In 1966, Hing Hung \u201885 was in the wrong class.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not the kind you skip or switch \u2014 but the kind that, in postwar China, determined whether you advanced, suffered or simply disappeared.<\/p>\n
Hung was in eighth grade when his country’s devastating Cultural Revolution closed his school \u2014 a situation he now likens to a years-long COVID-19 shutdown without the benefits of Zoom. His family home was raided, books and photos burned. At 16, he was sent to a village 100 miles away to be \u201cre-educated,\u201d laboring in rice and sugarcane fields up to 16 hours a day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor six years, I was on the farm,\u201d Hung said, \u201cfrom 16 to 22.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then he ran. That was April 1974.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By year\u2019s end, Hung had traded a class system in China for a class schedule in California \u2014 starting in English as a Second Language, then moving into electrical engineering. In 1992, seven years after earning his master\u2019s from Cal State Long Beach, he co-founded a security technology company that would, by 2013, exceed $34 million in annual sales.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic education,\u201d Hung said, \u201cis really important. I really benefitted from it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, generations of CSULB students will benefit, too.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Signaling the largest philanthropic gift ever designated for CSULB’s College of Engineering,<\/a> Hing Hung and his wife, Doris, have donated $30 million to the university. In recognition, the CSU Board of Trustees<\/a> is expected to consider naming the college in their honor; pending approval in March, it would become the Hung Family College of Engineering.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are honored to name our college after the Hung Family, which exemplifies the ingenuity, grit and perseverance we value,\u201d said Dean Jinny Rhee. \u201cThey are now an indelible part of our college’s history.\u201d<\/p>\n After six years of forced labor and a daring escape from China in the 1970s, Hing Hung \u201985, left, rebuilt his life in Southern California. This year, he and his wife, Doris, made a record $30 million gift to support the education of future engineers at The Beach.<\/p>\n Among largest gifts in CSULB history<\/p>\n Not only does the donation break college records, CSULB President Andrew Jones also called it \u201cone of the most significant philanthropic investments in\u00a0the history of Cal State Long Beach.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are so grateful to the Hungs for this gift,\u201d he said, \u201cwhich positions the College of Engineering for its next era of growth while demonstrating great confidence in the future of the university.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hungs have supported the College of Engineering\u2019s infrastructure for years.<\/p>\n \u201cI always like to do things that are longer-lasting \u2014 buildings, equipment, something that can benefit more than a single student,” Hing Hung said. “Especially for the College of Engineering, where the equipment continues evolving. They need to train students with the same tools they will be facing in the industry, and those cost more money. It\u2019s not just paper and pens.\u201d<\/p>\n Hing and Doris Hung in their first apartment in 1982. Ten years later, Hing co-founded Mercury Security Corp., from which he retired in 2020.<\/p>\n The naming consideration comes as the college gains momentum. Multiple programs have earned top national rankings<\/a>, federal investment has supported major equipment upgrades, and a comprehensive renovation<\/a> soon will modernize and expand aerospace and learning labs. Of the $30 million gift, $10 million will support the renovation; $5 million will seed next-level, industry-aligned learning initiative; and $15 million will create an endowment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Doris, who emigrated from Taiwan, met Hing at a student gathering while pursuing her MBA at Cal Poly Pomona. They married the same year that Hing began graduate studies at Cal State Long Beach, raised two sons and helped build a company whose high-tech access controllers now secure more than 5 million doors worldwide, many within Fortune 500 companies.<\/p>\n Yet they’ve never left the home where they raised their boys.<\/p>\n \u201cSince Hing sold the company,\u201d Doris said, \u201cour life is still the same. We have a simple life. We were very blessed, and we are so grateful that we have found someplace we like to give.\u201d<\/p>\n An early rendering of proposed signage, pending the CSU Board of Trustees consideration to name the college in honor of the Hung family.<\/p>\n From rice paddies to radio waves<\/p>\n It is hard to imagine a techie like Hing Hung once working barefoot in flooded rice paddies. But even then, he said, he found ways to feed his curiosity. On the farm, he built a transistor radio from parts smuggled in by his cousin, listening at night to broadcasts from Hong Kong.<\/p>\n \u201cI used it all the years during my time on the farm,\u201d he recalled. \u201cWhen you listen to the outside [world], you have to be secretive.\u201d<\/p>\n Village leaders put him to work repairing water pumps and diesel engines before placing him in charge of a tractor, which he eventually modified to improve its performance.<\/p>\n \u201cThat modification increased plowing speed and significantly reduced fatigue,” Hung said. “I received an award from the county and gave a presentation.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, they wouldn\u2019t let him go home.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, one moonless night, he and seven others launched a harrowing escape, rowing a small boat toward the lights of Macau, hiding in marsh grass when patrol boats passed. They made it, barely, and Hung eventually gained asylum in Hong Kong before landing in California with a relative. From there, it was a matter of fighting for the education he\u2019d lost.<\/p>\n \u201cI think you have to overlook many things,\u201d he said, of students born into adversity. \u201cJust have a goal and continue to achieve it.\u201d<\/p>\n Hung may have once lived under a system that assigned his class. But now \u2014 through his family’s gift \u2014 generations of students at The Beach will get to choose theirs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1966, Hing Hung \u201885 was in the wrong class.\u00a0 Not the kind you skip or switch \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1818,1820,7,1815,1823,1821,1822,1819,131,133,132,1817,1816],"class_list":{"0":"post-193532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-cal-state","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-college","12":"tag-conoley","13":"tag-csu","14":"tag-csulb","15":"tag-dirtbags","16":"tag-long-beach","17":"tag-long-beach-headlines","18":"tag-long-beach-news","19":"tag-long-beach-state","20":"tag-university"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}