Tan Nguyen

Tan Nguyen with his photo equipment. Photo: Jacob Colie/Mercy Corps

Some people are simply born with the entrepreneurial spirit in their blood, and given the enterprising life Tan Nguyen crafts for himself, he definitely counts as one of those people. "I'm not tired yet," declares Tans as he recounts his weekly schedule, which includes single-handedly running his own small business, Q Lab Photo Finishing, as well as balancing several other photography-related projects.

"I guess when you are fulfilling your dream you find energy in places you didn't know you had," Tan explains. Photographic studio work has always been a special interest of Tan's ever since he started taking pictures in his grade school's 4-H Club. As a kid, that included shooting still lifes of everyday objects, but today, Tan's work focuses on fashion photography and portraits, and he also has an interest in commercial photography. Another specialty is wedding photography, which Tan describes as both fun and a good way to pay the bills. Tan also currently works as a freelance photographer at the Oregonian. Plus, Tan manages and finances the Portland Photographic Society, which he founded.

Scanning through his portfolio, Tan's skill and artful eye are readily apparent in his images, but his finesse really shines through in his landscape photographs, which he does in his spare time or with students from one of his Photography 101 classes. As a way of giving something back to his local Vietnamese community, Tan teaches beginning photography classes in the Vietnamese language because he wants to share with others the joy he gets from taking pictures. "The biggest reward I have in life," says Tan, "is seeing the expression on a students' face when they develop a good photo they took." He says he also make a lot of new friends teaching, which he sees as an investment in the future because he often goes on to hire promising students to assist him on photo shoots.

"Before I started my business I worked many jobs that required 10-12 hour days, and finally I said, 'hey, if I'm going to work this hard, it might as well be for myself,'" Tan says.

Tan heard about the RISE program offered by Mercy Corps to help small business entrepreneurs. "The RISE class is like a college course compacted into seven weeks, and it was just what I needed at just the right time," says Tan. Tan found the maze of procedures and regulations for starting your own business was sometimes daunting, and he often had difficulty finding the information that applied specifically to his business. Tan credits the RISE program for helping him cut through the red tape by giving him the details he needed - a straightforward outline of the steps necessary to make his plan a reality.

As one of the infamous "boat people" who left Vietnam after the war, Tan arrived in the United States as a young child in 1979 to join his mother, who was already living in the country. After growing up in the South, Tan moved to Portland six years ago and swears he will never leave. Why should he? Things seem to be going right for him here. After working in several large-scale photo processing labs, Tan realize he could offer customers better quality photos at a competitive price by individualizing the service people receive.