South Guilford News

Senior Transportation Planner Tram Truong grew up in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, more than 9,000 miles and a day-long flight from Greensboro. But, thanks in part to the City of Greensboro, she is an American citizen who calls the Gate City her home.

Truong’s hire in 2013 marked the first time the City sponsored an H-1B working visa, which lets US employers hire foreign workers in specialty occupations for up to six years with options for renewal. It opened the door for others to join the City’s workforce with an H-1B visa, and today Truong enjoys working in one of the City’s more diverse departments.

Truong came to the US in 2006 with her husband, who was offered an unexpected opportunity to study at the University of Oklahoma (OU). While working at a Vietnamese university, he was part of a delegation meeting with officials from OU and Vietnam’s national oil company. When an OU representative asked if he would like to study in the US, he said yes. The representative didn’t say anything else, but shortly thereafter Truong’s husband received an admissions packet in the mail.

“So we just came [to the US]. We didn’t have time to think too much,” Truong said. “We didn’t have any time to prepare.”

The couple relocated from Ho Chi Minh City to Norman, Oklahoma, which has a sizable Vietnamese population thanks in part to the university’s connection to Vietnam. After a couple of years of acclimating to a new and very different environment, Truong enrolled in OU’s graduate school and earned a degree in regional and city planning. She worked with the City of Oklahoma City’s Planning Department and the Central Oklahoma Economic Development District for a few years while her husband completed his degree. By this time the couple had their first child and determined they would like to remain in the US, preferably on the East Coast.

“At that time I was still a foreigner. If I wanted to work legally in the US I had to have the H-1B working visa,” Truong said. “It was very challenging to find employers willing to sponsor the H-1B visa for me.”

The couple applied for positions up and down the East Coast. Truong was a finalist for many jobs and received several offers. However, those potential employers did not sponsor the visa and hired elsewhere. Undeterred, she kept applying and caught a break when she pursued a transportation planner position with the City of Greensboro.

After interviewing, Truong asked Transportation Planning Manager Tyler Meyer if the City would sponsor the visa on her behalf. Unaware of the visa and its requirements, Meyer contacted the Human Resources Department, which was likewise unfamiliar. He convinced the department of Truong’s value to the City and the transportation department.

The HR staff accepted the challenge and after six months of wrangling with the Department of Labor, Truong became the City’s first employee hired through the H-1B visa. The process for the City to hire internationals is much quicker today, in part due to lessons learned from her hire. The Transportation Department alone features employees from the likes of China, India, South Korea, and of course, Vietnam.

“I’m so glad I could help pave the roadway for other people,” Truong said. “It really opened up doors for others. I really appreciate that my team now is very diverse.”

Meyer’s assertion of Truong’s value was spot on. As she approaches her 11th year as a City employee, she was promoted to senior transportation planner in January. In her role, Truong analyzes data, prepares plans, manages projects, and engages with the public to design and implement an effective, efficient, and sustainable transportation system. She and her team consider issues like traffic congestion, safety, environmental impact, and accessibility.

In 2014 the NC Department of Transportation (NCDOT) enacted the data-driven Prioritization 3.0 program to maximize funding and enhance the state’s infrastructure. Municipalities submitted required data related to transportation projects in their communities and the NCDOT awarded grants solely based on how each project scored according to its criteria. Truong built the first geographic information system (GIS) model based on Prioritization 3.0 requirements and methodology and applied it to the City’s sidewalk, bicycle, trail, and greenway projects. She and her co-workers examined the results and submitted the top-scoring projects to the NCDOT. Much to her surprise (and to the benefit of Greensboro residents), five of the top-10 projects in the state were from the City of Greensboro.

Three phases of the Downtown Greenway received NCDOT funding due to Truong’s work on the project. The City also received grants to build sidewalks on parts of Lovett Street, Lees Chapel Road, Holden Road, and Lindsay Street.

“It was a very successful year for us,” Truong said.

Truong and Meyer also developed a data-based method to identify the best walking and biking projects for the City-funded Transportation Alternatives Program. This innovative work put the pair in great demand for conferences and seminars for municipal planning and transportation organizations. It also identified the block of Josephine Boyd Street between Walker Avenue and Spring Garden Street as one of the city’s most dangerous thoroughfares. As a result, a concrete pedestrian median and flashing light were installed on the block near UNC Greensboro.

“The work sounds complicated but I really enjoy working on it,” Truong said. “I really love GIS and I love the numbers and I love the data. I also love seeing when we are selected the most important project for the City. I see how it impacts and changes the community. I know the safety is improved. It’s just rewarding.”

Truong also enjoys working with her Transportation Department teammates. A self-professed “foodie,” she loves cooking and baking at home but her passion for food also extends to the workplace. The department has a “foodie group,” according to Truong, which marks birthdays and other special events by sampling different restaurants and cuisines around the city. “Through the foodie group we introduce our culture to others,” Truong said.

Truong says her colleagues are like family to her, which is a blessing when most of her actual family members are so far away. She and her family maintain their cultural identity as active participants in the local Vietnamese community, which is one of the city’s largest minority groups.

“We are from Vietnam and we want to keep the country in my family,” Truong said. “I want my kids to know that we are from Vietnam.”

While it wasn’t part of the plan when they left Ho Chi Minh City in 2006, Tram and her family earned their US citizenship in 2023, capping a long and arduous path made possible in large part by her City colleagues. After securing the initial visa, the City sponsored Truong’s green card application, which was another lengthy process that required aid from Greensboro’s City attorney and human resources offices.

“When we decided to settle down here, when we decided to call this country home, we went through a lot of processes,” Truong said. “It was really a long pathway and I’m so glad that the City of Greensboro is very open-minded about [hiring internationals].”

Original source can be found here.