My name is Jimmy Thong Tran and I live in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. I have lived in Viet Nam since 2006, splitting my time between Ha Noi and Thanh pho Ho Chi Minh. I was born in Los Angeles, CA and raised in Berkeley, CA.
I am the Academic Coordinator for Schools Link – Language Link, a program that serves 12,000 students across 30 schools in Ha Noi, with a team of 60 ESL teachers.
I am the Editor of this Medium.com collection:
The Thirsty: On Vietnam and being Vietnamese
I am the Co-Editor-in-Chief of thethirsty.net (Under construction).
I built the Schools Link website. I co-built parentlinkhanoi.com. I assisted in the development of the Cambodian Son website.
I work out at the VietFighter Gym, where I take functional strength conditioning classes. I love to play and watch NBA basketball. I play Fantasy NBA Basketball.
Skills bio
Creative | Experienced Manager | Supportive | Influential
Education
University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, California, USA)
Bachelors of Arts – Ethnic Studies
• Head Producer for Theatre Rice, a 40 member theatre and improv troupe
• Organizer for REACH! College Recruitment and SASC Southeast Asian Student coalition
• Worked 20hrs/week in addition to education
International House – Apollo (Hanoi, Vietnam)
CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)
Support / Service / Guidance Ability
• Trained, analyzed, and improved students, educators, stage performers, community organizers, administrators (over the past 13 years) ranging from 5 to 55 years old
• Resolved team and client issues by first, to understand, and then, to be understood, in English and Vietnamese
• Guided hundreds of people through Southeast Asia living and travels
• Accelerated building cambodianson.com
• Presented cow eyeball & flower dissections, card tricks and museum orientations to hundreds of students daily at the Exploratorium in San Francisco
• Serviced thousands of Jamba Juice smoothie customers during high school
Management / Planning / Organizational Ability
• Directly supervised over 300 people (over the past 13 years)
• Developed E-commerce data totaling over 57,000 product additions in over 8,000 categories/attributes and controlled E-commerce data inventory totaling over 300,000 products for a client (whose 2011 annual revenue was $30.4 million)
• Coordinated 60 teachers at 28 schools serving over 10,000 students in Hanoi, Vietnam
• Recruited 110 ESL teachers to Hanoi, Vietnam from around the world for the 2013-2015 academic years (6 months ahead of previous years)
• Implemented and improved standard operating procedures in commercial, creative and educational organizations
• Negotiated partnerships with local businesses in Hanoi, Vietnam
Communications / Language / Creative Ability
• WordPressing
• Built schoolslinkhanoi.com, building parentlinkhanoi.com
• Created/designed intralink.llv.edu.vn (internal intranet communication platform across all Language Link – Hanoi departments)
• Co-created the S.A.K. & S.A.K. Attack Pack (Schools Link’s ESL Teacher Handbooks)
• Co-created Language Link’s ESL promotional and training videos
• Co-created assessment, speaking and placement tests for primary and secondary students
• Performed theatre, improv and poetry slam shows with 3,000 attendees bi-annually in the San Francisco Bay Area
• Performed 26 school-wide assemblies for 10,000+ students in Hanoi
• Commissioned visual artist for YO! Youth Outlook during high school
• Co-Editor-in-Chief of thethirsty.net and editor of “On Vietnam and Being Vietnamese”
Software
Final Cut Pro
WordPress
Pixelmator
PHP
HTML
CSS
PowToon
MSOfficeSuite
Motion
Sketch
Hype
Bugzilla
Personal activities
• Active member of Hanoi’s WordPress Meetup group
• Active writer (current readership stats, past)
• Active videographer & photographer since 2011 (Camera: Canon 60D)
• Active member at the VietFighter gym (1st Place Team Fitness Challenge 2013)
• Travelled to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan
• Top 3 Art contest winner 1998-2000 (Growing Up Asian in America contest)
• 1st Place in competitive online Fantasy NBA Basketball league 2010
• Home cooking (Paleo diet, most times…)
• Poetry Slam performance artist (2004 National College Unions Poetry Slam Champions, University of California – Berkeley & 2004 San Francisco National Poetry Slam team member)
“For the first thirty years of your life, you make your habits. For the last thirty years of your life, your habits make you.”
- Old Hindu Proverb