A growing high-touch industry
Tam Nguyen – Advance Beauty College – Garden Grove, CA
20 January 2021
“When you talk to Vietnamese Americans,” Tam says thoughtfully, “they will tell you this profession has truly given rise to the next generation of professional doctors, lawyers, engineers and every other profession that the younger generation is entering.”
Standing in his modest office in Garden Grove, which is known locally as Little Saigon, Tam Nguyen is the President and Co-owner of the Advanced Beauty College. This second generation family-owned business is an accredited private college that provides training in nails, skin and hair.
Tam tells us that the “birth of the nails industry started here in California,” which is living proof that this profession “has provided tremendous opportunities for the Vietnamese and it is part of our American Dream.”
He has seen “moms and dads who have worked so hard on hands and feet, and to make the nails healthy and beautiful for America,” the Vietnamese community have leverage this experience to provide a better life and greater opportunities for their children.
“My mom was a professional in Saigon and my father was a South Vietnamese Navy commander. They both had to leave in the weeks leading up to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975,” Tam recalled.
“At the time we left Viet Nam my mom was pregnant with my younger sister and I was a one-year-old,” when they were processed through Guam and eventually settled in Santa Cruz, California. His sister was born there on Thanksgiving Day.
During our time with Tam, he frequently expressed his deep appreciation for what America has offered his family and particularly “the Laidlaw Family who sponsored our family and taught my parents everything.”
After his mother and father worked hard for many years, they successfully opened a salon in West Covina and then another one in Pasadena. After a few years his parents’ friends had encouraged them to move to Garden Grove where Little Saigon was forming and there was a need for a nail school.
“We needed to train people to do what we're doing. We needed to help our community so that they can achieve the dream and have upward mobility,” Tam says of their family’s journey. And after 32 years, Tam and his sister Linh are “running the schools and expanding opportunities to help those to come into the profession.”
Tam is proud to state that over the last three decades their two schools, in Garden Grove and Laguna Hills, has “trained over 40,000 students. What gives us the most joy is when our former students come back and tell us about their economic and social success.”
“Not only are they going to work in salons, they are entrepreneurial and are opening their own salons,” Tam says with a wide smile. “They open a second salon, and then they even open beauty supplies business. Now we are even getting Vietnamese who are inventing and creating their own products and becoming manufacturers. So truly, it's amazing.”
Tam sees training in the beauty industry as “high touch and low-tech”. He reflects on his work and says that it has taught him that “nothing is more powerful than the human touch”.
“We are touching and caring for the hands and feet. These are parts of our body that get neglected but work very hard for us.” In terms of the next generation, Tam and Linh have been expanding their outreach to “many other ethnic groups who go into this wonderful hands and feet profession.”
Tam believes that this industry will continue to grow. He says that “it has grown to about eight to nine billion dollars from zero before the Vietnamese came.” Although there are some concerns about robots and technology, Tam says that “what I've seen is a continued crisis and need for more people in this high-touch industry.”
The experiences of Tam and his family have ingrained in them the importance of workforce development and providing quality training for “gainful employment”.
“We are a small school serving an underserved population, and part of the fabric of family businesses and small businesses in America. We work hard to provide the best quality training for our students to graduate and be gainfully employed,” Tam told us.
“I urge policymakers to think about the decisions that affects school like ours. America needs schools. We need trade schools. We have a profession. We have a pathway for students to prosperity,” Tam says thinking about building a stronger economy.
“I was just in Washington DC and when I opened up this local magazine there were 22 pages that said ‘Nail Technician Needed’. Each page had multiple salons, there was a tremendous demand,” Tam recounted.
As the students start to enter the school, Tam reflects on what has been the successful aspects of his approach to his family’s life work.
“At Advanced Beauty College we focus on three things: Inspire, educate and give back. If we can provide that for our own families, for our workplaces, and for our communities that's when we will have a kinder world, a better place by providing opportunities to our children that we did not.”
Standing in his modest office in Garden Grove, which is known locally as Little Saigon, Tam Nguyen is the President and Co-owner of the Advanced Beauty College. This second generation family-owned business is an accredited private college that provides training in nails, skin and hair.
Tam tells us that the “birth of the nails industry started here in California,” which is living proof that this profession “has provided tremendous opportunities for the Vietnamese and it is part of our American Dream.”
He has seen “moms and dads who have worked so hard on hands and feet, and to make the nails healthy and beautiful for America,” the Vietnamese community have leverage this experience to provide a better life and greater opportunities for their children.
“My mom was a professional in Saigon and my father was a South Vietnamese Navy commander. They both had to leave in the weeks leading up to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975,” Tam recalled.
“At the time we left Viet Nam my mom was pregnant with my younger sister and I was a one-year-old,” when they were processed through Guam and eventually settled in Santa Cruz, California. His sister was born there on Thanksgiving Day.
During our time with Tam, he frequently expressed his deep appreciation for what America has offered his family and particularly “the Laidlaw Family who sponsored our family and taught my parents everything.”
After his mother and father worked hard for many years, they successfully opened a salon in West Covina and then another one in Pasadena. After a few years his parents’ friends had encouraged them to move to Garden Grove where Little Saigon was forming and there was a need for a nail school.
“We needed to train people to do what we're doing. We needed to help our community so that they can achieve the dream and have upward mobility,” Tam says of their family’s journey. And after 32 years, Tam and his sister Linh are “running the schools and expanding opportunities to help those to come into the profession.”
Tam is proud to state that over the last three decades their two schools, in Garden Grove and Laguna Hills, has “trained over 40,000 students. What gives us the most joy is when our former students come back and tell us about their economic and social success.”
“Not only are they going to work in salons, they are entrepreneurial and are opening their own salons,” Tam says with a wide smile. “They open a second salon, and then they even open beauty supplies business. Now we are even getting Vietnamese who are inventing and creating their own products and becoming manufacturers. So truly, it's amazing.”
Tam sees training in the beauty industry as “high touch and low-tech”. He reflects on his work and says that it has taught him that “nothing is more powerful than the human touch”.
“We are touching and caring for the hands and feet. These are parts of our body that get neglected but work very hard for us.” In terms of the next generation, Tam and Linh have been expanding their outreach to “many other ethnic groups who go into this wonderful hands and feet profession.”
Tam believes that this industry will continue to grow. He says that “it has grown to about eight to nine billion dollars from zero before the Vietnamese came.” Although there are some concerns about robots and technology, Tam says that “what I've seen is a continued crisis and need for more people in this high-touch industry.”
The experiences of Tam and his family have ingrained in them the importance of workforce development and providing quality training for “gainful employment”.
“We are a small school serving an underserved population, and part of the fabric of family businesses and small businesses in America. We work hard to provide the best quality training for our students to graduate and be gainfully employed,” Tam told us.
“I urge policymakers to think about the decisions that affects school like ours. America needs schools. We need trade schools. We have a profession. We have a pathway for students to prosperity,” Tam says thinking about building a stronger economy.
“I was just in Washington DC and when I opened up this local magazine there were 22 pages that said ‘Nail Technician Needed’. Each page had multiple salons, there was a tremendous demand,” Tam recounted.
As the students start to enter the school, Tam reflects on what has been the successful aspects of his approach to his family’s life work.
“At Advanced Beauty College we focus on three things: Inspire, educate and give back. If we can provide that for our own families, for our workplaces, and for our communities that's when we will have a kinder world, a better place by providing opportunities to our children that we did not.”