Trinh Viet Trung, a Vietnamese American, who graduated with bachelor's degree from the Law School of the University of Saigon (South Vietnam) before 1975, has been working in various professions in the US: from a Human Development Specialist in Fairfax County Government, Virginia to President of a 200-employee building maintenance company in Washington DC, so he is well aware of the value of the human resource in business development as well as the American culture.

Trinh Viet Trung is considered as a bridge that links Vietnamese and American businessmen.

Trung and the trainees from Saigon Tourist Tourism and Hotel School.

Fred Golightly (right), Director of Vietnam Resource Group’s business development

section signs a co-operation contract with Hoang Long Hotel and Tourist

Training Share-holding Company,with the witness of Deputy Prime Minister

Nguyen Thien Nhan (1st left, standing).

Trinh Viet Trung (right) works with Fred Golightly, Director of Vietnam Resource Group’s

Business Development Section.

Based upon these networks in the US, Trung and a number of American business executives have formed a US Vietnam Business Association (UVBA). The UVBA is a not-for-profit organization which was set up to create and maintain a network among those who are interested in working with Vietnam. Currently it has 175 members located in various cities in the US, mainly in Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle, New York and Washington DC.

With his experience in being a bridge between Vietnamese and US businessmen, Trung expressed that while introducing potential partners with each other, he was very concerned of the cultural differences between the parties. Language barriers can be overcome easily but the cultural understanding is very critical to the success of business co-operation. A misunderstanding in body language and/or behaviours could send a wrong message to other party of the possible partnership.

To address that cultural aspect in doing business with each other, lately, Vietnam Resource Group has co-operated with the California State University in Long Beach to organize short-term training programmes for Vietnamese business executives. These training programs cover different training topics: from Human Resource Management, Leadership to Business/Hotel/Tourism Management, Business Cross Cultural Training, Logistics, Transportation Management programmes. These programmes also include a business exploration working schedule to introduce Vietnamese executives with American business persons and to visit American companies to learn of their operations and management.

So far, these short-term training programmes have been participated by 25 Vietnamese executives in co-operation with the Export Promotion Center of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and with the Vietnam Tourism Administration.

In addition, Trung also organizes a 4-month internship programme for Vietnamese students. Under this programme, Vietnamese students will be working as interns for three months in a hosting US companies so they can develop their professional skills, to learn of American management style and to improve their English speaking skills. These programmes are being implemented in Vietnam in co-operating with different educational and training organizations.

Over the years, through practical and fruitful activities, Trung has made worthy contribution to promote the trade exchange and understandings between Vietnam and the United States.

"My utmost concern is to make a small contribution to the new economic development in Vietnam so our people will be richer and our country stronger,” Trung confided.