Linh Quach’s entrepreneurial journey began with a lollipop. Or more accurately, the desire for one.
She was a first-grader at De Zavala Elementary in south Fort Worth where she joined the Junior Achievement program, which provides students lessons in financial literacy, work and career readiness, and entrepreneurship.
The organization set Quach up with a mentor, a banker at Central Bank & Trust on Rosedale Street. While the mentor gave her a primer on how a bank operates, the 6-year-old found herself mesmerized less by his words than by the colorful jar of lollipops on his desk.
“How do I get one of those?” she said to herself.
Quach, now the chief operating officer for the nonprofit Aldrin Family Foundation, recounted the story of her first time entering the bank at the Empower the Future Breakfast event held by Junior Achievement of the Chisholm Trail on Oct. 21 at Ridglea Country Club.
“I was mesmerized by the men and the women in their fancy suits,” Quach said. “I was just excited, and I saw their beautiful wooden desks that they sat behind.”
She took all this in and listened as the banker explained the financial world to her. She remained focused on those lollipops.
Surprisingly, at the end of the meeting, he simply handed her one.
“I was like, ‘Wow, all I did was show up,’” she said.
That was her first lesson in entrepreneurship, said Quach.
“My best advice to you,” she told the audience, “is always show up. Because you never know what opportunity lies ahead of you by just showing up.”
‘Give back to both’
Quach has continued to take those lessons to heart.
The entrepreneur, who turned 50 this year, estimates she has started a new business every decade of her life. She considers herself a social entrepreneur, meaning each of her businesses has a positive impact on society at large.
At the same time, she has kept one foot in the corporate world.
Her current position sees her at a nonprofit started in the 1990s by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin that offers K-12 STEAM-based educational tools, lessons and programs to educators and schools. The organization has a budget of about $800,000 and was awarded a $4.7 million grant from the Texas Space Commission earlier this year.
In 1999, Quach was a Columbia University graduate armed with a bachelor’s in economics and a master’s degree in international affairs employed by American Airlines, where she helped create a historic partnership with Vietnam Airlines. That earned her recognition from the World Economic Forum.
The deal was personal for Quach. Her parents fled to the United States from Vietnam following the war, and her family ended up in Fort Worth, sponsored by Broadway Baptist Church.
“It forged an alliance between my country and my adopted country,” she told the crowd. “I was able to give back to both. And it just was a very important moment in my life.”
Most recently, she was invited to participate at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum in Oslo, Norway, as a business contributor to a global report on climate change.
That success was built on those lollipops and the four words her mentor would tell her at the end of every session.
“He would say, ‘Linh, you can do anything,’” she said. “I took that to heart.”
Who was Linh Quach’s mentor?
Linh Quach has tried hard to remember who her banker/mentor was that set her on her life’s journey, but she has been unable to recall.
“It was Central Bank & Trust on Rosedale Street,” she said. “I was only 6, so it was 1980 or 1981, but I haven’t been able to find him to thank him.”
If you know who it might have been, email bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.
Selling paper, pencils to classmates
The entrepreneurial spirit quickly took hold in young Quach.
he recalled that in elementary school, she was the perfect kid, always prepared for her studies. But other students were constantly borrowing pencils and sheets of paper. She quickly noticed those items were never returned in kind.
“There was no borrow,” she said. “They never came back.”
So she began selling the items to classmates. Sheets of paper were a penny and a pencil was a nickel.
“I’m well aware that that was not a sustainable business model as I was getting the paper and pencils free from my parents,” she said.
She did not tell her parents about her early elementary school entrepreneurial exploits, but she eventually saved up enough money to ask her parents to take her shopping.
With the pencil and paper funds, she purchased a striped blouse with a small bow.
“I wore it to every meeting at the bank thinking it was really sharp,” she said.
She also wore it to other important events in her life, like when her parents became U.S. citizens.
‘It all started here’
On the entrepreneurial side, Quach is a co-founder of Kaizen Guesthaus, a company that offers retreats focused on wellness. She’s also the founder of Q International, a company that collaborates with inventors on implementing product design and supply chain solutions.
While she is now focused on the stars, all along Quach’s journey has been accompanied by the lessons she learned early in Junior Achievement, which worked with 64,996 Fort Worth-area students last year.
“I have helped businesses all around the world, consulting around conscious leadership and conscious business practices,” she said. “But it all started here.”
At the breakfast, each table featured lollipops as a reminder of her journey, she said.
“Take one,” she said. “Share it with a child, have a conversation about the work that you do, because you’ll never know what she’ll take with her, what she’ll remember, and what kind of changes she’ll make for herself and her family and the impact that she’ll leave in her world.”
Bob Francis is the business editor at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.
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