Posted by Peggy Strom on Sep 23, 2022
Mike Spellman provided today's "Member Minute".  Asked to speak to his worst/best job to-date, he noted his time working at a lumber yard as a teenager in Texas as his worst.  Specifically the day he and a friend unwisely volunteered to unload an entire rail car of lumber in hopes of earning big bucks.  The bucks were good but when calculated on a per-hour basis it turned out to be back breaking labor for nearly nothing.  His favorite job was the one he undertook for a few years before retirement - running his own painting company.  Today's speaker was Shoreview City Council member John Doan.  John spoke of his harrowing start in life - born in Viet Nam just as the war was ending.  He, his mother and older brother became "boat people" as they fled Saigon.  They were at sea for a week in a tiny boat before landing in Singapore and then on to San Francisco.  When he was 5 they moved to the Twin Cities to join his aunt who had just opened a restaurant at 815 Washington Ave. in Minneapolis.  The entire family worked there and the restaurant (Bona) is still in operation.  John went off to earn a degree in civil engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, then a Masters Degree in Public Policy at Harvard.  He also served in the Naval Reserves as a "Seabee" for 8 years.  He is currently Vice President of Operations for the Trellis human services organization in Arden Hills in addition to serving on the Shoreview City Council.