At 30, with only a vocational secondary diploma, Phạm Nhật Phúc Thịnh is now director of a mechanical engineering business with 30 workers and numerous export orders to Japan, the US, Italy and Thailand. Phúc Thịnh built that business from VND 30 million in savings and loans from friends five years earlier.
Phạm Nhật Phúc Thịnh (center)
An alumnus's story
In mid-May, Lý Tự Trọng Technical College hosted a scientific seminar on training cooperation between schools and businesses. Phạm Nhật Phúc Thịnh was invited both as an alumnus and as a business contributor to the school's training program. In his presentation, besides feedback on the curriculum, Thịnh “spent a little time recounting his own work journey.”
He recalled: “After graduating, I applied for jobs like my classmates. I remember working at a company in the field I had studied, mechanical operations, earning a modest salary comparable to an unskilled worker's. I began getting familiar with the work, learning, and combining classroom knowledge with practice.
After three months of work, I became a team leader. A year later, I was production manager. After four years, I left the production machinery department and moved to design. After two years there, I became head of design at a company with 200 employees. At that point, limitations on creativity and the working environment, together with my passion for mechanics, led me to leave. I wanted to open a company I had built and owned myself.
Initially, with my savings and money borrowed from friends, I bought my first CNC milling machine. With a machine in hand, I worked hard to fulfill customers' small orders and find more work. Whatever I earned, I saved and reinvested in production machinery. Five years after its establishment, my company now has more than ten CNC lathes and milling machines and other equipment. We also collaborate with partners on shared domestic orders and with overseas partners in Japan, the United States, Italy, Thailand…”
Do the very best you can
After the seminar, we visited Phúc Thịnh’s mechanical workshop on Phạm Đăng Giảng Street, Bình Tân District, Ho Chi Minh City. The young director’s office displays beautiful remote-controlled model aircraft. Beside them are intricate components for these aircraft manufactured by Thịnh’s company. “We make products to order. These model aircraft parts were ordered by hobbyists. We also supply toy components to customers in Thailand,” Phúc Thịnh shared.
Next to the company office is a workshop covering several hundred square meters. Young male workers in black company T-shirts are absorbed in operating lathes, milling machines, and metal-cutting planers. Amid the hum of machinery and the sound of metal being cut, Thịnh checks each product and discusses work with the employees. He said most workers there are graduates of vocational secondary schools or mechanical engineering colleges, along with trainees. Their average monthly salary is 4-6 million VND per person.
After first leaving his design-department head position to go independent, Thịnh says his mindset was ‘very different.’ Phúc Thịnh recalled: “Being in charge of my own work felt special. After buying my first machine, I struggled with orders every day. As orders grew beyond my capacity, I hired one person, then two, then five… Now I rent this workshop. My total machinery investment has reached 5 billion dong.”
Looking back, the young director says he has always been passionate and fully committed to his work. “At school, I always tried to be the best in my class. After graduating, I tried to be the best in my company. Now that I run a company, I pay close attention to every detail and product. I always try to do the very best I can,” Thịnh concluded.
Having graduated 10 years earlier, Thịnh said he was always conscious of the duties and responsibilities of those who came before toward the next generation. “I am taking students on as interns to help them become familiar with a professional working environment and gain knowledge they sometimes do not learn at school. As an employer, I always put candidates’ professional ethics first, followed by expertise,” the young director said.
Collected
