Inspired by her hard-working Vietnamese parents, Nancy Dinh made a "leap of faith" into the financial services industry nearly 15 years ago.
Dinh, who now works at Armor Wealth Management, was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and moved to the U.S. with her immediate family in 1975.
"My dad was in the air force," Dinh told ThinkAdvisor. "He actually flew with the U.S. during the war, and because of that we were very fortunate to be able to leave Saigon during the Fall in a better way than most of the Vietnamese people were able to come to the U.S."
Her mother and father essentially had to start over when they arrived. While Dinh's father attended Arizona State University, her family lived in and worked at a motel in Mesa, Arizona, from August 1975 to July 1976. Dinh was 4 at the time.
Nancy Dinh
"It was called Elm Motel," Dinh said. "My dad did all the maintenance. My mom and us kids cleaned all the rooms."
Dinh's dad graduated from Arizona State with an engineering degree. He worked in engineering in Arizona for years, and then his work was transferred to Texas in 1985. Dinh said her parents still live in the same house as they did when they moved to Texas.
Dinh was inspired by the "amount of struggle and hard work that my parents — especially my dad — did during that time. Taking care of the maintenance of a hotel, going to school full time, and he never gave up," Dinh said. "He wanted it so bad and he wanted it for his family."
She also credits her parents for teaching her work ethic.
"My parents have really helped me to take my career to where it is right now," Dinh told said. "They taught us how to work hard, and if we wanted [something], nothing stops us except us."
Dinh was working as a controller for a small R&D company when she decided to completely change her career.
