Moving On, Moving Up
Sometimes, breaking through the glass ceiling means going it alone
By Jason Ma

Scott Wang had a secure job with a big-name corporation, but as he put it, “I was not willing to work at Bank of America for the rest of my life.”

So Wang, 51, joined thousands of other mid-career Asian Americans who, stymied by glass ceilings, have left big corporations in recent years to become their own bosses. In 1986, he left to start his own real-estate firm in the Los Angeles area, which today brings in more than half a million dollars a year.

That trend bucks some long-standing traditions among Asian American families, many of whom were headed by immigrants who ran grocery stores or Laundromats to feed their families. Their children, in turn, saw the headaches and sometimes danger that their parents endured. For those second-generation Asian Americans, being employed as professionals in large companies meant stability, security and success.

For many twenty-somethings, it still does. Thousands of Asian Americans and young Asian immigrants are filling entry-level jobs at big-name corporations, but at the same time, those in their 30s, 40s and 50s have grown increasingly intolerant of impermeable glass ceilings that cap their own dreams of success.

Such alienation, ironically, is not unlike that which still prompts many new immigrants to start up small grocery stores or beauty parlors. But in an era of email and video conferencing, starting up a business is feasible even for those who can’t buy a building or stock much inventory. In fact, prospects in cyberspace -- Web consulting and Internet commerce, for example -- seem the richest in possibilities, with each day bringing news of another new millionaire or IPO.

The Small Business Administration reported last week that loans to minority businesses in Western states have grown rapidly over the past two years, with Asian American-owned businesses accounting for the largest share. APIs had $670 million worth of SBA-guaranteed loans in fiscal 1999. The year before, APIs took out more than $588 million in SBA-backed loans, compared with $44 million for African Americans, $204 million for Latinos and $22 million for Native Americans, according to SBA spokesman Bob Borden.

“They’ve seen success among other Asian Americans and have decided to participate in the loan programs,” Borden said.

According to Darlene Mar of the S.F.-based Council of Asian American Business Associations, because of a deeply ingrained reluctance among many Asian Americans to borrowing money, the SBA’s increase indicates that when Asian American ventures “start to grow, then they have to turn to loans.” Indeed, the average amount that the SBA lent to Asian Americans this year was $315,675, versus $282,954 overall.

While the federal agency guarantees the loans, private financial institutions do the lending, making it difficult to say what kinds of businesses are getting the money. While the SBA itself does not collect such data, Borden said most high-tech entrepreneurs tend to gravitate toward venture capital companies. Some, however, turn to the SBA’s Small Business Investment Companies Program.

Dennis Wong, president of the San Francisco-based Asian Business Association, said he’s noticed that more Asian Americans, both foreign- and native born, are starting up tech companies.

“In a start-up industry, the costs of entry are not as high,” he said. “Both the first and second generations could do something that’s fun and makes lots of money, too.”

For years, said Wong, Asian American entrepreneurship has largely consisted of specific ethnicities staking out certain fields -- Vietnamese American women gravitated toward nail salons; Cambodian and Laotian immigrants favored donut shops. Many newer immigrants look to industries in which others like them have established a “bridgehead,” Wong explained. They follow those who can “show the way.”

MOM, POP AND THE WEB

The SBA statistics are even more telling in the city with the largest Asian American population -- 1.2 million in 1998 -- and one of the most robust small business environments: Los Angeles.

“We hardly see at the district-level the mom and pop stores,” said Rick Kresser, chief of finance at the SBA’s Los Angeles office, which guaranteed more small business loans -- $754 million in fiscal year 1999 -- than any other SBA office in the country. “That’s not the trend anymore.”

Darlene Mar said some small stores are getting squeezed out by on-line companies that appeal to those who want to shop at home. Ironically, she said, that trend could increasingly threaten the financial viability of API senior citizens. Many supplement their Social Security checks with earnings from their stores, rather than ask their children for money.

“If they go e-commerce, they’re shutting out the mom and pop stores,” she said. “There’s a balance we need to create.”

At the same time, Mar said, a growing number of middle-age Asian Americans are leaving seemingly secure jobs for new ventures. In part, she said, that reflects an increased willingness among all Americans to switch not just jobs but whole careers several times over a lifetime, including beyond retirement.

“People are retiring earlier, and they’re going into their second career,” Mar said. “The American dream now is to start a high-tech company, go IPO and retire.”

No definitive numbers exist on exactly how many Asian Americans quit to start their own companies, but many had once preferred the perceived security of an engineering or technical job at a big company, according to Mar. But years or decades later, having been passed over repeatedly for promotions despite their seniority and experience, employees are taking their expertise elsewhere.

“I see new businesses in the technology area that are Asian-owned,” Mar said. “They usually work in large companies, then they go out on their own. There’s still a glass ceiling. For a lot of Asian Americans, it’s hard to work in Corporate America.”

‘THERE’S A PRIME PERIOD’

Consider Johnathan Hou. He spent six years at Woodward-Clyde Consultants, working his way up to project engineer. He then worked for several years at smaller firms until joining the now-defunct McDonnell Douglas. There, Hou worked for five years, becoming a senior consultant.

Then in 1990, he left big corporations to start his own environmental engineering firm.

“After you move up to a certain level, you don’t have much opportunity to move up in management. People just have to move around to get promoted,” Hou explained.

“There’s a prime period you have to capture. You must have a sharp mind and be physically fit. It’s a seven-day-a-week job.”

For Hou, doing his own thing has been a lifelong dream -- fueled, he said, by his disillusionment with his father’s “cushy” job as a Taiwan Air Force pilot. Ever since Hou graduated from National Taiwan University in 1966 and three years later received a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Idaho, he has wanted to start his own business.

Yet Hou, who declined to give his age, said his years with big companies were not wasted ones. On the contrary, “the experience in large firms really builds a foundation in the technical aspect and makes you familiar with the level of expectations of clients.”

His firm, Axiom Engineer and Science Corp., started out as strictly an environmental engineering firm largely concerned with soil analysis, but soon expanded into other areas of civil engineering, such as structural and street design. Now, Axiom is working with Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to build a deep space communications project for NASA, and Hou’s firm competes with some of his old employers for highway and prison contracts. Annual revenues are more than $500,000, and the company has been growing at 10 to 15 percent per year, Hou said.

Like Hou, Scott Wang felt stirrings of restlessness after eight years in BofA’s corporate real estate department.

“When I first came to the U.S., I wanted to be a business person,” Wang said. He arrived in 1975, three years after graduating from a Taiwanese university with a literature degree. By the time he got to Bank of America, he was already aware that the institution would be a stepping stone to independence -- and not his ultimate success.

“When a man gets to 40, he starts to wonder what his life is all about,” said Wang, adding that he established his firm at just the right time. “If you don’t start it, it’ll probably be too late.”