Tony Pham can readily identify the three teachers who redirected his life and inspired him to help other kids.
Pham, 37, an architect and project coordinator for The Beck Group in Fort Worth, just completed weeks of pro bono work helping to design the setup of the Junior Achievement of the Chisholm Trail’s annual career expo that introduces careers to high schoolers.
Pham is active in the organization’s young professionals group, appears at career fairs and recruits new volunteers to Junior Achievement, the global nonprofit that uses lessons on financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship to stress the importance of education and training after high school.
“Tony is definitely a JA unsung hero.”
Cindy Hames, president, Junior Achievement of the Chisholm Trail
Welcome to 52 Faces
52 Faces of Community is a Fort Worth Report weekly series spotlighting local unsung heroes. It is sponsored by Central Market, H-E-B and JPS Health Network.
At the end of the year, these rarely recognized heroes will gather for a luncheon where the Report will announce one honoree to represent Tarrant County at the Jefferson Awards in Washington, D.C.
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Pham’s parents, Vietnamese refugees who fled the war-ravaged country in the late 1970s, resettled in New Orleans before moving to Michigan and, finally, East Texas. They built small businesses and worked various jobs to make ends meet for their nine children, Pham says. Teachers filled critical gaps, he said.
“Having (mentorship of) an adult was so important,” he said.
Pham’s volunteer work for Junior Achievement earned him recognition in 52 Faces of Community, Fort Worth Report’s weekly series on unsung heroes making a difference in Tarrant County.
Pham visits classrooms to talk about construction careers, developing an incentive system to get kids to participate. The students cash in their bonuses for prizes he provides. He joined Beck colleagues in working pro bono in preparing for the JA Inspire career expo that was in early March.
“In addition to exhibiting and engaging students throughout the day, they recruited other companies from their industry to build out the construction zone, in addition to serving on the committee that planned the event over the last nine months,” Cindy Hames, president of Junior Achievement, said. “Tony is definitely a JA unsung hero.”
Pham credits a middle school teacher in Michigan with making a big difference in his life as he was learning English as a second language.
His reading level bumped up significantly after one school year with the teacher, says Pham, who was born in New Orleans.
“That was the one thing that changed everything, what gave me confidence to believe in myself,” he says.
The experience helped him master math and science and become interested in history, he said. “She exposed me to books and literature and fantasy, just dreaming.”
In high school, a computer-aided design teacher in Michigan caught Pham’s attention as he considered automotive design and engineering as a career.
“He saw something in me and called it out and continued to give support, spending out of his own pocket to invest in materials we needed,” he said. “And then we entered state and national competitions for our renderings.”
His parents subsequently bought a chicken farm in East Texas and moved the family. Pham enrolled at Tyler Junior College, where an instructor discovered Pham’s interest in architecture.
She gave him a book at the end of a semester about the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. “She made an effort to get to know me,” he said.
The teacher also had a strong faith that he didn’t understand at the time, but figured out later when he developed his own relationship with God, Pham said.
“Looking back now, connecting the dots, she was a Christian, a believer,” he said.
Along his career path, Pham looked for ways to “put myself out there” and deepen his social skills, ranging from waiting tables while attending school to his work for Junior Achievement.
“I love it because we teach everything you need to know about the community — (from) voting, about (personal finance), how the economy works, how the community can help serve the communities of the neighborhoods, and just having the flexibility to be creative in the process,” he said.
Scott Nishimura is a senior editor at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at scott.nishimura@fortworthreport.org. News decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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