Mr. Halpern and My Nguyen

Mr. Halpern immigrated from Gdansk Poland to US seeking opportunities.     Like his contemporary Dr. Edwin Land of Polaroid, he was said to have educated himself at the public library of New York.   He started his business in mimeographic ink which was probably a small but growing niche then with good profitability.      He then expanded his business into mimeograhic (stencil) master and then to PS plate.    He was interested in various other business opportunities and in the end he had conglomerate of plate, film, chemicals, polymer, equipment and other services.          He had to part his control over Polychrome with successful bidding of DIC  which he himself initiated thinking he can retain control while gaining capital infusion.         HIs decision may have been different has he had siblings to hand over the business but alas he had none.    

My Nguyen had difficult childhood living in the second most impoverished region of Vietnam having to support his family from his early teens.      Despite the hardship he managed to enter the prestigious engineering school but after the fall of Saigon left Vietnam in overcrowded boat drifting 17 days till he was rescued by US navy.    Montreal Canada accepted him as a refugee and he worked as a dishwasher and a cook while attending graduate school.        After receiving his PhD, he was invited to work for one of the  IBM research laboratories where his contribution made computer hard drive to last very long time.         IBM was having financial difficulty and he saw world famous researchers  let go unceremoniously so he decided to find other opportunities.        He then came to Polychrome Central Laboratories in Carlstadt NJ where he quickly developed Quantum 830, a Polychrome version of popular preheat thermal plate.          He left us in 1979 as soon as we became part of the Kodak Polychrome Graphics seeing that we became too big.        He did not like the red tapes and different procedures brought into the system.         Although Polychrome was a pretty big company by then, we still maintained the small company spirit Mr. Halpern nurtured.             My then formed his own company in Montreal synthesizing small organic compound, highly profitable but very small niche.    This, however, gave him a base for various other synthetic activities such as tracing dyes, OLED material, 3D printing ink and finally thermal dye-resin complex which gave him a stable revenue.    He then moved his operation to Tra Vinh, Vietnam where he originally came from.      He has built  world class PS plate manufacturing facility to provide new plates to Vietnam and surrounding countries as well as expanding into other technologies such as packaging, inkjet, water treatment, etc.
My is following a strikingly similar path which Mr. Halpern took.         He, however, has one distinct advantage.      He has three children he carefully raised.      

My T Nguyen