in Virginia and Maryland.

Prior to working with Willows Development Company, Cliff was an investment banker at Compass Advisers LLP, a boutique investment bank specializing in mergers and acquisitions, private capital raising and corporate restructuring. At Compass, he worked on public and private transactions, both domestically and globally. He served clients of various sizes and industries, ranging from multi-billion dollar oil companies to smaller, middle-market retail stores.

Cliff is a graduate from Harvard University, having earned a B.A. degree in Economics in 2004. He is also an avid tennis player. He co-captained the Harvard varsity tennis team and briefly played on the professional circuit.

***

Katie Thuc Nhi Dang was born in a refugee camp on Pulau Bidong, Malaysia. Her parents emigrated from Vietnam in 1981 as boat people. Katie graduated from UC Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa and with High Honors, earning a Bachelors in Economics. She also graduated from UC Berkeley's School of Law (Boalt Hall), where she served as an Articles Editor of the Berkeley Business Law Journal and was a member of the Boalt Hall Women’s Assocation.

Upon graduation from law school, Katie joined one of New York's top Wall Street law firms, Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP, where she was a corporate restructuring/bankruptcy attorney. While at the firm's New York office, she handled both transactional aspects of multi-billion dollar distressed entity cases as well as litigation and trial components of Chapter 11 corporate restructurings. Katie also practiced at the firm's DC office, in the financial institutions/banking regulation practice. During that time, she provided advice to hedge funds and banks on the legal intricacies of financial institution investment during a dynamic time in that regulatory environment. She has been published as a co-author of articles in the American Banker on banking enforcement trends.

Katie is an active part of the McLean Bible Church community, where she teaches Sunday school to kindergarteners and also leads worship for the Kindergarten/First Grade group and is a regular attendee of the Friday Night Bible Study group. In 2008, she conducted a medical mission trip to Mexico with a small group of other members from McLean Bible Church. She is an Advisor of the Northern California Scholarship Foundation, an organization that provides substantial merit-based financial aid to excellent students graduating from high schools in the Northern California region.

***

Shandon Phan is PR and Communications Manager of BPSOS, a national Vietnamese American community organization, and Founder and Principal of Publius Consulting, which provides cutting-edge IT solutions, research services, and Internet marketing strategies to educational institutions, political campaigns, non-profit organizations, and small to midsize businesses. He brings to the Chamber his diverse experience in issue advocacy, organizational development, coalition building, and governmental relations.

Shandon has consulted for numerous community non-profits and advocacy initiatives and worked on several political campaigns at both national and state levels. During the 2008 election, he was elected a delegate to the Republican National Convention and served as an Asian Pacific Americans Coalition National Co-Chair for the John McCain presidential campaign. In addition to his involvement with VietAmCham, Shandon also serves on the Board of Directors of the Vietnamese American Bar Association of the Greater Washington Area and as Founding President of the Vietnamese American Republican Coalition.

Shandon graduated from Tulane University with a B.S.E. degree with honors in Computer Engineering and Mathematics and recently earned his J.D. from University of Baltimore School of Law, where he was a Litigation Fellow, an International Law Student Fellow, member of the Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Team, and Captain of the Philip Jessup International Law Moot Court Team. He also held various student leadership roles during law school, serving on the Law School Dean’s Student Advisory Council, as President of the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association, Vice-President of International Law Society, and Secretary of Moot Court Board.

Shandon has received many awards and honors, including the “Spirit of Excellence” Award from the U.S. Coast Guard’s Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Service Learning Scholar Award from the University of Baltimore, and the National Young Community Leader Award from NAVASA. He runs annually in the Marine Corps marathon and is currently a United States Marine Corps JAG officer candidate.

***

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang arrived in the United States in 1979 as a refugee from Vietnam. In 1986, he graduated from Virginia Tech with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. He also holds an M.S. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. For 13 years he worked as an engineer and a control quality manager at a research lab in Bethesda, Maryland. He holds several patents and has received numerous performance awards. He joined BPSOS in 1988 as a volunteer. In 2001 he left his engineer job to become BPSOS’ full-time Executive Director.

Dr. Thang is well known for his vision and bold actions. Responding to the boat people crisis in 1989, he established Legal Assistance for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers (LAVAS), which set up legal aid offices in the Philippines (1991) and Hong Kong (1992) to defend the refugee rights of the Vietnamese boat people. In 1995 he launched an advocacy campaign that resulted in the resettlement of over 18,000 former boat people from Vietnam to the US. In 1997 he set out to build BPSOS from a small, all-volunteer organization into a national one with 13 branch offices and a dozen service programs. He developed BPSOS’ vast network of mass media that includes print, radio and television. He established numerous service programs for refugees and immigrants.

Dr. Thang is an effective advocate of human rights and social justice. He has testified numerous times before Congress and edits Vietnam Country Report. He trains human rights advocates in different countries. He is also an effective community organizer, having mentored over 50 organizations and raised over $2M to support their good work.

***

Vinh Nguyen was born in Vietnam. He left Vietnam in 1975 at the end of the war as a refugee and has since settled in the metro Washington, DC area.

Mr. Nguyen has a Master degree in Economics from Catholic University of America. He also holds a Bachelor degree in Business Administration and Economics from Virginia Commonwealth University. Mr. Nguyen entered the real estate industry as a full time agent in 1987. He formed Westgate Realty Group, Inc., during the summer of 1997 and became its Principal Broker. Westgate Realty Group, Inc. currently has 180 agents, serving Maryland, Washington, DC and Virginia.

Mr. Nguyen volunteers to serve in different capacities with the REALTOR organizations. He is currently the 2009 Chairman-Elect of Northern Virginia Association of Realtors (www.NVAR.com). He served on the 2008 Strategic Planning Work Group, Information Management Committee and is a member of the 2008 Leadership Academy at Virginia Association of Realtors (www.VAREALTOR.com). He is also a member of the Board of Directors of National Association of Realtors (www.REALTOR.org) and serves on its Risk Management Committee.

Mr. Nguyen is also the President of the DC Metro Chapter of Asian Real Estate Association of America (www.AREAA.org), a non-profit trade organization which advocates for the removal of all barriers to homeownership for Asian Pacific Americans.

Vinh Nguyen currently lives in Fairfax with his wife and two children.

***

Director

Dr. Loc Khuong is President & CEO of Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce of North Texas (VACCONT) (2008-present). He is Professor of Finance and Accounting for MBA programs at Keller Graduate School of Management. He has a Doctorate of Business Administration and a Doctorate in Accounting, and have held senior management positions (VP and Director levels) at several multinational corporations.

Dr. Loc also hosts a syndicated weekly radio talk show on Houston AM 900 and Dallas Fort Worth AM 890 radio stations on the topics of "Economics, Finance & Entrepreneurship". Since 2003, he has been nominated by Marquis as a member of Who's Who in America.