Cang v. quach, san francisco '98 alumnus

“Summer Search believes in our ability to guide our own future despite our past and to make a profound impact.”

Cang was born the youngest of six children in Vietnam. In hopes of prosperity for a struggling family business under communism, his parents nicknamed him “Bracelet of Luck” and “Glowing General”. When he was five, Cang and his family immigrated to the United States and their life changed from a close-knit middle-class family to an absent-parent household living on food stamps in a poor neighborhood of San Francisco. Working menial double shifts to raise six children, his parents instilled in him an urgency to excel in school for a brighter future.

As a junior at George Washington High School, Cang arrived at his Summer Search interview with the founder, Linda Mornell. He spoke of joining a gang in middle school, of estranging his father who attempted unsuccessfully to discipline him, and of trying to undo the harm he caused others and himself. When he was accepted to Summer Search, Cang was unaware that he was to embark on a journey that would change his life and those of others on his path.

Cang’s passion for community service and love for the Spanish language drove him to choose Ecuador for his summer trip. Through a Global Routes program, he helped construct a community kitchen for elementary school children in the mountain village of Arrozuma. He was most inspired by his host parents who worked in harsh menial conditions similar to those of his own parents. With this new awareness, Cang came to appreciate his parents’ extreme sacrifices and honored them in an eloquent speech delivered at the 1997 Summer Search Fall Event.

After high school, Cang attended Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1998. His hunger for Spanish—sparked by his Summer Search trip—motivated him to study a semester abroad at the University of Salamanca in Spain. Culturally immersed, he volunteered at an orphanage where he learned to relate to disadvantaged kids in caring ways.

In the fall of 2001, Cang interned as an economic analyst at the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations in New York researching the consequence of graduating Maldives from the list of Least Developed Countries. After earning his B.A. in Economics with Honors and Phi Beta Kappa in 2002, he decided to return to his roots and lived in China for over a year, teaching English to graduate students at Shanghai Jiaotong University.

Throughout his college summers, Cang interned at Dodge & Cox Investment Managers in San Francisco under Dana Emery—the firm’s Executive Vice President and the current Chair of Summer Search. In 2004 after teaching in China, Cang accepted a financial analyst position at Dodge & Cox to cover the telecommunication and retail industries. During three challenging and enjoyable years at the firm, Cang attained the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

In 2006, Cang founded Emiscape, Inc. (www.emiscape.com) to develop and market an innovative display technology that allows digital images to appear on one side of a glass surface while the other side remains transparent. Cang’s vision is to bring the technology to market for enterprise customers in the advertising, automotive and consumer entertainment industries.

Cang says he continues to support Summer Search because, “Summer Search believes in our ability to guide our own future despite our past and to make a profound impact. In Ecuador, as I climbed the muddy Cotopaxi volcano summit, the biggest challenge was not to walk in the worn tracks that others had left behind. Since then, I strive to create my own path.”

In light of his accomplishments, Cang’s closing words at the 1997 Fall Event still ring true today as powerfully as they did then. “I will keep true to my name and destiny. As for the ‘Bracelet of Luck’, I hope to be a successful businessman and as a ‘Glowing General’ I hope to become a pillar of the educational community.” Accordingly, in addition to supporting Summer Search, Cang dreams of establishing a school to provide quality education to disadvantaged youths.