SRR's Vietnamese Employees Reflect Cultural Diversity at Savannah River Site
September 1, 2011
Aiken, S.C. – Amid an ever-changing workforce at Savannah River Remediation (SRR) LLC, several members of the company's Vietnamese-American employee population are proud to be considered part of SRR's ongoing focus to reflect a culturally diverse workforce.
As SRR forges into the second decade of the new millennium, the growing ranks of Vietnamese workers have not been overlooked – in fact, "it's a welcomed phenomenon," says SRR President and Project Manager Dave Olson.
"As a company we welcome and acknowledge all of our employees' unique differences in order for our company to become a collective success. It is with great pleasure that we fully engage all of our human differences and assets," he said.
Although Vietnamese workers represent a variety of work groups and skill-sets, many of these SRR employees have earned engineering degrees based on a strong work ethic and personal drive that often results in performance achievement and promotions.
According to Doug Bachtel, a University of Georgia demographer and sociologist, generally speaking, the Vietnamese people are unique among other American immigrant groups.
"Considering that the Vietnam War ended less than 40 years ago, they have quickly assimilated into major American society, mainly based on their focus on education and a knack for developing marketable skills," offers Bachtel.
Danny Tran, 47, is proud of his 23-year career at Savannah River Site (SRS) and represents the focused work ethic of which Mr. Bachtel speaks.
While Tran relishes his current role as a senior electrical engineer, he says he can never understate the diligence required to finally achieve his present status.
"America is the land of opportunities, but you must work hard," he said.
Like many of his countrymen, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Tran found himself as a refugee or one of the many "boat people" hoping to escape Communist North Vietnam after the fall of the South Vietnamese government in 1975.
Tran, like many of his brethren, first arrived in refugee camps in countries like Thailand and Indonesia soon after leaving Vietnam.
Ultimately, many were transferred to American refugee camps usually sponsored by religious denominations.
Tran and an older brother moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1980 and lived in a refugee camp sponsored by the Lutheran church. Both young men attended one of Cleveland's many technical high schools with Danny Tran eventually graduating from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, with an electrical engineering degree.
Based on 2010 U.S. Census data, of about 308 million Americans, only 1.4 million are of Vietnamese descent.
According to the SRR Equal Employment Opportunity division, of about 2,100 SRR workers, 62 employees are of Asian heritage -- including those of the Far East and Southeast Asia. The category includes persons from Vietnam, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand.
For Jennifer Nguyen, the road to America from South Vietnam was not an easy one, but she has no regrets.
Nguyen and a younger sister, Tina, traveled to Thailand, Indonesia and New Orleans before finally settling in Chicago.
Nguyen says she understood that education was a must and earned an electrical engineering degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Due to overwhelming language barriers, Nguyen says she never imagined she'd graduate college in America. "It's still very amazing to me," says Nguyen who started working at SRS in 1990.
She currently works in the Design Services group as a senior engineer.
SRR is the Savannah River Site's (SRS) Liquid Waste contractor. SRS is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. SRR is composed of personnel from a team of companies led by URS with partners Bechtel National, CH2M Hill and Babcock & Wilcox. Critical subcontractors for the contract are AREVA, Energy Solutions and URS Safety Management Solutions.
Point of Contact: Timothy Cox, Public Affairs Timothy.Cox@srs.gov