Jenny Do  »  US Children’s Shelter Director

Jenny Do is a litigation attorney by day, engaged artist and philanthropist by night. Jenny Do was recognized as 2007 Woman of the Year, a prestigious award bestowed by the California Legislature of District 23. The state legislature identified her as one of those rare individuals who made a difference not only in her local community but much further beyond. Locally, Jenny founded the Green Rice Gallery, which provides a venue for Vietnamese-American artists. She was the curator for many well-received exhibitions around the San Francisco and Greater Bay Area. These exhibitions are designed to promote Vietnamese American arts and culture, as well as to raise awareness on social issues that impede the advancement of the Vietnamese American community and other groups. Jenny has also sat on the City of San Jose’s Arts Commission. Jenny earned her Bachelor’s of Arts degree from San Jose State University and her law degree from Lincoln Law School. She is an adjunct instructor at San Jose City College and a regular contributor to the Viet Tribune newspaper. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the City of San Jose in 2007 and the unsolicited Belle Foundation grant in 2005. Jenny’s works and life story have been featured on the Oprah Winfrey show, Time-Warner Production and many other programs on national and local media.

Thien Nhien Luong » Executive Director

Thien Nhien Luong has been a Board member for FHF since 2000. Her commitment to helping Vietnam stems from her organic experiences when working on the HIV/AIDS project in Vietnam to estimate the HIV infection rate among commercial sex workers. This research project exposed her to countless witnesses of social breakdown in Vietnam and how poverty plays an integral part in dangerous risk-taking behaviors in an individual, tearing a family a part, breaking a community, and weakening a society and its culture. Mrs. Luong has actively worked on charitable projects in Vietnam with many different non-governmental organizations since 1997. Professionally, Thien-Nhien Luong had held various positions with the Public Health Department of Santa Clara County for nearly a decade prior to resigning from the job she loved to be a fulltime mom to her children and taking up contract work.

Lieu Thi Dang » Treasurer

The total number of children throughout the world whom Ms. Lieu Dang has personally helped—through sponsorships, scholarships, and many other kinds of assistance—numbers in the hundreds. In cities throughout America, Australia, France or Vietnam, there are adults who will tell you, “Dang Lieu, helped me when I was a child. It is thanks to her that I have succeeded in life.” Ms. Lieu Dang is one of the co-founders of the Friends of Hue Foundation, and this organization is infused with the spirit of her devotion to helping those in great need and inspiring them to press on, live successful lives, and then help others.

Dan Do  »  Board Member

Dan Do has been an active member in community engagement for years, in both his professional and personal career. In the 1980s, Dan Do was the Founder and Executive Director of Young Vietnamese in America, a leadership after-school program for Vietnamese-American youths.  Mr. Do launched his legal career handling criminal, personal injury, and family law matters. Since then, he’s become an active member of the State Bar of California. At this time, Mr. Do and his partner have formed the Efficio Law Group in San Jose, CA. Mr. Do’s professional accomplishments aside, he’s also an esteemed orator, working as a Master of ceremony for many events. Fluent in English, French and Vietnamese, he pursues poetry writing in his spare time. He intends to publish his works in the near future

Dr. Phuoc V. Le » Board Member

Born in Vietnam, Dr. Le immigrated to the US at age 6. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College with a double major in Chinese and Biochemistry. He then matriculated at Stanford Medical School where he earned his MD in 2006. During his time at Stanford, he also obtained a Master’s of Public Health from UC Berkeley, with an emphasis on International Health. As a medical student he helped to found a free clinic in San Jose to serve the immigrant population, including recent Vietnamese immigrants. His interests are in health disparities and interventions in developing countries. He will complete his Harvard Affiliated Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Global Health to provide equitable health care in Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, and most recently, post-earthquake Haiti.

Michel Lopez  »  Board Member

Michel Lopez is the president and founder of e2f Translations. He was an ATA-certified freelance translator for several years and founded e2f Translations in 2003. Prior to that, he spent over ten years in the software industry throughout the world, mostly in project management and consulting positions. Michel was last employed as Director of Software Development at Sourcinglink.net, a public company then located in Mountain View, California, where he built and managed the development, quality control and production teams. He also taught computer science at KFUPM University in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. He earned an M.Sc. in Computer Science from ENSEEIHT in Toulouse, France.

Spencer Ton » Chairman

Spencer holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from the University of the Pacific in International Relations, Economics, and Chinese Language. He is ethnically Chinese and Vietnamese and is passionate about sustainable development. He has traveled extensively throughout Asia and has a passion for economic and legal development in Asia. In 2008, Spencer spent his summer teaching a large group of university students an English and International Relations course at the College of Foreign Languages in Hue, Vietnam through a program called Volunteers in Asia. He has worked for a wide range of public organizations including the San Joaquin County Public Defenders office, where he spent one year researching the unjust nature of the California Juvenile Justice System. He has also worked in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Cabinet as well as other non-profit international organizations. Spencer is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese.

Betty Duong  »  Board Member

Betty Duong is an associate with the San Francisco based law firm, Ngo Legal Group, P.C. She received her J.D. with a specialization in Public Interest Law from U.C. Davis School of Law, King Hall in 2010. Prior to law school, Betty worked on behalf of the San Jose community with the office of Assemblymember Joe Coto. Concurrently, she was a contributing editor for the “Viet Tribune” of San Jose and the Community Engagement Coordinator for International Children Assistance Network, Happy 5 Program, a local Vietnamese American non-profit public health campaign. In 2009, Betty was a founding member of the Vietnamese American Parent Student Education Series. The ongoing series is a collaboration between law students, attorneys, the Eastside Union High School District and the Santa Clara County Juvenile Justice Court to increase the accessibility of legal and support services to monolingual and low income Vietnamese families. In 2007, Betty received the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Silicon Valley Achievement Award and the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Northern California Annual Scholarship. In law school, she was the recipient of the Mabie Family Foundation Law Scholarship from 2007 through 2010. Betty was honored as a Trailblazer in Civic Engagement by the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center in 2008.

Ai Vuong  »  Board Member

Ai Vuong, after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Anthropology, Sociology, and minor in French, came to know Friends of Hue through a volunteer program called Volunteers in Asia (VIA).  As a Ford Foundation Community Fellow, Ai volunteered in Hue, Vietnam for two years at FHF’s Children’s Shelter, where she eventually served as the US Children’s Shelter Deputy Director. She also was the VIA Teach-in-Hue Program Coordinator, a cultural/language exchange program integrating English language teaching and introductions to non-profits in Vietnam. She intends to pursue work in the public sector, combining her passions for youth empowerment, economic development, and the arts to give back to the community.