The Loomis-Chaffee School
Ninety-Third Commencement Exercises
June 5, 2009
Dedicated with love and gratitude to my parents
Dr. Phan Van Duong and
Mrs. Tran Bich Cham
Dang Tan Phan ‘79
Good morning.
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board of Trustees,
Dr. Culbert, Distinguished Faculty and Staff,
Grandparents, Parents, Families and Friends,
And most of all, Members of the Graduating Class of 2009,
I am honored to be with you today. I feel joy in the celebration of your commencement and the 30th anniversary of my own. Our cups are full…
Before we start, I would like to join Sheila in acknowledging the presence and support of my lovely wife Suzy, and our beloved son Revel. Hi Revel… Also, welcome to my sister Lan who is here as a total surprise to me.
I have come to tell you a story, my personal story and the lessons I have learned. Please allow me to give away the ending. The story is about me and about much more… It is about Loomis-Chaffee, about goodness and greatness, about our best selves and the common good, about America and the evolving, yet ever thriving American Dream. It is about relationships of mutual support… about giving and about making the most of what you receive.
The story spans 35 years… it starts in 1974 and it begins anew today, on this glorious day. But first, let’s travel back in time to 1974 when all of the class of 2009 was not yet born… that is, unless some of you repeated a few grades.
Thirty five years ago,
The #1 song on the Top 40 chart was “The Way We Were”, sung by Barbra Streisand
The Internet did not exist
President Gerald Ford was in the White House
America was in the throes of the last deep and transformational recession
Half of humanity lived, literally and figuratively, on the other side of the Berlin Wall
The United States had been entrenched in a highly divisive war in Vietnam for more than a decade
This war was coming to an end… and that… is when my story begins.
South Vietnam, where I was born and where I lived, had been in a 20-year civil war with the Communist North.
I was a boy of 13 in 1974. I was in the 8th grade when North Vietnamese tanks rolled south along the Ho-Chi-Minh trail, at the end of the monsoon season. With their treads they marked the launch of the final campaign of the war. The South fell in a matter of months.
What I remember most from this trying time, is my parents’ love. I remember my father standing in the threshold of our second floor lookout… his silhouette against the moonshine, facing north as if he could halt the columns of tanks and troops coming to meet us. I knew what he was thinking of… he was thinking of saving my life, of giving me freedom and opportunity.
In the spring of 1975, we looked for many ways to escape. Near the end, we camped outside the US embassy, seeking passage. For three days and three nights we were surrounded by a mass of people, in front of closed gates guarded by US marines in full battle gear. We had little food and water. Helicopters landed and took off behind smoke screens. At the brink of exhaustion, we finally returned home.
Saigon surrendered the next morning, at 11 AM on April 30. I asked my father to take us to a little boat moored outside the city, as our last ditch effort. The four of us, my father, mother, sister and I, left on this boat with perhaps a hundred other people. We knew prior to boarding that there was not adequate fuel to reach the Philippines or Thailand. After three days at sea, despair set upon us as our boat drifted.
My father and I spent that dawn on deck. I recall the words he said as if it were yesterday… “I am sorry to have taken you here… I am 52 years old, but you are so young.” And I replied… “I wanted to go…” That same morning, as we looked out over the blue sea, we saw hundreds of masts rise from the horizon line. The United States Seventh Fleet, unbeknownst to us, was out there the whole time… we were saved. My father, who gave me life, gave me life a second time.
From this miracle, I learned at an early age not to give up hope, and to make the most of my life. I was immensely rewarded for an act of courage, in stepping on that boat as a young boy.
The US Navy took our family that summer to the Subic Bay air and naval base in the Philippines. We went on to the refugee camps on Guam Island and the Pendleton Marine Base in southern California.
It was in California where I first discovered America, the land of plenty. I was born to a prosperous family in Vietnam, we had lost everything in the span of a few months… everything… and yet I was about to gain a wondrous life experience. With the perspective of 35 years, I now realize that it wasn’t just coming to the land of plenty… I had traveled through a worm hole… in physics, a worm hole being that anomaly in space and time that provides a shortcut to a new universe.
We moved from California to Windsor at the end of the summer and our family settled at Loomis-Chaffee. This was a great stroke of luck yet also the result of great generosity. Through a Catholic charity, a group of faculty members had agreed to sponsor a Vietnamese refugee family. My father accepted a position in the school’s infirmary. He had been a physician, a battlefield surgeon, a politician, a veteran of three wars. Like many before him, he started his life over in his new country.
In mid September, I started as a freshman. I did not speak English when I arrived on this Island. I was supported by financial aid the entire four years at Loomis-Chaffee. I had two A’s, a C and two D’s in my first term. The D’s were in English and Western Civilization and I assure you… there must have been charity involved here as well.
There was also kindness… there was dedication and excellence in teaching… there was a great deal of respect and nurture for me as a unique individual… and there was community.
The winter of 1975 was cold and snowy. My sister and I used to walk to school together. We took turn carrying each other’s books so that our hands would keep warm.
I had no mittens and I was not cold…
I spoke no English and I was taught…
I came to America and I was about to live the American Dream…
I was a stranger and I found a home… at Loomis-Chaffee.
There was, is, and will ever be, an intrinsic goodness about this school.
I believe that goodness is a condition of greatness. When I think of my personal heroes… Mahatma Gandhi, Bobby Kennedy and Mother Theresa come to mind… I think first, not of their supernatural talents and their ability to change the world forever. I think first, of the goodness in their core. Greatness can be ephemeral. Goodness, I believe, is intrinsic and eternal.
The founding of Loomis-Chaffee was an exemplary gesture of goodness, draped with humility. In Founders Lounge we honor this act of philanthropy with a plaque… which reads and I quote, “hoping and trusting… that some good may come to posterity from the harvest, poor though it may be, of our lives”.
And what about seeking greatness? Here at Loomis-Chaffee…
We apply academic rigor.
We offer outstanding, dedicated, and attentive teaching in the pursuit of excellence.
We seek diversity among faculty and students.
We remain steadfast in our commitment to financial aid.
We are becoming increasingly national and international.
We set the classroom, the playing fields and the stage… for the scholar, athlete and artist to thrive.
We honor individuality in the pursuit of richness in our academic and community life.
As the graduating class of 2009, you have honored yourselves, and all of us, with your excellence…
9 of you are National Merit Finalists
15 of you are National Merit Commended Students
4 of you have been honored by the National Hispanic Recognition Program
7 of you have been invited to apply to become Presidential Scholars
13 of you are currently Advanced Placement Scholars, with many more to be so honored this fall.
You are also generous: 208 of you… 100% of you… participated in the class gift to the school this year.
So, let me resume my story…
I graduated from Loomis-Chaffee in 1979. I attended the University of Pennsylvania on scholarship. In fact my entire education in the United States was free, until I attended the Harvard Business School. And boy, did I pay then… I really paid.
I went on to a career in investment banking and private equity that has taken me all over the world. I have lived and worked in North America, Europe, developed and emerging Asia, and Latin America.
How does a boy from Vietnam… go to a great independent school, to an Ivy League university, to Harvard Business School, and to a string of world class financial institutions? Yes, it is about the boy, his hard work and his determination… It is also about where he came from and where he came to.
I came from… a hard scrabble country with a history of war and suffering and yes… a history of resilience and victory.
I came to… a school that reached out to me, to us, and gave us support.
I came to… a country where the American Dream is very much alive.
The American Dream is not about any single individual reaching his or her dreams. It is about all individuals having the opportunity to reach their dreams. To nourish the American Dream is not to succeed ourselves… it is to build the foundations upon which the American Dream rests. It is to give as much as you receive in return.
We live today in an age of transformation. In the last 35 years,
We bore witness to the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism
We welcomed more than 3 billion people to the free world
We built an interconnected planet through culture, trade, finance and the Internet
We elected the first African-American President
And on the other hand…
We also shed our tears on 9/11
We grieve for the health of the planet and the dying of species
And, we may be reaching our limits in this greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression
I have traveled through a worm hole in coming to America and then traveling throughout the world. What I have found in my travels give me cause for great optimism. I believe that our economic crisis can be seen through this lens as a dividend of peace. For 35 years the world has had a successful, but imbalanced economic relationship. Looking forward, we need to agree on a new paradigm of economic growth… and peace… which is sustainable for America, for all the world, and for our planet.
This and much more is the story that you will live, and that perhaps one of you will tell 35 years from now at this podium. But please allow me to offer my perspective…
The world is so much smaller than the one of 35 years ago. I note that among this graduating class, there are 15 of you from abroad. The American frontier… in place as well as in spirit… has moved well beyond our shores. The frontier spirit is also in our hearts and in our minds… in how we embrace our values and how we share them with the world. It is my hope that this new generation, your generation, will build and re-build the foundations of the American Dream with a global mindset. We come full circle again to the idea of relationships of mutual support, of give and take.
My simple advice to you then in living out this story is… to go see the world, to engage it, to save it, and to think of yourself as a global citizen, and a planetary citizen. Earth is made for you and me, but also for all other species… and for all times. Whenever you can, travel through worm holes. At the other end, you will find that you remain yourself, only richer and well rewarded for your troubles.
I returned to Vietnam in 1992 for the first time. I also came back earlier this year. On a spring evening, I basked in the warm air of a hotel terrace looking out over all of my beloved Saigon. From there, I could see the boy who had once reigned as the prince of the city. I could see that he went far away where he was loved and nurtured. He grew to a man and he came home, bringing the world with him. His cup was full, it overflowed…
On this special day, on behalf of myself and on behalf of the graduating class of 2009, I would like to thank Loomis-Chaffee, our wonderful teachers and staff, and our grandparents, parents, families and friends.
You gave… we received… and together you and we rise… on your gifts of wings[1].
To the class of 2009, I wish you God speed as you go forth to… build your careers and your lives, your community and your country, your world and your planet.
Thank you.
[1] From “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran.