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This is Dae Shin Ju and I’m here today on July 2nd, 2012 in the Chao Center for Asian Studies Conference Room on the Rice University campus to interview K. Casey Youn for the Houston Asian American Archive oral

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history interview project. Hi, Dr. Youn? Okay, Dae Shin. How are you doing today? I’m doing fine, Dae Shin. Okay. Can we, um, start the interview with you introducing about yourself a little bit?

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Sure, uh-huh. Well, I, uh, came to the States, in, when I was 17. mm-hm. As you know in Korea you have to prepare for, uh, college entrance exam and so on and I didn’t want to do that so I, I snuck out at age 17,

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when I was a high school senior. And I came to the States, uh, then just ran out of things to do so started going to school, uh, so, uh, I went to California because of nice weather and my mother

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happened to be there so I wanted to go to college but they asked me to go to high school to get a diploma first so I went to Berkeley High School then I went to University of California, Berkeley and then when I got out, uh, I

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wanted to do graduate school so I went to Princeton University for graduate studies all in chemical engineering. Chemical engineering, mainly because at that time Korea was, uh, sort of getting started in the chemical, um, uh,

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industry like fertilizer and oil and chemicals so that was sort of a booming field. And at that time in the States, too—uh, uh, petrol chemical industry was, uh, quite tactile, so

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I went there, um, then I went right back to California, uh, at the Shell Emeryville Research Center, uh, then, uh after three years lo and behold they moved everybody down to Houston.

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So I came to the—I came to Houston in 1972 and have, uh, lived here, ever since, uh, raised, uh, two of my children, and, uh, I retired from Shell, uh, uh, in

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19—end of 1992 when I turned 50 so you can tell I am 70 years old now. Uh, I retired early because I wanted to try something on my own so I did that and, uh, after looking around for a while I got into environmental

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engineering service industry. So I have a small, um, uh, environmental service company specializing in air pollution control, uh, in refineries in chemical plants. I

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have two kids, uh, wife—uh, kids are all grown up, uh, as I told you my son is in Hawaii teaching and running a small business. My daughter is in, uh, New York City—she is an attorney and also a poet.

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That’s awesome . So could you tell us where you were born and your—a little bit about your childhood? Yes, I was born in Korea—Seoul, Korea.

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And uh, um—first thing I remember is that when I—after I got into uh elementary school, soon after the Korean War broke out. So we had some hard time, but eventually we

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moved to a town called Busan in the Southern tip of Korea. So stayed there for until the, um, the war was over in 1953. I think we moved back up to Seoul in 1954,

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uh-huh, so I went to school, uh, and uh I was a senior in high school when I came to the United States. Could you tell us about your family?

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Yes. My, uh, parents, uh—my father was in, uh, in government and he was a businessman to begin with. So he—during the Japanese occupation, he went to, uh,

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Japan to study abroad, uh, to a place called Hitotsubashi— uh, that’s a pretty well-known school for finance and economics. And then after he came back, the, uh, at that time, most of the jobs open for people like that was in the banks.

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So he got into banking, uh, but, he got tired of it and he got on—got out and on his own he, uh, started the Korean rice paper—the oriental paper industry so he became quite successful in that, uh-huh.

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When the war broke out, wiped out everything but . My mother is, uh, at that time, uh, ladies were, were not supposed to be educated. But she managed to go to high

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school, uh, and didn’t go to college but, uh, soon after graduated from high school, she married my, my father. So, uh, I’m the last of seven children . They, they, they have, uh-huh….

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So could you describe your family’s socioeconomic status? My, uh, my family was probably quite well to do because, uh, that my father had business and although the war—the Korean War really, uh, hit us hard, uh,

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fortunate thing was that he had a lot of real estate, uh, for the, for our factory and for oriental paper, what you do is you, you make papers from pulp then you dry them out on the

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field. So in order to do that you have to have a lot of land, right? So, uh, in Korea, like rest of, uh, Asia, uh, real estate is at a premium so he was able to keep some certain amount of wealth, uh-huh, uh, to sustain our family.

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My…my eldest brother, uh, came to the States, on—I think at that time, uh, something like U.S. I. S. It was, uh,

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United States Information Service, uh, and Goodwill Agency Scholarship. And he came to the United States in 1950 on the 20th of June and the

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Korean War broke out on the 25th. So right before the Korean War, he came to the United States and he, he had a really hard time studying, but once he got established he started bringing rest of the

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family members including my, uh, sisters and so on and finally myself. That’s how we—our family immigrated over to the United States.

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Where was he settled? Uh, in Bay City, Michigan. Okay. Mm-hm. Was he studying in Michigan? Yes, he went to University of Michigan, uh-huh.

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And he studied, uh, shipbuilding and mechanical engineering, yeah. So why did you decide to quit high school and then come to the United States? Well, you know, um, at that time, things in Korea

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were—well, not very ideal to put it mildly. You know, it was 1960 when I came over and at that time we had a, a student, uh, revolution and the military government took

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over and things looked pretty bleak so and also I didn’t want to study for, uh, college entrance exam so I was looking for something better to do. And I—my big brother said, ‘Well, if you wanna come to the States, you

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know, um, there should be some opportunities for you.’ So that’s why I came without really going through a lot of thinking. And were your parents supportive of you coming to the United States? Yes, they were, uh, actually my mother

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was in, in, the States already, uh huh. So that’s another reason why I, I came. Okay. But your dad still stayed here and doing business?

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Yes, my dad was, uh, in the, in the, yeah, in business and mostly in government. He was the founder of Korean Stock Exchange, uh-huh and he was in uh, in the

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Monetary Board, which is like equivalent of Federal Reserve here in the States so he was more on an advisory role at that time. And we had a farm so he, he just enjoyed his activities and friends in Korea so he didn’t wanna come.

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He would come to the States and after about three days he says, ‘I’m running out of things to do.’ So he returned . So could you describe your passage from Korea to the United States? Passage meaning uh…?.

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How did you come to the United States? Oh, okay. You know I just flew, um—actually I went to Tokyo, on Northwest, on propeller plane and then my father said, ‘You know there’s this jet, jet plane that

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Pan Am was, uh, flying jet plane to Tokyo at that time so you should fly jet plane. It’s really neat,’ he says. So I stayed in Tokyo then uh flew on

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Pan Am to uh to San Francisco. Then from there on, uh, I think, uh, my brother was in Bay City, Michigan so I flew to Detroit where they picked me up. Do you, do you remember if you had to apply

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for visa or anything? Yes, well, you know, at that time, uh, I really didn’t know all these, uh, things about visas and so my brother took care of it.

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Uh, later on, I learnt out that— learnt that he, basically I came to the States on a visitor’s visa, uh- huh, then he helped me apply for to become an immigrant because my mother was living in the States, uh-huh.

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So I became an immigrant so became a permanent resident and became—later on became a citizen. So what was your first impression of the States? You know, um, compared to Korea at

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that time, uh, you’ve been to Korea lately? Mm-hm. When? Uh, last winter. Last winter, okay. It is very nice now.

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At that time, it was not nice at all. There weren’t any trees on the mountains, you know, uh. Things were pretty bad.

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So when I flew to Japan, I thought Japan was really nice. Then I came to the States, landing in San Francisco, it looked like heaven. It really looked nice, you know—how the

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city was laid out, this Golden Gate Bridge and all that. I could see it from afar and I could you know see the city and it was uh really nice, yeah. Then I came to, I went to a small town called Bay City and, uh,

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I really liked the rural, uh, you know, small town setup in the States. So why did you decide—what did you do when you first get to America? Well, I, um, I just, you

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know, well I got a driver’s license, first of all . Then went to some summer schools and so on. I came on the—I came to the States on the 23rd

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of May, 1960, so after about one month of just touring and sightseeing, um, well, you know, just had to do something. So went to summer school and so on, uh, in

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uh, in Michigan. Then my mother was in California so I said, ‘Well, maybe I should go to California.’ Michigan summer was quite muggy just like Houston—yeah, Houston summer.

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So I said, ‘Well, I would go to, uh, California and join my mom’ and then started going to school, you know. Um, how proficient were you in English?

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Well, uh, even worse than I am now for sure. Did you have any, like, um, prior um learning of English? Yes, I had, um, uh—I had the—well in high school, middle school and high school at that time we had

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English classes. And also I had some um friends who were GI— American GIs who were my friends, uh, so, I had a little bit of, uh, probably more than average you know

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familiarity with English, uh-huh, and especially conversation. Did you take any, like, classes or had a tutor helping you with English before you came to America? Uh, no, at that time, you know what they call Hak Won—um

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they were pretty much non-existent, uh huh. It had to be private tutors. So I had some of my GI friends who, you know, who—I, I would invite them over, you know, and they would hang around try to speak in

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English, uh-huh. And they would try to speak in Korean . So when you went to high school in America, what grade were you in? I was a senior. Uh actually, I, I got in, in October and graduated,

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uh, in, in June, the following year, yeah. So how was it? How was going to school? It was really, really tough. Because I wanted to graduate from high school as quickly as possible so,

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uh, that was my goal, so then I still had to take all the mandatory, uh, graduation requirement—like two history’s, you know, two English, two government and so and so. My course, course load was way up, uh, and, um, my

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English was really bad, so, uh, I learned mostly from reading the books because I maybe understood one quarter of what the teachers were telling me, uh, saying in the classroom so, I,

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uh—once I got over that term, the rest was, uh, much easier, uh-huh. How did you prepare for college? I didn’t really prepare for college as such, uh, I was just

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interested in graduating from, from high school and some friends of mine help me, uh, uh, who is, uh, college applications and I’m not too sure what, the—but I was pretty set on University of California, uh-huh,

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because we lived in Berkeley, uh-huh, and I had assumed that I would somehow get in . Did you have to take, uh, SAT or…? Yes, there were SATs and I’m pretty sure my SAT score

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was pretty bad, mm-hm. But probably wasn’t that bad because I was able to get in, yeah, uh-huh. Did you apply to any other schools besides Berkeley?

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Yes, I applied to at that time, uh, Stanford University and, uh…I think those were two universities I applied, uh-huh. Pretty bold, huh? Yeah. Mm-hm. So how, how big was Berkeley at that

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time? Uh, Berkeley at that time, uh, had about twenty thousand students—twenty plus, twenty to twenty-two, uh-huh. Undergrads and grad students? Right, together. Together.

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I think, yeah. So it’s like, now it’s like double the size, right? I don’t think so. It’s not that big. It’s not that big? Uh-huh, because, uh, they started the uh University of California System, you

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know: Davis, L.A., San Diego, you know, uh, Santa Cruz, everywhere. So they try to, so, spread them out. I think, uh, it may be pushing

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30,000 but probably not, not that big. Okay. So why did you choose chemical engineering? Uh, chemical engineering, uh, at that time, uh, Korea was very high on the chemical industry.

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Uh, the first, modern chemical factory built was the fertilizer plant in Choongju and, uh, by the time I left, uh, they started using,

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uh, gasoline and diesel more so we had, uh, Ulsan, uh, the refinery that was being built and, uh, related to that there were the chemical—petrol chemical industry that was just getting started so chemical engineering was really in

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demand. And also, in the States, at that time, even at that time, uh, the oil companies were the kings uh in terms of hiring and pay and so on so that was just, uh, with my limited vision that was the field I chose—mostly

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for security than anything else, uh-huh. Could you describe your, like, campus life on Berkeley? Yes, I, uh, I—my college undergraduate days, uh, I worked, studied, worked,

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studied and if I had some time I drank a little bit . Yes, I had, uh, I didn’t really want to get too much, uh, financial assistance from, uh,

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from my family and at that time, there weren’t really regular avenues available for helping, uh, students in the States anyhow, because Korea had such limited foreign, foreign exchange reserve—dollar reserve.

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They didn’t want any dollars to go outside, okay? So if you wanted to send money to, uh, your sons or daughters in the States, you have to get dollars in the black market and somehow sneak it out, you know.

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I just didn’t— didn’t want, didn’t want my family to do that so, uh, I basically worked. Uh, I went to school full-time and worked almost full-time, uh huh. I, uh…

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Where were you working? Huh? Where were you working? Oh, whatever I could find. I, um, did some road construction work. Road construction, uh, is very hard work

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and at that time, minimum wage was $1.25; road construction work they paid up to $1.75. And once you work there, you know why they pay you more, uh-huh. So how did you manage work and study?

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Well, uh, well you know that was the mindset. At that time, most Korean students worked on the side, uh- huh because they, there were few students who, who could get family support but most of the students worked so

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that was the thing to do, you know. I also, uh, at night drove, uh, newspaper uh trucks. Um, there was a newspaper company in Richmond, California that delivered

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newspapers to adjacent small towns. So I go and pick up newspapers at midnight when uh, you know they, they finish printing and load them up on trucks and go

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to adjacent town and dump them at the, uh, places where newspaper delivery, uh, depose, uh-huh. Then the newspaper boys come and pick them up and deliver them to uh to the residence, so I did that.

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Uh, I think I did that twice a week—so I worked quite a bit, uh-huh. So did you stay with your mom during college? Yes, I stayed with mom during college, uh-huh.

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Did, did she have to work as well? Yes, she worked on, uh, just miscellaneous things, uh, you know. She was very good in, uh, cooking and alterations and so on so she, she would get jobs—uh,

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alteration jobs from the neighborhood, uh huh, and get it. It was just a word of mouth thing, you know, mm-hm. Could you describe the racial diversity in Berkeley? What was the racial composition of Berkeley?

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Yeah, uh, in Berkeley, there weren’t too many Koreans, uh-huh. Um but there were—there was substantial uh, uh, Chinese, and uh Japanese, second and third generations as well as first generation students.

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And at that time, they used to sort of hang, hang around among themselves, you know. The groups who go and sometimes invite, would invite us and so on but, uh, I didn’t pay

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really that much attention to racial aspects at that time because I didn’t have time or energy to do that, you know, I just was—I was just so involved in just going to school and working. Sometimes I get tired then get together with few

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friends and drink beer and go to sleep type of thing, uh huh. So you weren’t involved in any extracurricular activities? Uh, no, I didn’t. I—I played tennis so when I get time, I would just get together with friends

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and play tennis. Do you remember how much the tuition was? I do not remember, uh-huh. Actually um, uh…we paid, at that time, tuition was pretty low, mm-hm.

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I don’t know how much it was a matter of hundreds of dollars, but um…after sophomore year, I, I was selected to be a, what they call Regents Scholar, uh-huh, so, so, the University paid for my, uh, tuition and also gave me

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scholarship funds so that helped me out. So after junior year, I had more time, uh-huh, and yeah I was a little better off. But you were still working?

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I was still working but less, uh-huh. Yeah, I got a job at the, uh, biology laboratory and did some lab work as a lab technician. Like—so why did you decided to go to graduate school?

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Well, um…you know, uh, at that time, I guess with just undergraduate degree, I thought the opportunities wouldn’t be as good as having a graduate degree,

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so, mm-hm, and, uh, you know, um, graduate student life is not that bad cause compared to undergraduate student’s life, like I had many offers from different universities and, uh,

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they all, uh, pretty much guaranteed my livelihood, you know— uh research grants or teaching grants or fellowship, mm-hm, so there were lots of good, attractive, uh you know, offers. So why did you choose to go to

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Princeton? Um, I had a stu—professor called Prausnitz, John Prausnitz who was one of my professors that I respected and, um, he said, ‘Princeton gives the best education

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you can ever get.’ Uh-huh, and I believed him, you know. I had offers from Stanford, Harvard and MIT and everywhere else but, um, I thought that would be a you know good choice. Also I wanted to go from the West Coast to the East

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Coast from, um, larger—from a large state university to a smaller private university, I wanted to have a little change in venue, uh-huh, so just, uh, that was the reason. How, how old were you when you entered graduate school?

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Uh, let’s see, six—twenty two. That’s, that’s fairly young to start graduate studies, isn’t it? Well, uh, you know, when would you graduate from, uh, Rice? You would be twenty-one or twenty-two,

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wouldn’t you be? Okay. Uh? Okay . How long did it take you to get your Ph. D? I got out in ‘69.

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Yes, so it took me four years, uh-huh. Took you four years. Uh-huh. So were you involved in research and…? Yes, I was involved in research and a lot of tennis playing. Could you describe your, uh, graduate work?

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Like what field of, um, chemical engineering did you… Actually Princeton is not a really, uh, what you would call it engineering, engineering school. It is more into

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applied science, so what I did—uh the research I did was, uh, what they call it ‘Molecular Beams’ and what you do is you shoot molecules in a very high vacuum and see how molecules interact with different surfaces or with

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another beam of molecules and that’s what we studied. Mm-hm. So it is more in the field of applied physics maybe. Were there any other Koreans at Princeton? Yes, we had, uh, let’s see, three other Korean graduate students.

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Total? Yes, uh-huh and there might have been one undergraduate Korean student at that time. This was in 1965. Yeah so uh-huh, uh, then we had

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one, uh, exchange professor who came in—exchange scholar—uh-huh. So we hung around together on, uh, during summer vacations we got together, would have Korean barbeque and towards

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the, uh, after three— two years we got together and got an apartment and then, uh, cook together, uh, then I got married so we started going separate ways. Uh last of final year, I spent with my wife.

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Could you describe the Princeton neighborhood? Yeah, Princeton—you been to Princeton, New Jersey? Uh-huh. It is a very old, uh, you know, Ivy League

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school environment. Princeton is a very, uh, pretty town. New Jersey in general is not that pretty but Princeton is like an oasis, uh-huh, and uh you have more gothic

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style, uh, buildings and they are built into what they called quadrangles—the old style—uh so and the graduate college we always stay—that we stayed uh the dormitory was

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just like that, in the quadrangles, towers, stone buildings, a fire place, uh in the living room, you know. Nice bedroom to rest. Yeah, we used to impress girls with the place .

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Was there, uh, Korean community in Princeton? Uh there was a no uh no such thing there. Probably were about a dozen Koreans living in the area so we would, uh, live, uh, I mean get together now and then, visit several

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times a year. Uh we being students, they would invite us and they would have some, some events, parties or something, so. Is your wife Korean as well?

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Yes, uh-huh. How did you meet her? Actually, I met her at the party in, uh, in New York City, uh, yeah, year-end party. I went there and happened to bump into her and, uh,

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she was actually from Omaha, Nebraska. She was studying at the university called Creighton University. Uh, she came there for the holiday and, uh, we just happened to meet

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each other and about three, two-three years later we got, we were married. So was the party for Korean people? Yes it was, uh, actually was my high school alumni party. I went to a rather prominent high school in

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Korea called Kyunggi, mm-hm. And, um, there were enough alumni members in the New York, New York City area so they had a big party at Times Square

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so that was, that was a place to go for uh for many of us so it just happened to meet her there, uh-huh. Could you tell us a little bit about your high school? Yes uh it is, um, uh,

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it probably at that time was the best, best-known high school called Kyunggi High School. Uh, if you ask anybody of my generation that, that you know, he would know what Kyunggi High School is. We used to compare ourselves to Eaton of, uh,

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United Kingdom, uh-huh. And, uh, my wife happened to go to counterpart—Kyunggi Girls’ High School so, uh, that was sort of how we hit it off together I guess but, uh,

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Kyunggi High School, uh you had to take entrance exam, uh-huh, and you had to be sort of the top of your class to even consider, uh, taking entrance exam to the high school type of thing.

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You know it is more, um, in line with Japanese system. You know the selective, uh, groups going to different elite schools type of things. Do you still keep in touch with your friends from high school?

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Yes, I do, uh-huh. Uh, especially since I, I went to college in the States, like, Korean, you know, uh classmates I do not have any so most of my Korean friends are

00:35:16.780 - 00:35:31.990

from Kyunggi High School. And a lot of them are in the United States as well? Uh, yes. Actually we had a class of about 600 and about 300 came to the States

00:35:32.600 - 00:35:46.850

at one time or another, okay. Many of, uh, them have returned to Korea now that Korea is, you know, a pretty nice place to live. Okay. So after you finished your

00:35:46.850 - 00:36:05.980

graduate studies, why did you decide to get a job? Why? Instead of staying in academia. Okay, well it is just, uh—I had some interest in teaching but,

00:36:08.810 - 00:36:26.070

um, a teaching, a teacher’s life, professor’s life is not easy. My professor at Princeton, he never walked from one spot to another; he always ran . Yeah, he didn’t have any time for himself, okay?

00:36:27.380 - 00:36:42.740

I didn't wanna have a life like that, uh, I wanted to enjoy life, so, I thought the best thing to do is to, uh, do something in between—get a job at the research center so that I would have some,

00:36:43.090 - 00:37:01.300

you know, uh, professional pursuit as well as, you know, enjoying pretty good life. You said you got scholarship from Princeton? Uh-huh. That covered, like, your tuition and all the other fees?

00:37:01.710 - 00:37:18.830

Yes. Do you remember how much this stipend was? At that time stipend was, uh, around $400 a month. A month? Uh-huh, and that was quite a bit at that time.

00:37:18.830 - 00:37:34.430

Um, our, uh, dormitory, no, when I got married and got one of the student apartments that was very nice was $110 a month

00:37:34.990 - 00:37:51.020

. That was considered a deluxe apartment, newly built. They had what they called ‘projects,’ which were uh World War II, uh, you know housing type of

00:37:51.130 - 00:38:06.190

thing that used to be $45 a month . So you didn’t have to work at all? No. no, uh-huh. And at that—also in summer, if we did research, they gave us a little more

00:38:06.190 - 00:38:21.830

money like about uh like $600 a month which was that, that was a lot of money at that time. When I graduated, you know, and got a job at Shell, they offered something like $1325

00:38:25.270 - 00:38:43.390

a month and that was a lot of money at that time, mm-hm. Could you describe your job searching process? Uh, yes, I, uh, I just basically applied to several oil companies and, uh, some pharmaceutical companies,

00:38:44.480 - 00:39:01.760

some chemical companies. Uh, I think I applied to about half dozen, uh-huh. I had about…I think four offers but Shell

00:39:01.940 - 00:39:18.050

Emeryville Research Center was in San Francisco area so there was no competition, uh-huh. So when you—so you went back to California for your job? Yes. What was your title, job title?

00:39:18.080 - 00:39:34.450

I was just a Research Engineer, uh-huh. Could you describe your, um, work? Yes what you know at that time, uh, research centers were somewhat like, almost like

00:39:34.720 - 00:39:51.260

academic campus, so quite, uh, you know, uh free environment, uh, during lunch time we would get together and play, uh, play, uh, chess and things like that and you know uh but

00:39:52.490 - 00:40:15.440

type of work we did—we did, uh, sort of basic research related to Shell Oil Corporation: oil, chemical and, uh, exploration production area, so we got involved in all those, um, maybe first couple of years although we did some work it was more of

00:40:15.500 - 00:40:33.410

a going through a learning curve, uh-huh. Then we did started doing a lot of consulting going up to, uh, refinery, chemical plants and so on. Uh, do consulting and do problem, problem solving as well as carrying it out

00:40:33.670 - 00:40:47.860

our basic research. Uh, my interest eventually became more in the environmental area, uh-huh. Because that was in my mind that was, uh, up and coming area so I got into

00:40:47.860 - 00:41:05.830

that uh quite a bit, uh, especially in the area of air pollution control, uh, so that led, led me to my current business. How long did you stay in California before moving to Houston?

00:41:06.100 - 00:41:18.680

Three years. Three years. And why did you move to Houston? Well, um, why? Mm-hm. Well, the company just transferred everybody over, uh-huh.

00:41:19.170 - 00:41:39.860

I could have, uh, stayed and looked for a job but economy was quite bad, bad in 1972 so there weren’t too many jobs available, uh, in California area especially where I was the other alternative was Chevron and

00:41:41.450 - 00:41:54.480

I didn't really for some reason like Chevron that much. I didn't even apply. And even if I applied, probably chances weren’t, weren’t that good. So I said, ‘I would move to

00:41:55.360 - 00:42:10.490

Houston and look for better times and, uh, you know but I just stayed on.’ What was your impression of Houston? Um, I, I did, you know,

00:42:10.620 - 00:42:29.760

house hunting in February and Houston was quite nice at that time. So picked the house and so on and we finally moved on the 23rd of May, 1972, so you know we moved in and, um,

00:42:30.800 - 00:42:44.770

I woke up and went outside in the morning was about 85 degrees with 95% humidity—I thought I was gonna die . Which part of Houston did you settle?

00:42:44.770 - 00:43:03.700

Uh, I, uh, settled in a place, uh, subdivision called Walnut Bend which is, uh, between Westheimer and Memorial Drive and, uh, little bit west of West Belt. Do you know how much you paid for the house?

00:43:04.330 - 00:43:23.330

Yes. I paid $38,000 for the house in 1972. That’s pretty good. Was it—how big was it? Uh, it was about 20—close to 2500 square feet; four bedroom, 2 ½ bath—uh-huh,

00:43:25.500 - 00:43:39.160

uh typical middle- class home, about ten years old. Was it—compared to, um, houses in, homes in California, was it a lot cheaper?

00:43:40.770 - 00:43:56.710

Yes it was, it was, uh, at that time California home prices were higher, but not that much higher. I had a house in Piedmont, California, which is nice, nice section of, uh, San Francisco Bay area.

00:43:57.410 - 00:44:17.500

Uh I had a smaller house but uh I had paid $36,000 for that so uh I would think that in Houston—California at that time house prices were

00:44:17.500 - 00:44:35.990

maybe about 50% higher than Houston. Right now it is about three times? So did—were you promoted year after year while you were working at Shell?

00:44:36.550 - 00:44:52.430

Well, in research center there isn’t that much promotion, okay? But I was promoted, yeah, reasonably well but it became apparent I was not going to become a President of Shell Oil Company , uh huh, you know

00:44:54.280 - 00:45:09.400

soon after I started working there. Did you get a lot of salary bumps and get good benefits and…? Yes, uh, Shell, uh, at that time you know the salary structure was quite

00:45:09.560 - 00:45:24.510

good, um, I think we were paid pretty well so I was able to raise my kids both, both of my kids, uh you know, working at Shell, Shell.

00:45:27.790 - 00:45:44.680

My wife started working also, uh-huh, so that helped, but we, we did okay. Shell also had a very good, um, fringe benefit, what they called savings—employee savings plan called Provident Fund

00:45:45.680 - 00:46:02.400

so we could set aside 10% of our salary and the company would match that and put that into what they call, similar to what you call IRA and it would, you know, grow so, uh, when I retired early that really helped

00:46:02.550 - 00:46:18.170

out. Where did your wife work at? She uh, at first, she did this and that volunteer teaching and, uh, some craft, uh, instruction and so on.

00:46:18.230 - 00:46:31.670

But she became a real estate agent so we started—she started working in a real estate area and we started investing in real estate a little bit at a time, uh-huh.

00:46:33.530 - 00:46:47.340

So that worked out pretty well. When did she start working? She started working in I think 1975. About two, three years after we, we came uh to

00:46:48.180 - 00:47:09.250

Houston. How, how old were your kids when she started working? Uh, my, uh, daughter was uh four, uh huh, and my son was just, uh, in the elementary school, six or seven. So how did—how did you and your wife manage work

00:47:09.410 - 00:47:26.660

and family? Uh, you know, what, the since she worked I, I just helped out with household chores and so on and real estate work, uh, you know, it was not 9-to-5, 8-to-10 type of

00:47:28.210 - 00:47:43.170

work so she just her—planned her schedule, uh, around the family requirements. So could you describe your, um, daily routine at Shell?

00:47:44.350 - 00:47:54.870

At Shell? Mm-hm. Well, uh, I’m a—I’m a morning person. Are you a morning person? Sort of, but not really.

00:47:55.210 - 00:48:10.010

Most-most young people are night persons, I know, yeah. I get up pretty early so, um, you know, we work at research centers and so on. At Shell, carpooling was a big thing.

00:48:11.140 - 00:48:29.680

So we would, uh, carpool to work whether we are working at downtown research center, um, and there were close to 40,000 Shell employees in Houston at that time so we could always find some carpoolers, if you tried.

00:48:30.740 - 00:48:53.210

So, um, leave for work at 6 o’clock, uh-huh—missed a few, but, uh, six ‘o clock and work until about four, uh-huh and, uh, you know come home, uh. At work, you know, its same thing we had projects to do

00:48:53.910 - 00:49:15.010

and we had meetings and meetings and meetings that to attend, uh-huh, reports to write, publish a few papers—that sort of things. Where was, uh, Shell located? Shell at that time when they closed down Emeryville Research Center,

00:49:15.270 - 00:49:33.590

they wanted to open, uh, what we call West Hollow Research Center, which is off Highway 6, but that did not happen right away, so we, uh, became tenants at Bellaire Research Center—it is Bellaire and near, uh,

00:49:33.860 - 00:49:43.330

Chimney Rock area. So we stayed there for about, uh, close to a year, uh-huh, then moved to West Hollow Research Center.

00:49:43.910 - 00:50:00.320

Mm-hm. How long did it take you to commute? Well from uh one up in the Bellaire Research Center it was…it was less than thirty minutes, maybe about twenty minutes or so.

00:50:01.910 - 00:50:21.520

Mm-hm. So you worked almost, like, nine hours a day? Yeah, but uh we take, uh, lunch and lunch time off and play, uh, chess and stuff like that , uh-huh. So you decided to leave Shell at fifty?

00:50:22.480 - 00:50:38.810

Yes. And then you retired? You know, um, every company has a retirement program. And um, I was not quite qualified to retire. We had to have what, what they call eighty points to retire.

00:50:39.640 - 00:50:57.190

Eighty means: my age plus years of service. At that time, I had, um, seventy-four points. I had worked for Shell for, uh, twenty-four years I turned fifty so, so, I still had to go

00:50:57.480 - 00:51:15.760

three more years to, to qualify to be qualify to be retire but, um, at that time, uh, oil companies started staff reduction so they gave what they call golden handshake.

00:51:18.020 - 00:51:32.410

If you wanna retire early, you’re welcome to retire, uh-huh. We’ll give you retire benefit and some money so, uh, when I heard that I basically ran to my boss’s office and said, ‘I wanna retire’ , uh-huh.

00:51:34.790 - 00:51:52.010

So, um, they give me a health coverage, health insurance coverage like, uh, full retiree, gave me a year and half salary to retire and also a little bit of pension.

00:51:53.420 - 00:52:07.870

So, that was a good offer. So I took that I, um, I always wanted to try something on my own and that was a good opportunity. If I stayed on until I turned sixty, you know, my pension would be great,

00:52:08.620 - 00:52:28.300

much bigger and, uh, I would have better life, but I felt that to do something on my own I needed some more time. You know, like, when going to your own business you do no succeed first time, right? So you have to keep on trying and so I

00:52:28.300 - 00:52:46.180

needed some time and that’s why I wanted to retire early. Do you remember the racial dynamics at Shell? Racial dynamics at Shell was, uh, um, there weren’t too many, uh,

00:52:47.810 - 00:53:04.410

employees of, uh, Asian Pacific uh that, you know, origin. But the way I figured, uh, felt was that there was some at that time definitely some racial

00:53:04.410 - 00:53:22.320

profiling, okay? You know, like, Orientals they are good for, um, just, uh, working and research and so on. Uh they are not to be into upper management type of thing, uh-huh.

00:53:22.370 - 00:53:42.440

I think there was that sort of culture and that is, uh, I don’t know that—I think that has changed a little bit because they have seen how all these Asian you know uh conglomerates really prosper, uh,

00:53:43.750 - 00:54:02.540

but it was before those ages so it was pretty much you had to be a tall Texan with Aggie background to, to be a manager type of mentality. What about other races such as African Americans and Latinos?

00:54:04.550 - 00:54:25.680

Um, well, at that time, uh, not that many. Uh if I—in the research center there were more Orientals than Latinos and African Americans combined I would think.

00:54:25.680 - 00:54:42.400

At that time, there weren’t’ too many um African Americans or Hispanic, um, engineers with advanced degrees. Did you ever feel discriminated because of your ethnicity? Well, uh,

00:54:45.500 - 00:55:02.310

I, uh, I felt that way but not directly and not in a very, uh, you know major way. I always felt that if I had, uh, some more

00:55:02.580 - 00:55:22.620

operations picture or management type of ideas, uh, I do not think I was really welcomed to really express them. And, um, when you, when Shell moved from California to Houston

00:55:23.100 - 00:55:39.700

did the work like work atmosphere changed? Uh, not in the research center itself but funny thing was when I came to Bellaire Research Center, I noticed

00:55:39.850 - 00:55:55.160

there were restrooms all over the place. There’s, you know, men, women then about, uh, three doors down another men, women. So I asked, uh, somebody you know, ‘Why, why is the

00:55:55.220 - 00:56:11.160

building built that way?’ And he said, ‘Well, it used to be you know, uh, the restrooms for whites and restrooms for colored separately.’ So I said, ‘Oh, okay.’ You know, it just dawned on me that this was South,

00:56:12.140 - 00:56:26.370

the South and they had, uh, segregation until not too far, far back, uh-huh. And what about in California? Did you experience any discrimination, segregation

00:56:28.320 - 00:56:43.830

due to your race? Uh, well, uh, I didn’t express—experience that much but, you know uh, people have tendency to stereotype, you know, other people according to,

00:56:45.460 - 00:57:01.830

uh, races or religion or you know ethnicity so uh that is part of human nature the way I, I look at it and I didn't really try to pay that much attention to that, uh, if you can get excited about that

00:57:02.070 - 00:57:18.700

you know there’s no end to it, you know. So when you, um, decided to retire, did you already have, did you already planned out your future plans and…? Uh, not really,

00:57:18.900 - 00:57:35.390

when I told my wife that I am going to retire she said, ‘What? what are you gonna do?’ I said, ‘Well you know I’ll figure something out.’ Uh-huh. So after retirement, I had some few ideas but, uh, none of them

00:57:35.420 - 00:57:51.230

worked out to well. So I opened a restaurant, uh, little European café, uh-huh, and, uh, I always wanted to do that so I ran that for a while and found that it was a lot of hard

00:57:51.230 - 00:58:03.350

work and no money at all. So I closed that down after about four-five months. And, uh, I said, ‘Well you know, uh,

00:58:07.770 - 00:58:25.310

uh, when I retired, I-I knew that I would always get consulting work, uh-huh, you know that at Shell-Shell always told me already that you’re always welcomed, welcomed to, uh, come back or work for us on a consulting

00:58:25.310 - 00:58:44.910

basis. I didn’t wanna go back because consulting fee was twice of, uh, my salary so without overhead so, so I did a lot of consulting work on the side just to sustain myself. Then, uh, I had a few business opportunities one of which

00:58:45.210 - 00:58:56.760

was, uh, this uh the work that I am doing now. So got into that. How did you—how did you convince your wife? Uh, I didn’t convince my wife.

00:58:56.760 - 00:59:10.090

I just decided and told her. After you retired or? Uh, right about the time I retired. But, you know, it came suddenly because they, they came out with this

00:59:11.060 - 00:59:30.400

golden handshake package, uh-huh, and, uh, I, as I told you, I ran to my boss’ office and signed up for it without, you know, discussing that with anybody else uh so when I came home that night I told her that, ‘You know what?

00:59:30.490 - 00:59:51.200

I am gonna retire.’ And she said, ‘What?’ So could you describe the foundation of your company? Uh, well, uh, actually it is a friend of mine who uh, who

00:59:51.200 - 01:00:06.160

lives in the, in the Los Angeles area. He had similar business, okay. And he was, uh, thinking of uh expanding to the, uh, Texas Gulf Coast area so actually he, he heard

01:00:06.200 - 01:00:24.230

that I retired and he, you know, he said, uh, ‘you wanna do joint venture business in this area?’ And it sounded like a very good idea but I didn't know that much about business so I pulled in another friend of mine who is a

01:00:24.290 - 01:00:40.120

businessman so, uh, my California friend and my businessman friend, uh, helped me out and I was to take the lead role in getting the business going.

01:00:41.720 - 01:00:59.610

Now, uh, this air pollution environmental field is more government regulation driven. People wanna do good work and clean, clean things up but unless you’re really required to do that you cannot really do it that well because if

01:00:59.610 - 01:01:18.700

you spend a lot of money on this and your competitor doesn’t, you are at competitor’s disadvantage, so you need a regulation and uh new regulations on, uh, air pollutants came into effect in 1996 so,

01:01:19.670 - 01:01:37.220

uh, we got started in 1995 three after—three years after I retired started preparing for it and, um, we developed a little bit of technology uh to do that, so we got everything ready on the day when

01:01:37.760 - 01:01:53.480

the regulation went to—went into effect that was uh November the 15th, 1996. We did a job project on that day, so we were lucky to uh have a little lead-time so that we could get,

01:01:54.480 - 01:02:13.580

uh, started uh you know before, uh, other competitors. How—how did your past job experience at Shell help you with your new business? Oh, it helped me a great deal. Uh, you know, as I told you, I was more interested

01:02:14.090 - 01:02:23.410

in environmental field site. I knew the field overall. I had, uh, reasonably good picture of the, uh, overall feel of the field: what the requirements

01:02:23.460 - 01:02:44.930

are, how the regulation work and so on. Also, I knew my clients who are major oil and chemical companies, okay, since I used to work on the other side of the fence so I, I knew

01:02:45.220 - 01:03:02.970

them as—their mentality how and what they want and so on so that helped me a great deal. So how did you name your company? Actually the, uh, the California company

01:03:02.970 - 01:03:19.250

that we patented after was Western Environmental Engineering Company. So we, we called it WEECO and we wanted to do it a little in a grand scale so we called it WEECO International Oil Company, yes.

01:03:20.780 - 01:03:33.060

So were your friends all Koreans? Yes uh they’re Koreans, uh huh. Soon after we got started, the California, uh, joint venture partner, he got

01:03:33.130 - 01:03:48.730

busy with his things and he couldn't really help out so he wanted his share so I bought out his share. The other businessmen who helped me out, he had a little health issue so he wanted out so I bought out his share, so it

01:03:48.770 - 01:03:59.600

became my company, uh huh. How big was the company when it first started? It was just, uh, small, uh, you know. We chipped in our funds, uh, I think we, uh, we

01:04:01.600 - 01:04:13.710

pull together, uh, around a little less than a million dollars to get the company started, uh-huh. How many employees did you have? I started with two employees.

01:04:14.150 - 01:04:35.100

Uh, right, but I was, the, you know, the employee who worked 200% so you might say four employees together. And then, um, what kind of clients did you have?

01:04:35.660 - 01:04:54.680

What was your company’s clientele? Well, um, uh, the, uh, the first job we did was at Shell Oil Company at Deer Park, okay. Uh and, uh, oh, I,

01:04:54.750 - 01:05:07.620

I knew that since this was a new, new business, a new field getting clients together would be a major task. So, uh,

01:05:07.790 - 01:05:28.220

since I did not have any experience in marketing, I hired, uh, um, marketing business develop manager on a contract basis, mostly on a incentive basis. And she had some experience in uh marketing to oil companies and

01:05:28.220 - 01:05:47.370

chemical companies, so she helped us getting, uh, you know clients, uh, we got clients at British Petroleum at that time was called Amoco, Shell, uh, you know

01:05:47.370 - 01:06:06.700

Total which was Atofina at that time, uh, and, uh, at, uh, Motive Enterprise that was Texaco at that time so, uh, once we got several major clients then, you know, it is sort of small uh

01:06:09.440 - 01:06:23.330

what is the right word…uh, people—in oil companies people know each other quite well so referrals and so on using them as references and so we were able

01:06:24.090 - 01:06:38.810

to uh expand rather rapidly. So what was your marketing strategy? My marketing strategy was first of all to get engaged—get a job and do a very good work.

01:06:39.740 - 01:06:56.370

Uh, you know, at when I was at Shell, I noticed that, the, uh, some, some people some companies do good quality work but do not do

01:06:56.370 - 01:07:12.140

good client service and so on. And vice versa. And when I had my restaurant for a while, I really learned the concept of, uh, customer service because I used to

01:07:12.230 - 01:07:29.350

preach to my employees that you go to a restaurant and some restaurants give a real good professional service and some restaurants do not. It is not because of, uh, clients because the restaurant that have good service, they have very bad

01:07:29.350 - 01:07:43.130

clients—customers too. Regardless, they do a very good service because their mentality and training. So, uh, I, uh, using that as, as a sort

01:07:45.340 - 01:08:01.300

of uh experience I wanted to give, uh, very good service to everybody so, um I think we, we caught on reasonably fast, uh-huh, people, people liked the idea that, you know, I give good service

01:08:01.890 - 01:08:14.310

and uh never gouge anybody. In, uh, in our work, sometimes schedules keep on changing because, uh, the oil companies they have other priorities and interruptions

01:08:14.710 - 01:08:30.720

and so on, so there’s lots of change of orders so I try to minimize change orders, changing orders mean we charge more than what we contracted for initially. Uh, so, um, we, we, we did all right

01:08:31.610 - 01:08:49.770

in that regard. Could you describe the growth of your company? Uh, we grew, uh, grew, uh, you know quite well, but I believed in more hands on client service, uh,

01:08:51.710 - 01:09:09.490

oriented company, uh, so we didn’t grow that big. I, I was not that interested in getting, uh, getting too big, you know I just wanted to do a good job and I just wanted it to be my baby. Also you might as you might imagine

01:09:10.960 - 01:09:28.130

in the oil field and refinery, you know, environment an oriental working was a rarity, uh-huh, so people look at me and said, ‘What are you doing here?’ Then later on they find out that I have a Ph.

01:09:28.190 - 01:09:44.320

D., and they said, ‘What are you doing here?’ that sort of thing. You know I sort of, I kinda like going out there working, you know, uh, and be part of the

01:09:44.320 - 01:10:01.430

operations team and so on, so. That’s just my mentality, you know, I wasn't that interested in making it a major corporation or anything like that, uh-huh. Was it—that was in the 90s right?

01:10:02.690 - 01:10:16.310

That was, uh, in the late 90s and early 20, after the turn of the centuries, yes. And still people found it unusual that Asians working in the oil field?

01:10:17.420 - 01:10:32.570

Yes, it’s still…. It still is? Right, uh, I, uh, in the field that I am in environmental engineering service for oil companies I may be still the only, only Asian company, uh-huh.

01:10:33.370 - 01:10:48.470

In more service oriented work. Oh. So I see a lot of, um, engineer—like um Asian engineers so they are not into service oriented work but more of research?

01:10:49.480 - 01:11:09.820

Research, uh-huh, uh yes. So uh, why, why do you think that’s the case? Well, uh, it’s just a personal preference. Uh, you know, in Korea I was growing up in a farm—in a

01:11:10.030 - 01:11:25.350

farm and, uh, I had a lot of siblings and we would, uh, you know, uh, hitch our small carts to a dog or to a cow and sometimes get rides and so on.

01:11:26.010 - 01:11:39.790

But I always enjoyed pulling the carts than riding on them so I like to do, you know, I, I, I, I’m a, I am a born laborer. I guess I kinda like to go out and do work, uh-huh.

01:11:41.760 - 01:11:57.470

As the—as the president of the company, how do you, um, manage your employees? We don’t have, uh, that many employees, uh, but managing employees is, uh, uh, you know, that is not an easy, easy task.

01:11:58.410 - 01:12:14.540

If you get—first of all if you get too ambitious employees they— they do not stay with you. There is smart and ambitious employee they are very good for a while, but for a very short time, because they are gone, uh

01:12:14.620 - 01:12:30.100

huh. So you have to find uh employees who are, uh, sort of smart enough but fit for the job they do, uh huh, so that is a very difficult thing you know.

01:12:30.240 - 01:12:45.350

The tendency is try to find as smart person as possible, uh huh, but if you do that you’ll have to have a big corporation mentality—you know, get a management team, who, who, would, you know,

01:12:45.350 - 01:13:05.710

run the company for me but I didn't wanna do that so, uh so we have uh most of the smart employees went out and wanted to compete with me at one time or another type of thing, yeah, uh huh. So what kind of qualities do you look for when you’re hiring?

01:13:08.480 - 01:13:27.430

Well, in our work uh we, we want reliability more than anything else: following instructions and, uh, discipline, discipline, uh, having discipline uh

01:13:28.170 - 01:13:49.420

is a good quality because potentially it's a very dangerous work. What we do is we pull vapors out from refinery unit storage tanks, pull them out and treat it or burn it or whatever and these are highly, uh, explosive uh combustible vapors.

01:13:50.460 - 01:14:08.520

So if they do not follow the procedures or if they do, if they ignore precautions potentially we have explosions, uh huh, so I want them to have, uh, good discipline and follow instructions.

01:14:09.330 - 01:14:25.220

Some, lots of, smart people wanna think of new ways of doing things, but you cannot think of all the what ifs in new, new approach, so there’s always danger. So, I want them not to do that, uh-huh.

01:14:25.790 - 01:14:40.160

Uh they can try that in the shop, but not when we go out to the refinery. So reliability, uh, is, is uh you know is the main quality I’m looking for.

01:14:41.590 - 01:14:56.040

How satisfied are you with your work? Oh, I-I-I-I enjoy work very much, uh, you know, you can tell I am going to be seventy in February and I still enjoy working so I am still working.

01:14:57.910 - 01:15:18.290

Do you plan on working—how long do you plan on working? That I do not know. But I have a, a view that we all need to work as long as we can and as long as we enjoy, because in the olden days, uh,

01:15:20.280 - 01:15:36.240

you know, people live ‘til seven—, sixty or seventy but if we don’t watch it, we could live until hundred so suppose I retire at, uh, you know, right now and if I live thirty more

01:15:36.330 - 01:15:49.700

years, uh, what would I do? I play golf but I am terrible at playing golf. I cannot do it everyday—I would go broke so I cannot do that. So I

01:15:49.830 - 01:16:11.380

kind of believe that, uh, with this new uh longevity, uh, uh, you know what, we, we need to look for two careers. What do you mean by two careers?

01:16:12.270 - 01:16:30.260

Uh, for example, you, you know you get out and you have one career. Retire from that career at sixty, one full career then find another career one or two and, uh, work rest of your life, uh huh.

01:16:30.260 - 01:16:44.330

I think that solve that would solve a lot of social problem and so on, uh huh. We cannot all depend on pension or Social Security because more older people and less young people to support so and that is, uh,

01:16:46.100 - 01:17:00.190

problem not only in the United States, but place like Korea where they have only one kid, that is going to be a real problem. So, now, could you describe your community involvement?

01:17:01.820 - 01:17:19.540

Yes, I uh I always believed that we should, um, make the community we live in better so, um, my, um, motto is to spend one, one third of my time

01:17:20.070 - 01:17:34.400

on personal things, uh, one third of my time on my career—professional things and one third of my time on community things. So I, um, I was

01:17:34.830 - 01:17:47.790

involved in neighborhood things and especially the Korean community church things quite a bit, uh huh. I, uh, in 1977 I helped forming Korean School,

01:17:48.250 - 01:18:02.900

uh huh, so the Korean School has been around for 35 years, 37 years, 35 years now, uh huh. I was the first principal of the Korean School. So now, could you describe the foundation of Korean School a

01:18:02.900 - 01:18:18.960

little bit more? Yes, uh, actually, uh, I joined the Catholic Church in 1977 and at that church there was a nun, a sister who was, uh, very community-minded.

01:18:19.270 - 01:18:40.230

She was a social, social work, uh, uh, had a social work background. And she wanted to put together Korean School and asked, uh, me to join her so I became a principal of the small church

01:18:40.470 - 01:18:58.410

school group. Then two years later, I decided that to really do this well we have to make it a community school. So I opened it up and, uh, left the church and put that a community-wide school.

01:18:59.510 - 01:19:15.090

So that’s how the Houston Korean School was formed. Uh huh, so, to carry that through, I continued on to be the principal of the school until we got it on a little bit of foundation with some community support

01:19:17.010 - 01:19:34.610

so we, uh, didn't have any much budget so we had this fundraising every year to support the school—uh, fundraising supported uh sixty percent of school expenses and the rest came from kids’, uh, registration uh fees.

01:19:36.340 - 01:19:53.390

And, uh, we moved from church to church, uh, you know, as venues, then uh we finally got Korean Community Center, uh, uh, built and opened

01:19:53.490 - 01:20:08.430

last year. So Korean School actually is there and is the owner— legal owner of the Korean Community Center now. Where is it located at? It is on Hollister and Long Point in the Spring Branch area, uh

01:20:10.210 - 01:20:30.520

huh. So is Korean School, for, um, children, students or older people? It is mostly stude— children—children of, uh, Korean parentage, uh huh, from very

01:20:30.520 - 01:20:45.860

young—Pre-K to, uh, 12. Uh there are about 200 students. Korean School is, uh, open on Saturdays and, uh, also we have, uh, Korean

01:20:46.100 - 01:21:04.310

program, uh, run by, uh, let’s see this Korean Education Attaché that’s stationed at the Consulate and they have Korean program for non-Koreans.

01:21:04.640 - 01:21:18.820

They have some, uh, about fifty students, uh, in the evenings and we also, uh, we have applied for King Sejong Institute.

01:21:20.180 - 01:21:32.770

It is, uh, the Korean Government decided—you know, with, you heard of K- Pop and so on? Uh huh. Uh, there’s a more interest in learning Korean

01:21:33.250 - 01:21:47.450

worldwide so they have coordinated this effort into a King Sejong Institute. King Sejong is the uh king—the wise king who invented Korean alphabet, uh huh.

01:21:47.500 - 01:22:01.130

So we have applied to the Korean School applied as the King Sejong Institute branch here and that will emphasize, uh, teaching Korean to non-Koreans who are interested in learning Korean.

01:22:02.960 - 01:22:20.420

So what was your responsibilities as principal of Korean School? Everything from, you know, organizing classes, uh, recruiting teachers, you know, keeping the

01:22:20.420 - 01:22:43.960

teachers, recruiting students, and keeping the students, uh, helping, uh, teachers putting programs together, you know, uh, even, uh, we had a small children’s choir, uh, and have a choir going and getting the facilities

01:22:45.160 - 01:23:01.800

negotiated so that we could have classes, classes for them. So it was, uh, pretty much full-time job on Saturdays plus, uh huh, yeah, that preparing for the classes on weekdays. Is Korean School still affiliated with Catholic Church?

01:23:02.500 - 01:23:16.600

No, when, uh, I—we started in 77 with Catholic Church but in ‘79 we made that independent from Catholic Church so it became a community activity.

01:23:18.040 - 01:23:36.870

So since 1979 it is an independent community organization. That is run by volunteers or…? Uh, yes, we have the school board

01:23:38.170 - 01:23:53.370

that is responsible for supporting the school organization-wide and financially. Then they have paid principal and teachers, uh, who are professionally trained to

01:23:53.370 - 01:24:09.430

teach Korean, uh- huh. So, they are paid not very much but, you know, just, uh, enough to keep them and, uh, to, to attract qualified teachers. And you also

01:24:09.920 - 01:24:24.150

talked about Korean Community Center? Uh-huh. Could you describe a little bit about that? Yes we, um, we had a small, uh, three bedroom house called Korean Community Center but that was

01:24:24.190 - 01:24:41.330

not really adequate to do community work, uh huh, and, uh, Korean School, uh, used to just uh rent spaces at different churches. After two or three years that church gets tired of Korean School so,

01:24:41.790 - 01:24:54.820

‘Please move on.’ You know, kids running about two hundred kids running around that’s kinda hard on, on the church . Anyhow, so there

01:24:55.130 - 01:25:09.040

was a lot of talk about, the, getting our own Korean Community Center and there was some fund drive on and off for the last thirty years.

01:25:11.530 - 01:25:25.430

Uh, then, uh, the, uh, new incoming Korean School, uh, Chairman of the Board made, made a statement.

01:25:25.830 - 01:25:36.390

I don't think he made a personal commitment. He made a statement that we are going to build a Korean Center—Community Center. And we are going to have a Korean school there.

01:25:37.690 - 01:25:54.530

And we are going to have all other Korean organizations, you know, uh, coordinated their effort in the new Community Center. Um, so that—some of us started and they, uh, recruited

01:25:54.640 - 01:26:10.460

me as the new building Chairman, okay. And, uh, maybe for the first time and for the last time all the Korean community organizations pulled their resources together to get this Korean Community Center built.

01:26:11.460 - 01:26:27.110

That was three years ago. Okay. And, uh, uh, we ended up raising about a million dollars from the Korean community. Uh, we got $200,000 from, uh, Korean

01:26:28.900 - 01:26:42.630

Government—Korean, uh, Overseas Foundation, uh, with help from our Consulate and so on. Uh, also we were able to get half a million dollars head grant, uh, for the

01:26:42.660 - 01:27:00.320

Community Center. So with that we, uh, bought an old building, renovated it and, um, made it almost a brand new building and made it into a Korean Community Center. It has about twenty classrooms, about 15,000 sq.

01:27:00.790 - 01:27:18.110

ft. of, uh, building space so we have, uh, on Saturdays Korean, Korean School and, uh, oh, um, having a building is one thing, but utilizing it and keeping it

01:27:18.680 - 01:27:31.600

going is another thing so I was very concerned about that and with help from some of the, uh, other Koreans and with Houston Community College, we have Houston Community College branch there

01:27:32.800 - 01:27:48.030

so they have classes there on weekdays and Korean School on weekend. Then, um, we have Korean Heritage Culture classes all throughout weekend

01:27:48.460 - 01:28:04.960

evenings. And also there’s a lady called Tak Soon Duk who does, uh, community service. We do immigrant and citizenship orientation, you know, helping them out finding places,

01:28:05.720 - 01:28:24.170

uh, Medicare, Medicaid, health issues, uh, where you get driver’s license and even we have health clinic, where we have health clinic and the consultation once a week. So the community center is operating around the clock, right.

01:28:26.810 - 01:28:43.720

What, what is the significance of the Korean Community Center? Why do you believe it is important to have a community center that is for Koreans? Well, uh, you know, if you’re community-minded

01:28:45.170 - 01:29:05.760

and you, you feel that, uh, you have to sort of reach out to the community and people come to the community that they enjoy I think that is needed especially for a minority group. But also it is a

01:29:06.570 - 01:29:22.520

venue where we can interact with the neighborhood communities—non-Korean communities, uh huh. So there’s a network of, uh, Spring Branch service providers. So, we are part of the group so we can

01:29:23.050 - 01:29:42.660

network with them and help each other. Uh we have, uh, for example, before and after school program where kids come after school and, uh, there’s a Spanish speaking teacher and there’s a Vietnamese family that come too and so

01:29:42.660 - 01:30:01.240

on, so we are sort of participating in the uh not only Korean but overall community activities. Uh, as you probably know, until now, most of the Korean community activities centered around churches, uh

01:30:02.170 - 01:30:16.380

huh. And that is good and bad, okay. Churches, uh, in my mind, that they are very helpful in getting you oriented and so on but they tend to occupy people too much.

01:30:16.990 - 01:30:34.560

They ask people to come on Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays services and so on, and people just, uh, center themselves around church activities and never get out. And I think that has hindered development of

01:30:34.680 - 01:30:52.150

Korean as an ethnic community in Houston for example. Koreans fall quite, uh, behind Chinese, Indo-Pakistani, and Vietnamese communities. Now, although we started establishing ourselves here

01:30:52.900 - 01:31:12.560

earlier, okay, because, uh, because of our limited domain of activities, I would think, you know, and, uh, churches have not really help them in really extending out, but I think it is good idea

01:31:12.760 - 01:31:35.990

even for the Koreans to get out of that church environment and sort of mingle among themselves, and also try to mingle with uh neighborhoods, uh huh. For the last forty years how did, um, Korean community transform? Uh, well, uh, you know,

01:31:35.990 - 01:31:50.410

when I first came to Houston there were about 300 Koreans, okay. And, uh, as I recall there were people who were in business—people who had motels, uh, had,

01:31:55.510 - 01:32:12.840

uh, pretty good high prominence in the society. And there were engineers like me. There were some medical doctors, uh, and there’s some small businessmen, you know, running a Stop-N-Go market and

01:32:13.050 - 01:32:31.590

so on. Uh, now Korean there are over 30,000 Koreans in the great, greater Houston area I understand, so it has grown quite a bit. But I think the engineers, uh, in the

01:32:31.690 - 01:32:49.920

technical field there’s still quite a few of us. Medical doctors. There’s a quite a few, uh, medical doctors now and there are people doing all kind of businesses now, uh, so

01:32:49.920 - 01:33:05.710

it has diversified quite a bit but not enough in my mind. If you compare our community with, for example, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indo-Pakistani communities, if you look at

01:33:06.030 - 01:33:21.660

people who run businesses, most Koreans run businesses that you can count with maybe five fingers or ten fingers: gas stations, dry cleaners, beauty supplies, you know. Uh, building maintenance and so on.

01:33:23.340 - 01:33:38.630

Not enough variety; not bold enough, uh huh, so we need to really go out more and, uh, that’s why I think, uh, I don’t know why we are

01:33:38.900 - 01:33:54.730

really so limited in variety or scope compared to other, other ethnic communities. What did you say your parents are engaged in? Oh my parents—my dad is a,

01:33:55.760 - 01:34:08.020

is a writer, composer. A composer? Yes. Okay. And my mom stays home. Oh okay, uh huh. Yes, so more academic, uh, that

01:34:09.430 - 01:34:24.740

area, uh huh. But I’m just talking business, you know. You might uh recall it even in Southern California, type of businesses Koreans get into is very limited compared to other

01:34:25.190 - 01:34:40.870

ethnic groups uh so I’m kinda wondered why that is…do you know? Do you have any opinions as to why, why that is? I think in my opinion, the rea—um

01:34:41.920 - 01:34:53.550

I think it has to do with immigration trend. When people move to other countries they usually use their family or friends network and so when they come to the United States they probably

01:34:54.040 - 01:35:11.950

have, um, family and friends, um, doing certain type of business. And that's where they start getting engaged in those kind of business and end up doing similar things because they probably get enough help from them so…

01:35:12.200 - 01:35:33.750

Yeah, that is true but that’s true with Vietnamese or Chinese, too. Right? Yeah. Uh huh. But they get into all kinds of things, uh huh, in much bigger scale too, so you know.

01:35:35.130 - 01:35:53.290

One of the things I’ve also noticed is that Korean uh people usually tend to stay together. They kind of um, they use, they like to just hang around like around Korean community usually not

01:35:54.140 - 01:36:07.020

necessarily reach out to other ethnic groups—not as much as Vietnamese and not as involved in community, like greater community work. Mm-hm.

01:36:07.020 - 01:36:23.430

Like neighborhood work. Yeah, that’s what I was sort of referring to you know and uh this church-oriented community promoted that concept and uh they basically what you feel so

01:36:23.730 - 01:36:41.050

comfortable is church friends and so on also church uh tends to occupy all their time, you know, so they don't have time for anything else. If you go to church on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, you really do

01:36:41.050 - 01:36:55.140

not have that much time. On other days you gotta carry on with your living so…yeah. Okay, so I have one last question. Sure. How do you identify yourself?

01:36:56.870 - 01:37:18.750

Do you identify yourself as American, Korean-American or Asian American…? Yeah, I identify myself as Korean American, uh huh. Uh…in, in what context are you asking that, uh,

01:37:19.700 - 01:37:40.050

question? Like, as the member of the society, like, what kind of society are you involved in? Uh huh, well uh, yeah, I do a lot of things in Korean community uh but I, I would like to make an effort to be

01:37:40.050 - 01:37:59.500

involved in all other societies, too—uh get along with the neighbors and so on in the neighborhood, uh, the, in the community I do business in, I am a member of the Boards of Sharpstown Management District,

01:37:59.500 - 01:38:17.860

you know, so, uh, things like that so I would like to be involved in not only Korean but in the local, you know, Houston community, um, and that is uh something that’s

01:38:20.540 - 01:38:35.490

very hard to do for some of my contemporaries. Uh, you know, although my English is limited, I feel comfortable with my English, you know, I don't have any reservations

01:38:37.030 - 01:38:52.470

in talking to, you know, neighbors talking in the meetings, you know, management board type of things. Most of Koreans of my age,

01:38:53.170 - 01:39:12.370

they feel very uncomfortable about doing that and I, I believe that’s what’s limiting them to stick to Koreans, so I always believe that we need to have a generation shift and, uh, I’m glad the Korean American Association has, uh,

01:39:13.100 - 01:39:27.010

younger president now and a younger board now so that we could be part of the greater Houston society, not just a Korean society you know. Thank you very much for your participation.

01:39:27.420 - 01:39:27.870

Okay.