In 1975, Toan Trinh, a chemistry professor at the University of Saigon, was making emergency arrangements to leave Vietnam. He was planning to flee with his family and friends by boat.
"Our plan was to sail, 50 of us, to Australia, which had already opened up to Asian immigrants," said Trinh. A week before the fall of Saigon he and five family members were, however, flown to Guam aboard a U.S. Military cargo plane and the boat trip was no longer necessary.
Mr. Trinh had a Master's and Ph.D. From the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but returned to South Vietnam in 1972 to teach. "My intention was to give back to my country," he said. "I could stand all of the misery of living in a developing country, but communism was something I just couldn't be under."
During his 24 years as an employee of Procter & Gamble he invented or co-invented numerous fabric and home-care products such as Bounce, Febreze and Downey Premium Care—to name but a few—that have earned 125 US Patents.
"People had the clear impression that the end was near," Mr Trinh said about his memories of the fall of Saigon.
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