Hoan Dang (MD)
Candidate for House of Delegates (MD-19)
2009: Leadership Academy for Elected Officials
Biography
In 1975, when Hoan Dang was a young boy, his family came to the United States as Vietnamese refugees to avoid communist persecution after the Vietnam War, and settled in Montgomery County, Maryland. He graduated from Walt Whitman High School where he lettered in varsity gymnastics and wrestling. He joined the Boy Scouts, rising to the rank of Eagle Scout.
Hoan earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Vanderbilt University and worked as an electronics engineer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for over nine years. He earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Finance and a Master of Science in Operations Research from the University of Maryland. For the past 11 years, he worked at a Maryland-based Fortune 500 corporation in positions of increasing responsibilities, including as: a senior financial analyst, an internal auditor and a regulatory compliance officer. In his last position, he helped his company and hundreds of subcontractors -- most of whom were small and disadvantaged businesses -- comply with federal acquisitions regulations (FAR).
For the past 25 years, Hoan has been an avid community volunteer and civic activist. Since 1997, he has served as a board member of the Maryland Vietnamese Mutual Association (MVMA), a nonprofit organization that has helped over 20,000 immigrants from Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America become U.S. citizens. During his tenure as chair and president from 2001-2009, MVMA was recognized by the Harman Family Foundation's Catalogue for Philanthropy as "one of the best small charities in the Greater Washington Region." Since 2001, Hoan Dang has been a board member of the George B. Thomas, Sr. Learning Academy, a nonprofit organization that operates a Saturday school program for 3,700 students in grades 1-12 and committed to helping narrow the achievement gap by improving student performance through mentoring and tutoring in language arts and math. He is a co-founder and immediate past chair of the Asian American Health Initiative, an organization that strives to reduce health disparities between Asian Americans and the mainstream population. He was a board member and vice president of IMPACT Silver Spring, an organization that works to create a thriving, multicultural community by encouraging new voices, developing leaders and collaborating to bring positive change. Hoan is a 2004 graduate of Leadership Montgomery.
As a prominent leader in the Asian American community, Hoan was not afraid to testify before the Maryland General Assembly on behalf of immigrants. In 2005, he led a delegation of 20 Vietnamese Americans to the Maryland State House in Annapolis, to join a coalition of African American, Asian American, Latino American, community and labor organizations, in opposing seven "anti-immigrant" bills that were consequently defeated.
In 2005, Hoan was honored with the Linowes Leadership Award for "Unsung Heroes" by the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region. From 2005 through 2009, he received the President's Volunteer Service Award from the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation.
Hoan lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, and has lived in Montgomery County for 34 years. He enjoys international travel, learning about other cultures and is fluent in French and Vietnamese. He enjoys martial arts and holds a 3rd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He is a parishioner at St. Andrew Apostle Catholic Church in Kemp Mill, MD.
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