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How did the thriving, $10-million nail industry start with the Vietnamese refugees? Ask Tippi Hedren, the famous model and actress who starred in the Alfred Hitchcock’s horror movie “The Birds.”

As International Relief Coordinator for “Food for the Hungry,” she visited the refugee camp of Hope Village in Los Angeles in 1975 and brought her manicurist to teach 20 refugee women the skills of the trade. She worked with a local beauty school to help them find jobs and integrate them into mainstream America.

Nowadays, due to savvy marketing with large-scale chain and franchise businesses, over 827,700 hair and nail establishments are booming across the U.S., as reported by IBISWorld research, and over 65 percent of these are Vietnamese-owned.

For that, BPSOS honored Hedren, 81, clad in an orange Vietnamese tunic, with its Service of Humanity Award at a gala dinner at the Capital Hilton on July 2.

The event celebrated BPSOS’s 30-year anniversary and convened 200 Vietnamese business, political and community participants from 16 states, initiating what is to be a decade-long effort to develop Vietnamese American leaders.

It was held on Independence Day weekend at the 2011 National Summit of Vietnamese American Leaders, and was supported by ten bi-partisan benators, congressmen and ambassadors.

BPSOS started in 1990 with its “rescue-at-sea” effort, and then shifted to a new mandate–defending the rights of boat people refugees interned in detention centers in Southeast Asian camps.

With the boat refugee efforts ended, BPSOS Executive Director, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang, a former boat refugee himself, had a vision: “to launch a nationwide movement to advance the Vietnamese American community in the U.S. in all sectors, and expand its own activities to include combating human trafficking and promoting civil society in Asia, in the fourth decade of its existence.”

A 2010 BPSOS on a two-year study of community needs in nine underserved areas: English language proficiency, employment, domestic violence, health, mental health and tax preparation. The findings helped the organization to design better-focused programs.

“Our community remains under-organized, under-studied, under-served and under-represented,” noted Dr. Thang. Thus, BPSOS this year launched its Vietnamese American Research Institute (VARI) to compile and disseminate research findings, and create career opportunities for Vietnamese Americans.

From a $3,000 budget in 2001, when Dr. Thang took the reins of this non-profit organization, BPSOS has grown into a $10-million national organization with close to 100 staff and a large network of volunteers serving in over a dozen locations in the U.S. and in Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand.

National Plan

“We have a few elected officials, but they are not yet at the tables where decisions are made. We need to get into the political inner circles,” said Dr. Thang. Under the Political Empowerment plan, former Republican congressman from Louisiana Anh Joseph Cao, and Van Tran, a former Republican Assemblyman from California, laid out strategies to form a Vietnamese-American Political Action Committee (VA-PAC).

It is meant to be a national entity with local chapters that will focus in fundraising, candidates’ recruitment and mentoring, and voter education and mobilization.

Leading discussions on Economic Development track was YLan Mui, Washington Post financial reporter, contributing analyst to MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR, and also adjunct journalism professor at the University of Maryland.

Successful Vietnamese leaders in the business and professions, she said, need three key goals to succeed: accessing capital, building capacity and establishing a structure of support. The delegates announced a national plan of action to assist Vietnamese American chambers of commerce build membership, establish a network of support, and start a database of businesses at national and regional levels.

The summit’s last track, on Community Building, was the most popular among the young professionals present. Hong Pham, Executive director of the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce, with over 25 years’ banking experience and a track record of charitable activities; Dr. Hoang Vu, chair of the Vietnamese Community in Illinois, and the panel’s facilitators discussed the topic “Vision of the Future: Where do we see ourselves 10 years from now.”

LanAnh Nguyen, owner and operator of a State Farm insurance office in Old Town Alexandria in Virginia, called for an initiative to develop “500 young Vietnamese American leaders in 5 years.” Supporters will work closely with BPSOS to develop a year-long leadership training program in the public-sector, business and social areas.

“True leadership is openness to innovation, willingness to share responsibility, and respect for diversity. Leadership is a matter of how to be –not how to do it,” said Frances Hesselbein at the summit’s luncheon. She is the CEO of Girls Scout of the USA, President of Leader to Leader Institute, and author of “My Life in Leadership.”

Young and older delegates alike pledged $22,000 in individual contributions during a 15-minute appeal from young LanAnh at the gala dinner. This was the start of the next decade’s journey on which Dr. Thang and his dedicated staff, including Shandon Phan and Trang Khanh, have embarked. As Viet Dinh, Georgetown law professor and former U.S. Assistant Attorney General, put it in the summit’s keynote speech, they are laying the bricks to build a “cathedral.”