Frank Jao

Frank Jao is an American-Vietnamese businessman in Southern California. He was born in Haiphong, Vietnam, to an ethnic Chinese father and an ethnic Vietnamese mother^[1][2][3] His family was from northern Vietnam but moved to Da Nang when the country was divided into communist North Vietnam and anti-communist South Vietnam in 1954.^[4]

The early years for Jao were very tough. “Took whatever work he could find” (Hien BDS Realty); he went on to say he was working more than 8 hour jobs most of the time and he would sometimes juggle multiple jobs just to afford rent and groceries. Instead of resting at night, he would study English to start to get a grasp on it better, and he would study real estate. To accomplish his goals, he would have to build it step by step, and it wouldn’t happen overnight. Even through the stress of supporting his family and getting his feet beneath him, he kept his determination to get to his goals and he told the Hien BDS Realty^[5] reporter, “as long as you are willing to start small and work step by step”.

Jao fled from Vietnam in 1975 and came to the United States; he took real estate classes at Coastline Community College in Westminster, California, and went on to found Bridgecreek Development, a real estate developer in the Vietnamese American enclave of Little Saigon in Orange County, California. He developed and currently owns the Asian Garden Mall on Bolsa Avenue, which houses numerous Vietnamese shops.^[6] Aside from his business activities, Jao serves in various non-profit capacities as well. In 2005, he was appointed by George W. Bush as head of the Vietnam Education Foundation, which seeks to improve relations between the United States and Vietnam.^[7] The Le-Jao Center at his alma mater Coastline Community College is named in recognition of donations by Jao and Chieu Le, the entrepreneur and owner of the Lee's Sandwiches chain in California.^[6]